Empowering women to claim their space in HE
Did you tune into jobs.ac.uk and Women-Space’s live webinar on ‘How to Champion Yourself?’ Drawing on a wealth of experience, Christina Hughes and an expert panel discussed how women downplay their strengths and achievements in higher education. The panel recommended solutions for empowering women to claim their space, without sounding boastful. Our full webinar recording is available to watch now or read on for a summary of the main points made by our panel:
- Why do some women avoid talking about their accomplishments, especially with senior colleagues?
- What advice can you provide to empower women to talk about their achievements?
- How do I know which achievements are worth drawing attention to?
- In which situations is it appropriate to draw attention to your achievements and in which situations is it not?
- How can I present my achievements without sounding like I’m bragging?
- Do you have any examples of how you have handled a negative male reaction to the confidence and capability you project?
- What do you think of women-specific prizes, accolades, and awards? I’ve been told that these don’t count for much
- Our panel’s top tips to take away
Why do some women avoid talking about their accomplishments, especially with senior colleagues?
- Research by Kessler shows that there’s a gap in self-promotion between men and women and how we evaluate our performance in specific tasks and consequently how we then share our achievements with others
- Research suggests it’s not a confidence issue. Often people think women are less confident and are aware of how they’ve performed comparatively. However, women still find it uncomfortable to showcase their achievements to others
- Society has adopted some stereotypes about women i.e., women are supposed to be modest and have limited knowledge
- Many women find it difficult to be truthful about what they’ve achieved if the other person is patronising
- Women from early-career researchers to PVCs tend to stay under the radar, feel self-doubt, don’t advocate themselves, and think that someone else is going to do it for them
- Humbleness and authenticity are behaviours that shouldn’t be lost, especially if this is something you feel comfortable with. In fact, it is something that should be built on
What advice can you provide to empower women to talk about their achievements?
- It’s very important to focus on taking a breath and having confidence
- Before working with other people, you should ask yourself – “how do you perceive yourself at that moment in a deck of cards 1 to 10? how do I feel? who am I meeting? are they 10 or are they a 1? and if they’re a 10 and I come as a 5 – what will be the outcome?”. If you don’t match with the person you’re working with, you will stumble and struggle and lose confidence and it will reinforce the impostor syndrome feeling
- Ensure you give yourself time to prepare for the conversation and the tools to feel like the 10, not the 1, and having tools like this can help to control the self-doubt
- When talking about achievements of a BAME women, often they’re told to refer to themselves as ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. However, that doesn’t work in this culture, and you must turn it from a ‘we’ to an ‘I’
- It’s important to stop worrying about yourself and to understand what motivates you? What’s your passion? And what will sustain you in the long term?
- Prioritising the work that motivates you and allowing your work to speak for itself
- Reflect on what you have achieved and what your contribution was, so that you’re able to communicate the achievement and analyse why the achievement is valuable enough to share with others
- Feedback is useful information because most women end up underestimating the impact and success of their achievement and it can help lower the negative voice of what others might think and can either improve or reassure you about the impact you’ve made
How do I know which achievements are worth drawing attention to?
- Talking about what you’ve previously achieved and what you’ve delivered on a certain project isn’t necessarily going to get you to your next job because people think about the next person for the job as being someone who will fit that role and what you may have delivered might not fit that role
- Think about how you can get to the next step and how can you make an impact? The answer to these questions is, to put yourself in the shoes of the person who is interacting with you, whether that’s male or female, and think about what it is they need? What style do they need? what relationships do they need? What will they need in the next senior person? Then observe people doing those roles and it’s your behaviours as much as the achievements that get you where you want to be
- Follow your values, but also take yourself outside your comfort zone and think about yourself from the point of view of the person who you’re working with. This usually generates insights and results
In which situations is it appropriate to draw attention to your achievements and in which situations is it not?
- Make sure it’s clear why, what you’ve achieved is important
- Think strategically about your achievements and your values
- Don’t think of the person that you’re trying to impress but think about the institution you work for and what does the institution value? And what is it in your achievements that are going to make the institution look good?
- Achievements that reflect the wider institution and make others look good are valued more
How can I present my achievements without sounding like I’m bragging?
- It’s best to read the situation and not to start off with your credentials as they wouldn’t be appreciated at this stage
- If others start mentioning their credentials, then it would be appropriate to start mentioning your achievements
- When achievements aren’t necessarily relevant to the context, then you’re at risk of seeming like you’re overclaiming or overstating
- When people are talking about their achievements, it can sometimes be at the expense of others, in a competitive manner, or point-scoring and this can come across as boasting
- Let the achievements speak for themselves, get people excited and passionate to hear what you’ve delivered by the kind of language and the discourse used
- Raise the profile of the work and how it led you to the achievement instead of starting with ‘I achieved’
- Speak about how an agenda was pushed for an achievement. This is more likely to gain credibility than speaking about the overall achievement
- Rehearsing what your achievements and contributions have been, and how you would like to articulate them
Do you have any examples of how you have handled a negative male reaction to the confidence and capability you project?
- Carefully plan the way you’re going to counteract negative reactions and practice a If you feel that it’s gone positively it gives you the confidence to continue using this technique
- Experiment with different response methods and if it doesn’t work, try again and do it slightly differently until you find a method that works for you
- Avoid being defensive when people react negatively, just pause, and think about what you could do to change the situation
What do you think of women-specific prizes, accolades, and awards? I’ve been told that these don’t count for much
- All awards are counted, regardless of what others say, however, it’s all about the context it’s mentioned in
- Prizes, accolades, and awards are like jewels – they’re only taken out occasionally and the rest of the time they sit in this beautiful kind of gift box
- Share your achievements in staff newsletters, as you often read about your peers’ awards in there. Once you become established there is a chance you’ll be the first point of call to share those stories in the future
- Place your awards where they will have the most visibility and impact and decide who you want to share them with
- Understand the system of sharing achievements, being proud of them and doing it in an authentic way
Top Tips from the panel
- “Get yourself a good network of advocates, other women that can share your achievements with others, as well as promoting yourself” – Letizia Gramaglia
- “Always choose activities which nourish you and which take you a step forward, not sideways” – Nona McDuff
- “Think about your story, practice your story with other people and don’t be frightened about experimenting with the plan” – Kathy Harvey
- “Have a good response to taking compliments and proud of saying ‘thank you’. Think about what you might say instead of responding ‘oh it’s nothing’ when in reality you may have taken a lot of time on a project” – Nicola Owen
- Utilise the 3Ps, 2Es and an A. So, the 3Ps are passionate, persuasive and persistent and the 2Es are engaged and exciting and the A is act, and never forget to learn to walk in your shoes and not the shoes of others” – Kiran Trehan
- “It’s always easier to raise a profile about things that are not personally about you, but what you care and are passionate about. The work that you’re doing that has such enormous value, and value to a huge number people, is a good place to start. If you’re a bit shy, always begin with promoting the work” – Christina Hughes
For more information on any of the topics covered in this article, please watch the full webinar recording and take a look at our inspiring articles on women leaders in higher education and check out Women-Space’s newsletter with the latest webinars, workshops and events.
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