When I graduated from college (computer engineering), my colleagues were 70% men against 30% women. What I noticed over the years was, for the most part, the men reached for opportunities in leadership jobs, much more quickly than the women. Men are naturally more ambitious about their own development and believed that they were capable of doing more. The women, however, are more cautious about changing roles and seeking out new challenges.
This happens because we constantly underestimate ourselves. There are some studies that show women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their own performance as better than it actually is. If you ask a man to explain his success, he will typically credit his own innate qualities and skills. Ask a woman the same question and she will attribute her success to external factors, insisting she did well because she “worked really hard” or “got lucky”.
In my case “been there, done that” – on my last year evaluation session, I had a conversation with my manager Susete, which by the way, is a woman and she is currently managing the biggest group of people inside the company. I received really good feedback about my performance in 2014, and one of my comments during that conversation was: “I’m really grateful because I was lucky to have many opportunities”. She answered me by saying “Is not luck, it’s because you can handle the challenges”. It was really good to hear that.
Like Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook, COO) says in her Lean In book - “Opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized, and we need to step up, and take opportunities”. I totally agree with this her.
Another important topic she pointed out, is that having mentors and sponsors is fundamental to professional growth and career progression. Mentors select mentees based on performance and potential. People usually invest in those who stand out for their talent or who can really benefit from help.
Unfortunately for women, it's easier for men to acquire and maintain these kind of relationships. This fact is mostly related to the context of male-female relationships - that are often perceived as sexual relations.
A couple of months ago, I went for lunch with my ex-manager Ricardo, who recently moved to a different group inside the company, and although we usually do one-on-one conversations, that day I felt uncomfortable being there with him. That happened because of one particular reason: I was afraid what others around may be thinking. We work at a remote unit located in a small village, it means that everybody knows each other - it’s easy to start speculating when you see a married person to have lunch with a person of the opposite gender. If we were both man, we would not ran that risk.
Men and women avoid engaging in mentoring/sponsoring relationships because they are afraid of what others might think. In my case, in spite of the fact that I’ve been lucky to have non-official-mentors and non-official-sponsors crossing my way, I do believe that I could have taken more benefit from it if I was a man.
It’s not easy to live in a “man’s world”, but I don't mind... as long as I can be a woman in it.
