Anne Welsh McNulty* remembers how she was once snubbed by a senior woman in her workplace, and resolved to do something about it.
Don’t underestimate the power of women connecting and supporting each other at work.
As my experiences from being a rookie accountant to a managing director at an investment bank have taught me, conversations between women have massive benefits.
When I graduated in the 1970s, I believed that women would quickly achieve parity at all levels of professional life.
I viewed the lack of women at the top as more of a ‘pipeline’ problem, not a cultural one.
However, the support I expected to find from female colleagues rarely survived first contact within the workplace.
When I was a first-year accountant, I kept asking the only woman senior to me to go to lunch.
Finally she told me: “Look, there’s only room for one female partner here. You and I are not going to be friends.”
Unfortunately, she was acting rationally.
My brusque colleague’s behaviour has a (misogynistic) academic name: The Queen Bee Phenomenon.
Some senior-level women distance themselves from junior women, perhaps to be more accepted by their male peers.
As a study published in The Leadership Quarterly concludes, this is a response to inequality at the top, not the cause.
Trying to separate oneself from a marginalised group is, sadly, a strategy that’s frequently employed.
By contrast, men are 46 per cent more likely to have a higher-ranking advocate in the office, according to economist, Sylvia Ann Hewlett.
According to a 2016 McKinsey report, Women in the Workplace, white men make up 36 per cent of entry-level corporate jobs, and white women make up 31 per cent.
At the very first rung above that, those numbers change to 47 per cent for white men and 26 per cent for white women.
For women of colour, the drop from 17 per cent to 11 per cent is a plunge of 35 per cent.
Worse than being snubbed by the woman above me was the lack of communication between women at my level.
Of the 50 auditors in my class, five were women; all of us were on different client teams.
At the end of my first year, I was shocked and surprised to learn that all four of the other women had quit or been fired.
During that year, I’d had difficult experiences with men criticising me, commenting on my looks, or flatly saying I didn’t deserve to work there.
I had no idea that the other women were having similar challenges.
We didn’t realise the need to band together until it was too late.
Each of us had dealt with those challenges individually, and obviously not all successfully.
I resolved not to let either of those scenarios happen again.
I wanted to be aware of what was going on with the women I worked with.
As I advanced in my career, I hosted women-only lunches and created open channels of communication.
I made it a point to reach out to each woman who joined the firm with an open door policy.
The lunches were essential, providing a dedicated space to share challenges and successes.
Coming together as a group made people realise that their problems weren’t just specific to them, but were collective obstacles.
All of this vastly improved the flow of information, and relieved tension and anxiety.
It reassured us that though our jobs were challenging, we were not alone.
In doing so, I hope it lowered the attrition rate of women working at my company — rates that are, across all corporate jobs, stubbornly higher for women than men, especially women of colour.
My own daughter has arrived to a workplace that has not changed nearly as much as I had hoped — although 40 per cent of Big Four accounting firm employees are women, they make up only 19 per cent of audit partners.
So, what are women in the workplace to do, when research shows that we’re penalised for trying to lift each other up?
The antidote to being penalised for sponsoring women may just be to do it more — and to do it vocally, loudly, and proudly — until we’re able to change perceptions.
There are massive benefits for the individual and the organisation when women support each other.
The advantages of sponsorship for protégés may be clear, such as access to opportunities and having their achievements brought to the attention of senior management.
Sponsors gain as well, by becoming known as cultivators of talent and as leaders.
Importantly, organisations that welcome such sponsorship benefit too — creating a culture of support, and where talent is recognised and rewarded for all employees.
Connections among women inside a company — at and across all levels — reduce the feeling of competition for an imaginary quota at the top.
It helps other women realise: “Oh, it’s not just me” — a revelation that can change the course of a women’s career.
It’s also an indispensable way of identifying bad actors and systemic problems within the company.
It need not be a massive program, and you don’t need to overthink it — in fact, there’s a healthy debate about affinity groups run from the top down.
Whether you are a first-year employee or a manager, just reach out and make those connections.
*Anne Welsh McNulty is the co-founder and managing partner of JBK Partners.
This article first appeared at hbr.org.
