Episode 40 - Gender Equality at Work with Paul Harrietha & Holly Catalfamo

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Gender Equality at Work with Paul Harrietha & Holly Catalfamo

Doesn’t it feel impossible that in 2021 we’re still talking about gender equality and how it’s a problem inside most organizations? And yet, here we are operating in a system where women make up 50% of the workforce but a tiny portion of senior leadership, let alone C-Suite positions at the top companies. 

It feels like we’ve known that more diversity in leadership benefits everyone for a long time, but it also feels like most companies aren’t doing a whole lot to actually challenge the status quo and how they’ve been operating for decades. And that’s in spite of the fact that there’s a significant amount of research concluding that more women in leadership leads to better decision making and, ultimately, is better for the bottom line. 

At the core of the issue, like so many things, is a system that is broken and is founded on outdated ideas about leadership, masculinity and femininity, emotions, scarcity, and avoidance of risk and change. 

My guests for this episode are Holly Catalfamo and Paul Harrietha, authors of “The Invisible Rules: What's Really Holding Women Back in Business--and How to Fix It”. We have the most interesting conversation about how the lack of women in leadership and business isn’t a women’s issue, but rather an indication that it’s the men who have to change. 

Men. Have. To. Change. 

I mean, can I get an amen for that??

And in order for men to change, we have to start changing how we see things and set different expectations for the people around us. 

We have to start looking at leadership as androgynous and remove the idea that successful leaders show up with all sorts of masculine qualities (bold, confident, certain, decisive, etc). There’s no one size fits all when it comes to leadership and until we re-think and re-design the systems that currently exist and reward people for being a certain way, the progress we make is going to be slow at best. 

We have to start measuring performance based on contribution. We need to scrap the punch-in/punch-out mentality and the expectation that people are available when we want them to be available. 

We have to work towards equality at home, in order to achieve equality at work. Women are burdened with the majority of the house and family work, and as long as that continues to be our reality, women, and men, will continue to suffer as a result. As we spoke about in this episode, family focus can be a career delay for women, but a career killer for men. There are no winners in this scenario, and too many losers to even begin to count. 

This is a very important episode because, at its core, it’s a call to action.

It’s a call to action for men especially. 

It’s an opportunity for men to understand the 4 key biases women are burdened with, to understand what women have been doing to manage around those biases, to sponsor the women around them, to lead with their values and to challenge the status quo. 

And for all the women reading this, I hope you share this episode with the men in your life. If we want to change the systems that are in place, we need as many people with influence and power to hear this message. 

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To learn more about Paul Harrietha & Holly Catalfamo, you can find them online at capsleadership.ca/.

Also, make sure to pick up a copy of their book "The Invisible Rules: What's Really Holding Women Back in Business--and How to Fix It," where they dive more deeply into everything we talked about today. (Available at most booksellers, including Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Invisible-Rules-Really-Holding-Business-ebook/dp/B08YFLJW96)