Is Gender Relevant to Good Leadership?

Dominique Keirens

This was not an article I thought I would feel the need to write. Up until a few years ago, I was fiercely resistant to being characterised by my gender as a professional, I was the last person to think I would be part of a Women Leadership in Public Works Engineers Australia program.

I strongly advocated that competence and value should be disassociated with gender and any conversation that banded women together was counter effective to achieving the outcome that was desired. Never accepting invitations to professional ‘women’s’ events. I enjoyed, and still do enjoy working with male colleagues and colleagues of all different gender and cultural backgrounds. It has only been when progressing into leadership roles, and specifically working in an operational ‘blue collar’ environment that I experienced overt as well as passive discrimination. So, while hesitant to being characterised as a professional ‘woman,’ I now do understand and support awareness and education on this real issue of women being hindered in adding their optimal value in a business environment.

For the first 15 years of my career as a chemical engineering in the water industry, while my gender did at times influence how I was treated, my professional contribution was always respected. Because of this, I was averse to being part of the professional ‘women’s club’.

Organisation diversification is well understood to be essential for a sustainable and high performing business (Holden R, 28 April 2021). However, what does this really mean in western society? Does this mean that anyone who is not a white male in an organisation is required to play a role? Be the stereotypical ‘woman,’ or ‘non-Caucasian’ or ‘non-Christian’ or dare I saw, non-heterosexual? Are they then expected to behave in a certain way? And if this certain way does not align with this expectation, does that mean diversification has failed? I have been encouraged, no, told, if you work hard, apply yourself, demonstrate competence, higher order thinking, you will succeed. Gender was not a consideration. While the rhetoric of ‘diversification’ is loud, the truth is, it seems to some, it is acceptable to have a diverse mix in an organisation if you play the expected role. The problem is, I did not opt in for a career in acting.

Taking gender aside, what is a good leader? The definition of a leader is ‘the person who leads or commands a group’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, 2022) and while this is a commonly understood definition, the quality of a good leader is a dinner table conversational topic that will evoke differing opinions. To me, a good leader means, someone who takes proactive responsibility, works towards an outcome that adds value, and support and guide others to achieve a common goal. But, most importantly, a successful leader knows when to be guided and seek support, but also knows when to cut through the uncertainty, ambiguity and decide a way forward. How this is achieved, and the success of these leaders will be dependent on personalities and culture.

A bit about me and my story. Fresh off the plane from Belgium at age 5, 1984, I started school in the area now called Pimpama, Gold Coast Queensland. I spoke no English. It was me, my older brother, mum, and dad starting fresh. Maybe because of this start and the support of my family, I become accustomed to challenge and change. I am the person that starts things with wide eyed enthusiasm but not always performing the best. I seek and say yes to most opportunities that come my way, I try to reflect, learn from my mistakes, and improve at each chance of doing it again. I started as a struggling student and finished in the top cohort. It was the same at high school, and again at university. The pattern is repeating itself in my career, but time will truly tell. I built up my engineering career, working in private consultancies, providing advice, recommending solutions, learning, and developing my skills. On a personal note, I seem to pick up a few close friends in most phases in life. I seek deep connections with people and have low interest in anything less.

Being a chemical engineer in the water industry has given me an opportunity to see many parts of the world and Australia. I have been privileged to have worked with highly competent engineers, managers and leaders, who have been exceptionally supportive, encouraging and constructive in feedback and guidance. I have continued to learn and develop my skills, both technically and managerially, through formal education and experiential learning, completing a dual degree in engineering and business management at The University of Queensland, and a master’s in business administration at Griffith University. Combining engineering with business, my professional goal was to manage teams in an engineering environment, guide business outcomes to meet sustainable strategic objectives. I aim to finish my working life feeling that I have contributed positively to the community.

Starting my career in Brisbane consultancies, children came along after working for 13 years and I took a role working for Gold Coast Water. This was closer to home and somewhere I could directly impact decisions to support community sustainability – Perfect! I quickly learnt that Council is a complex environment, with a history of change, driven by political and legal pressures. While it is a monopoly it is an essential service provider where certain standard cannot be compromised. Four years into the role as a senior planning officer, I performed to a level that seemingly satisfied, and four years ago, I was offered a higher order leadership role, however now it was in an operational environment rather than solely engineering. Again, the pattern repeats. I am now a mid-level manager, currently managing a team of 45, made up of engineers, project and construction managers, supervisors and maintenance crew. A role that was outside my experience, and a little outside my comfort zone, but again, wide eyed and enthusiastic, and continually learning. The major difference with this role is that the technical learning is not as steep as the ‘human’ learnings.

