Embracing recognition: why women undervalue their achievements
Women in the workplace, and particularly in leadership positions have their confidence frequently misconstrued as arrogance. We expect women to hold back, be modest and unassertive. It is still the case that they are judged if they are bold, assertive and confident. Our benchmarks for women are different than for men.
And that’s because it is still what the majority of us are used to, especially in the hierarchical male-coded world of business.
So where do we draw the line between confidence and arrogance, particularly for women in leadership positions across the international education sector. The distinction between these two qualities has a complex gendered history that significantly impacts how women perceive and project their achievements.
It begins right at the beginning of our lives when women are taught that speaking out in confidence equates to arrogance, a notion reinforced by societal expectations that women should be complacent rather than assertive. This directly conflicts with the initiative required for leadership roles and has hindered the accessibility for many women in the past and currently.
Impostor Syndrome is strikingly present amongst professional women. Kathy Caprino, a career and leadership coach who founded coaching firm, Kathy Caprino, LLC stated:
“I’ve been stunned at the degree to which highly accomplished women frequently struggle with feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, low self-confidence and confusion about how they, in fact, reached the high levels they’ve achieved. In doing a deep dive with them, my research has shown that a full 98% of professional women experience at least one of the 7 most damaging power gaps that prevent individuals from reaching their highest and most thrilling potential, and 75% face three or more of these gaps at the same time. One of the most challenging is Power Gap #1 - not recognising your special talents, abilities, and gifts.”
The 7 Power Gaps as quoted in Forbes are:
Power Gap 1: Not Recognising your special talents, abilities and accomplishments
Power Gap 2: Communicating from fear not strength
Power Gap 3: Reluctance to ask for what you deserve
Power Gap 4: Isolating from influential support
Power Gap 5: Acquiescing instead of saying “STOP”
Power Gap 6: Losing sight of your dream
Power Gap 7: Allowing past trauma to define you
A research paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and written by a host of authors, documented a gender gap in self-promotion: women subjectively describing their performance less favourably to potential employers than equally performing men. Despite similar performance, women consistently estimated their scores to be lower than they were, scoring 27% below the mean in self-assessment across all questions asked. The research underscores the tendency of women to downplay their successes, partly due to the societal conditioning that teaches them to minimise their achievements to avoid being perceived as arrogant and to make their male counterparts feel less threatened.
Additionally, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, close to 80% of women struggle with low self-esteem and shy away from self-advocacy at work. In other words, four in five women may be held back in their career advancement by a lack of confidence and visibility.
What needs to be considered is the deeper reason for why confidence and arrogance are misplaced amongst women in leadership positions and given the potential difficulty of altering how men and women subjectively view their performance - particularly in the short run if such perceptions are deeply ingrained - promising approaches will almost certainly require “changing the system” rather than “changing the women.” Such changes may involve
implementing processes that rely less on subjective self-evaluations for promotion and hiring.
However, while the systems in place may change slower than we like, men and women collectively can be part of speeding up that process by destigmatising the vocalisation and celebration of women’s achievements. The perception of confidence versus arrogance is deeply influenced by gender bias. Society often deems it unfeminine for women to be openly ambitious or self-assured, leading to detrimental effects on female development and leadership. It is time for women to affirm their worth and accept their success as a result of their skills and hard work.
As female leaders we must face our challenges bravely and promote our talents and abilities in order to feel more confident in all that we have to offer and to be an example for the next generation of leaders.