From a young age, women have learned to function within masculine paradigms to achieve success. While women’s empowerment is not a totally new concept, the school of ideas is evolving.
Find out fresh new ways to empower women within your organization here.
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Everybody knows that the paradigms for strong corporate leadership are changing, but the scales remain unbalanced.
Even the strongest female leaders can miss the mark in a male-driven workforce unless they know how to ingress the power of their feminine influence and persuasion.
We’ve seen it happen over and over again, where fierce, ambitious women in business and politics adopt a masculine approach to their leadership, yet they repeatedly fail. Why?
Because they haven’t had access to quality education specially purposed to cultivate female-driven leadership skills, decision-making and nurture confidence in their purpose.
Big Impact University is a school for successful business women, designed to encourage women around the world to tap into women’s empowerment and propel their influence – and their business – freeing up their time for more important things, like self-care.
BigImpactHQ™ helps women succeed by speaking on stage and online. Cofounders Shannon and Mark Grainger have dedicated their life work to unlocking the gates for a new era in social, economic and corporate responsibility by unleashing the power of voice in women.
Under the guidance of founders Shannon and Mark Grainger, women have gone on to impact some of the most coveted stages in the world, including TEDTalks, Tony Robbins and Good Morning America.
With the BigImpactHQ support team at their side these women have learned to inhabit their power.
We get it. You’re in the grind. Building your business from the ground up takes not only professional competency, but personal strength.
If you’re still on the road to cracking your first $100k, chances are you have the desire and perseverance to scale up your business, but not the systems.
Why waste any more time?
Speak Your Path to Cash helps female entrepreneurs and business owners use their voices on the stage. Magnetize leads and expand your wealth and impact, in a way that’s unique to women.
As a successful entrepreneur, you already know your core business and your purpose. But that’s not making you any money unless you’re shouting it from the rooftops (ahem, stages) and it’s generating you quality leads.
Perhaps you haven’t been told about how successful female entrepreneurs are using speaking to expand their influence, grow their businesses and spend less time doing it.
With the right tools, successful entrepreneurs can learn how to turn their online gigs into a speaking funnel AND land their dream clients!
It’s time to learn how to generate leads at scale right from your laptop.
Create a Positive Work Culture
Strong women are all too often shamed and side-lined for speaking up in the workplace, while men are championed, and even rewarded.
You’ve seen this before:
- “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about”
- “That’s not our business sweetie, keep trying”
- “She’s just looking for attention”
Some will take it in stride or speak even louder, while other women sink back and stay quiet.
With a safe space to share their insights and expansive ideas, women, like men, tend to thrive and contribute more effectively and efficiently to corporate goals.
Compliment Their Achievements, Not Their Appearance
Beating all the other potential candidates contending for a position in the professional playing field because you’ve “got the look” may be cute when you’re serving ice creams in high school in 1950.
If you’re collaborating with a professional woman in a corporate environment, know that she’s not only there because she’s earned her place there, but she’s also battled a disproportionate gender bias in doing so.
In the USA, women have made up the majority of college education graduates for approximately four decades.
To empower female colleagues, shift the focus to acknowledge accomplishments such as:
- academic success
- award nominations
- life achievements
- professional expertise
Part of creating a positive workplace culture is to foster an environment where the accomplishments of female, male, and gender-diverse staff are celebrated. Not their appearance.
Bring in Female Speakers
What better way to empower the women in your team than rallying for their influence?
Inviting a female leader from your industry, an inspirational politician, or a well-known education guru is a great way to rally up the troops and spark a legion of fierce, stimulated thought leaders in the very four walls of your office building.
But it goes deeper than that:
By doing this, you are embedding a golden tenor of community among more women. They all identify as an aspirational female leader, and will be collectively ignited by your speaker to go forth and CRUSH it.
And yet, it goes deeper still.
By inviting a female speaker, you demonstrate to your company that you recognize the power of strong female leaders, and you are there to elevate your leaders and help them develop and grow into something more accomplished and fabulous than they already are!