My approach was like most when starting in an unfamiliar environment, I started to deep dive and learn what each area did and how they did it. I was inquisitive, and my understanding grew, and so too did my ideas and suggestions for change. While most people were accommodating, I quickly learnt, in this environment not all people liked being questioned, especially that which was instigated by me, a woman. While, my approach in the past was met with constructive conversation, now, in this environment, it was met with dismissive, passive aggressive behaviours. I found in this environment, certain influential people had minimal experience with female managers and thought it inconsequential to avoid me and talk disrespectfully to me and about me. Something I had never experienced before and wanted to understand better. The feedback received when asked for reasons for such behaviour was never about my thinking or performance, it was about my delivery, being unemotional, or too emotional, I could not laugh at the same things as others, jokes I found to be disrespectful I could not and would not join in the laughter. Some comments were simply that they found it challenging to Now, this story is not about me being the ‘good one’ and others being ‘bad’. For me, it’s about acceptance of people’s differences, and my experience is that the tolerance of these differences is disproportionate between genders. It seems inconceivable that a male colleague would be accused of being ‘unemotional’ or a female saying ‘I find it challenging to work for a male’.

If you are familiar with personality profiles, I’m a moderate D (Dominance) and for the Myer Briggs profile I’m a moderate ENTJ / ENTP (Extravert, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging/Prospecting) also known as the ‘Commander or Debater’. You could say, I’m no wilting violet and probably not someone that fits the stereotypical ‘female’ personality type. I’m outcome focused, and I dig away until I understand something, and I progress toward an outcome I understand to be best. While various management styles with this personality are accepted and often praised when observed in male leaders, there seems to be an expectation that female leaders must be softer, ‘sweeter’ and less assertive, but also be able to fit in with the ‘boys’ and their ways of working. If confidence, competence, and assertive styles are demonstrated from a female leader, it is not uncommon that this style is unaccepted and negatively received. Certain people struggle to view women as anything more than mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, or even damsels in distress. Professional communication styles are challenging for these people who cannot align reality with personal bias. While I am not suggesting this behaviour and mindset is prolific, in fact most of my colleagues, mentors and associates are exceptionally talented, respectful, and supportive, constructively receive and give information and feedback. However, Pareto’s rule does present itself.

The few that demonstrate these behaviours, can cause a wake of cultural and organisational performance damage, hindering the value of organisation diversification, and making professional women work harder to gain traction to succeed. A recent organisational cultural survey identified that Council, in all areas does not support honest, respectful, constructive conversation, and operates predominantly using passive / aggressive, aggressive / defensive behaviours. However, and to reflect the willingness to change, there is a drive to shift and support productive behaviours and not allow the few to overshadow positive and supportive achievements and initiatives. This movement recognises that attitudes of disrespect can and do impact overall performance and hinder opportunities to progress. While I still feel I have been fortunate and have predominantly been exposed to incredibly open minded and progressive influential people, these negative experiences apply more broadly than to me alone. I see highly competent, motivated and passionate women in business who are often less valued and reluctantly promoted when compared to their male counterparts, who seem to almost have a higher chance of professional progression simply due to their physical makeup being more familiar.

So, the question being, ‘Is gender relevant to good leadership?’ I do not believe so. I still advocate for equality in business. I do not want to be classified as a ‘woman’ leader, nor do I want other women to be seen or spoken about as ‘women’ in business. I want to be a person, doing a role, to the best of my ability. I will be judged, as every person of any gender or cultural affiliation is, but this judgement I hope will be on my performance, my capability to add value, and that I demonstrate pursuit to leaving something behind better than when I started. I will not apologise for not meeting the expectations others have of what a ‘woman’ leader should be.

REFERENCES

Holden R, (2021) How diversity can be leveraged to drive organisational performance, https://www.businessthink. unsw.edu.au/articles/diversityorganisation-performance

Oxford Learners Dictionaries ‘Leader’ (Sep, 2022), (https://www. oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ definition/american_english/ leader#:~:text=Definition%20 of%20leader%20noun%20 from%20the%20Oxford%20 Advanced,not%20a%20 natural%20leader.%20 She%27s%20a%20born%20 leader.)