Leadership has never been more important – yet women continue to be underrepresented at senior levels. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), women make up 51 per cent of the Australian workforce, however only 19.4 per cent of CEOs, and 32.5 per cent of key management positions. And that is without mentioning the gender pay gap when they get there.
Many diversity programs tackle this by trying to change women, seeking to make them more assertive, or more confident, or have more gravitas (whatever that is), basically women are told they need to be ‘fixed’ before vying for a leadership role.
At People Measures, an Australian leadership consultancy staffed by a highly qualified group of organisational psychologists and development experts, they don’t think women need fixing. They take a different approach, and have been applying that approach for the past 6 years – with great success. Based on their leadership development expertise combined with their organisational psychology know-how and the available evidence base, People Measures’ created their PM-WILD (Women in Leadership Development) program. This program encourages women to dismantle old views of leadership and rather than trying to change women it asks them to consider, “what would leadership look like if it looked like you?”
Frances Feenstra, a director with People Measures, is one of the creators of the PM-WILD program. Women’s Agenda spoke with Frances to learn more.
What is the PM-WILD Program?
At People Measures, we’ve been interested in the lack of women in leadership for a long period of time. Women are graduating out of universities at higher rates than men. There are just as many capable and intelligent women as there are men. So why aren’t they rising to the top?
We wanted to create a program for women that talks to them, that allows a conversation about what it is like to be a woman in the workplace. It also raises, debates and discusses issues which many people don’t want to hear. For example Australia is so hooked on the merit principle, but when we look at the evidence, we don’t live in a meritorious society at all, and decisions are made by, and about, people often on a spurious basis.
The People Measures WILD Program is not about fixing women, because we don’t think women need fixing. We believe in the development of women – because we all need development and growth regardless of who you are.
What is the difference between ‘fixing’ and ‘developing’ women?
‘Fixing’ looks like the trope that we need to fix women because, for example, they’re not very strategic, or they lack confidence or they’re not very good at negotiating. All these ‘lackings’ get attached to women, but ultimately, I don’t believe that women are any less strategic than men, or that they’re any less confident, or that they are less anything than men.
But sometimes they have to work harder than men to look and feel confident, because their whole life they hear messages like you’re a bit less, you’re less capable, being loud is not a good idea etc – so what do you expect women to do then, except to step back a little?
PM WILD is a leadership development program that helps women understand and grapple with this – and then ultimately step forward not back. We all need development. I’m in my early 60s now, and I know things today that I didn’t know when I was 20, or 50. The WILD program asks women to come with a growth mindset, the belief that they can be something bigger and have more to give – that’s development.
What’s the benefit of dismantling those tropes and encouraging women to be their own kind of leader?
It’s an identity thing – if you think that you cannot be something, then it’s very hard to develop yourself to be that. You can’t be what you can’t see.
At People Measures we’re passionate about this work not just because of the moral and equity perspective (although we believe that’s important), but also because there’s a huge cost to society and business when women can’t see themselves as leaders. Women make up 51 per cent of the population, so if they’re less likely to be in the leadership sphere, we’re losing enormous potential value. I think all perspectives are important, including the white male perspective, but if you only have white men sitting around the table, you only get a certain view of the world. The evidence cannot be denied. For example, research conducted in 2020 by WGEA in partnership with Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre showed a clear causal relationship between more women at the top and better company performance, greater productivity and greater profitability.
What do women walk out of the WILD program with?
They walk out with an understanding that they can grow into (senior) leadership, a belief that they can be, and are, leaders. They have a greater understanding that what holds them back most is the system they find themselves in, and an understanding that maybe they haven’t always seen that system. Women walk away from the WILD program feeling empowered.
And to be honest, they also say the journey is not an easy one and can be quite confronting. If you believe that you live in a society that is based on merit and that will recognise you provided you just work hard enough – and then you find actually maybe that’s not the case, that’s hard, right?
One recent participant told me that she didn’t know how transformative WILD would be for her. She said when she started she wondered if leadership was for her, and she came out knowing she already is a leader.
Another participant said WILD is unique, that it had fundamentally changed the way she thought about herself as a leader. She had done other programs before WILD but nothing quite like this.
When I hear participants say things like that I have a spring in my step, and it reminds me why this work is so important and why I love it so much.
And it is also important to say, the other thing women walk away with from the program, which is maybe the biggest thing, is each other. The bond that they form in the program is enormous. We find on our program that the notion that women will not support women is completely contradicted. In WILD they celebrate each other’s wins and the network is enormous, and enormously powerful.
So, what’s next?
Well we continue to run the PM WILD program. We have 3 public programs scheduled this year, including one starting in late March. And we have just started a men’s program – co-developed and piloted with the Coles Group. This has been hugely impactful. We realised that despite women leaving our PM-WILD program re-energised, empowered and often changed, they then have to re-enter the same system they came out of, and that is often, if not always, their biggest challenge. And so our new program, StepUp, helps men to confront the realities of that system, and invites them to take part in changing it. Despite being in this field for more than thirty years, I am really excited, because I feel it’s possible to change things and make real inroads.
If you want to learn more about WILD and/or StepUp, click here.