The topic of identifying implicit bias is the first of our three-part blog series focusing on women in leadership, which is inspired partly by the research I undertook during my Masters in Executive and Organizational Coaching at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC.
During my career, I rose to senior levels in the public, private and non-profit sectors. I worked with organizations at the community, provincial, national and even international levels, when I represented Canada at UNESCO and World Health Organization events.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2022 just over a third of senior management positions in Canada were held by women. We know that women make up half the population, so proportionally there are still far fewer women in senior leadership roles.
From my own experience and after a decade of coaching many women in senior leadership roles, I noticed some common themes. Women leaders often come to coaching:
- with a newly developed lack of confidence as they reach the senior leadership level.
- questioning their ability to influence others.
- feeling like an imposter.
My goal was to examine this phenomenon more deeply and to determine what role coaching can have in supporting women in leadership.
These Experiences More Broadly
Today, we’re going to explore the gendered workplace. Understanding what this means and how it plays out can help us to understand its correlation to the development of an authentic and healthy leadership identity in women.
While this three-part blog series focuses on women in leadership and gender bias, I acknowledge that gender isn’t binary. My research is a subset of a much larger issue of the existence and effects of implicit bias on leaders who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous or people of colour), LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, immigrant workers and others. Of course, in many cases, a leader’s identity intersects with more than one of those communities.
Many of the experiences of women in leadership will likely resonate for others, as will the strategies to help organizations shift beyond the traditional male leadership archetype to boost success, forge stronger relationships and improve inclusion. We’re always interested in hearing from you, our readers, about your lived experiences and what leadership and coaching topics would be helpful.
Let’s Talk About Implicit Bias and Gendered Organizations
What is implicit bias? According to the American Psychological Association in 2024, “Implicit bias, also known as implicit prejudice or implicit attitude, is a negative attitude, of which one is not consciously aware, against a specific social group.” You may also have heard implicit bias referred to as unconscious or second-generation bias.
The term “gendered organization” refers to the “advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity, are patterned through and in terms of a distinction between male and female, masculine and feminine” (Acker, 1990, p. 146). Further, “it is argued that gendered attitudes and behavior are brought into (and contaminate) essentially gender-neutral structures” (Acker, 1990, p. 142).
In Western countries, power was historically granted to elite, white males who defined what leadership was and how it was enacted. From there, a “similar to me” bias has developed toward hiring and promoting to the exclusion of women, other genders and ethnic workers. Anyone other than elite, white males may have held a position of power, but never be fully accepted at an unconscious level.
The important thing to understand about the gendered organization and particularly implicit bias is that these are learned behaviours and perspectives based on socialization and messaging that happens over lifetimes. In essence, it can occur with a lack of awareness or ignorance.
We all have unconscious biases about many things. When it comes to the workplace, bias not only keeps women from having parity in the workplace, it affects their sense of identity and confidence. We’ll look at this more in-depth in the second part of this three-part series about women in leadership.
It’s also important to note that it isn’t just men who have gender bias. Research reveals that women (and we can presume others) have been socially conditioned to bias toward men in leadership. Women may also hold gender stereotypes unconsciously because we have all been socialized to various extents to see leadership as being made up of what we associate as male characteristics (perhaps valuing traits of someone who is more of a boss than a leader).
Awareness is the First Step
In the gendered workplace, implicit bias draws attention to the unconscious approval and promotion of men over women in organizations. It’s less overt gender discrimination and more veiled and indirect forms of discrimination.
Think of implicit bias as an iceberg. There may be structures and policies that promote gender equality in the workplace above the water line, while below the water line are the unintentional, unconscious perceptions of the abilities of other people and micro-aggressions. There are also many experiences of exclusion and stereotyping.
In my research, it became clear that women are also subject to the “double-bind” effect. This means that whatever they do, the result is unpleasant (colloquially, we say damned if you do, damned if you don’t).
For example, a woman who promotes her accomplishments to senior management or the board is labelled and disparaged as a self-promoter. If she doesn’t promote her accomplishments, however, that will be used as the rationale for why she’s passed over for promotion or opportunities.
Or, when a woman leader expresses direct authority, she may be judged harshly and called a derogatory name for acting too masculine (you can guess which name). If she doesn’t express direct authority, she may be deemed too soft or not fit for leadership.
It’s critical that individuals within the workplace understand the distinctions between conscious bias and unconscious bias as it relates not only to gender but to other forms of bias including, affinity bias – favouring what is similar to us over what is different. This means taking multiple approaches to bringing implicit bias out of the shadows and into the light.
Strategies to Overcome Implicit Bias
Here are some practical ways to increase your awareness and adjust your perspectives:
- Actively check in on and acknowledge when you have or make an assumption or judgement about someone or something. At Padraig, we use a tool with our clients called the Ladder of Assumptions, which helps leaders (and their team members) recognize and overcome bias. (Pro tip: visit the link to download our free Ladder of Assumptions worksheet.)
- Make it a priority to learn more about the people and groups who are different from yourself through research and engaging with experts. It’s easy to make damaging assumptions when you’re ignorant of certain cultural norms, for example, or hold beliefs based on misinformation about people with different backgrounds, socioeconomic circumstances and experiences. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is an important asset for leaders to develop.
- Stay open to listening and watching, which can lead to greater empathy toward others from different backgrounds and experiences. It’s possible to develop your Emotional Intelligence (EQ), which is the ability to understand your own emotional response to a situation as well as the emotional and interpersonal needs of others. High EQ is one characteristic that today’s highly successful and confident executives typically have.
- As a leader, take responsibility to create an environment where everyone’s opinions are heard without judgment or discrimination. As a start, model an openness to hearing how things are (the good, the bad and the ugly). To be successful when seeking feedback from employees, leaders have to be confident and team members need to feel it is safe to share candidly. Make sure to find ways to get feedback from everyone on the team – not just the loudest or an inner circle.
Coach’s Questions
These are all questions we should be asking ourselves, whether it’s about others of different gender (women and LGBTQIA+), cultural or BIPOC identities:
What beliefs do you hold that may not be the same as the person you are with? What are your immediate assumptions about this person?
Do you tend to surround yourself with mostly others who are like you? (Hint: most of us do). What signals could you be sending to others? What do you notice about how other people react and behave when they’re with you?
Do you notice any patterns of bias (preference, favoritism) in your decision-making? How might your beliefs and ways of doing things get in the way of success for others?
When you consider colleagues you trust the most, colleagues you get along best with, colleagues you think first of for socializing – do most of them look like you? Have most of them had life experience like yours?
Next time, part two of our three-part Coach’s Questions series about women in leadership will take a more in-depth look at ways in which leaders can create gender-informed and more inclusive workplace cultures.
This weeks’ Coach’s Questions is written by Certified Executive Coach (PCC) and Padraig facilitator Eve Gaudet.