For a final win, you’re communicating to any less than up-to-date dinosaurs that the work environment has changed since the nineteenth century, and that gender equality and strong female leadership is changing the world RIGHT NOW.
Assign Projects Fairly
Did you know that one in five computer programmers in the USA are female? I was hoping to WOW you with that statistic, but it sounds pretty flat-lined to me, too.
One of the most debilitating challenges faced by women in male-dominated industries is the lack of mentoring and development opportunities.
While the men are hoarding holistic opportunities for growth and leverage in their careers, working women are still subject to hostile grounds as they, too, aspire to progress.
Progressive workplace culture closely matches an individual’s leadership skills, talents, competencies and goals – not their gender – with project and leadership requisites.
Support Other Women in Business
Similar to showing in-house support for female leaders by inviting guest speakers, consider partnering with, supporting, or otherwise promoting women-run businesses and causes.
Celebrate that they’re driven by strong women leaders!
Not only are you (once again) empowering women in your workforce by showing you believe in their strengths, you’re communicating this message to your stakeholders, your investors, your clients, and your competitors.
Speak Openly About Salaries
It’s no secret that men earn more than their equally-qualified female counterparts.
But it is an uncomfortable truth.
In a world where fuel, transport, housing, utilities and consumables slapped an equitable gender tax onto men’s purchases to balance this gap, the reality of systemic pay inequality wouldn’t be so abject.
Yet, for the sake of gender equality this notion seems counterproductive.
Many restaurants around the world have actually implemented discounted prices for women to open up the conversation about the pay gap. So why not bring this conversation into the office?
Speaking openly about salaries empowers women for one of two reasons:
- They know their professional worth is valued, and their salary reflects this. Women will then want to grow and expand their professional value, which benefits the company.
- They know their professional worth is not valued, and their salary reflects this. They then hold the power to act upon this.
By the same token, if there is a pay gap in your organization, adjusting salaries to promote equal rights, and talking openly about these changes will win you trust of the women on your team.
Make Connections
Women typically come in shapes and sizes that accommodate both professional and personal ambitions. And nobody loves juxtaposing the competing sides of the work/life balance like a good old-fashioned networking event.
Start by getting to know the personal aspirations of your female colleagues, and how these aspirations are tied to their career goals.
If you’re connected with mentors or specialists that can help the women in your team get ahead, schedule a networking event and introduce the hell out of them!
This is a simple and quick way you can show your support for her contending priorities and interests, and demonstrate that you’re there to nurture her personal development.
Listen to Her Story and Accommodate
The mothers of this planet face many challenges that men don’t, such as:
- Childbirth
- Gender pay gap
- Getting up to our eyes in bath bubbles and not knowing what to do with them.
Just kidding. We were born knowing what to do with too many bath bubbles.
For that matter, we were also born with internal instincts around motherhood that usually kick in… Around motherhood.
The point is, with matters that revolve around children, pregnancy and other issues she may be facing, it’s important to listen actively, and not mansplain any solutions that appear valid to you.
Supporting female workers through critical times in their lives, and being understanding of their roles and responsibilities outside of work is central to exemplifying your support of her as a professional, and part of the team.
If one of your employees needs flexibility in order to perform their role as a new mom, be considerate and try to accommodate as best you can.
Most mothers’ lives revolve around flexibility, so chances are she’ll give it back when she’s able.
Offering flexibility to fathers so that they can also effectively undertake their parenting responsibilities is another crafty way you can reach out to empower women in the workforce.
Promote Female Role Models
We live in a world where many vulnerable women have overcome poverty, health issues, or life crises to build a better life for themselves and their children.
Black women, and non-binary leaders encounter even deeper systemic barriers to success.
These heroines empower women and girls across the world to access their grit and perseverance. Normalizing the celebration of female figureheads and sharing their success stories is the best way to encourage a culture of equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace.
This sets a positive example, because not only are your female team members seeing their seniors champion women, but their equivalents and subordinates as well.
Conclusion
Embracing new opportunities to empower women every day is the only way to encourage equal rights for future generations. Not only will you get more back from your star players, but you will also create more space for female leaders to rise up and take the reins.
