Aspiring to normal…and why we need to stick with it!

In our shortened attention span world, we often rush with exhausted relief to the next bright shiny thing, or stand with hands on hips harrumphing in righteous victimhood, or tell ourselves a convenient story about ‘the system’ we are changing… whatever we need to do to relieve the boredom of chipping away at old, seemingly intransigent, chestnuts like the broken leadership rung and the leadership double bind for women.

Well, I am sticking with it.

And here’s why.

This double bind – the tension between a woman’s leader role and gender role that results in push back as women become more senior, hasn’t changed because it is self-fulfilling.

It creates barriers for women to progress, which results in fewer women in leadership which in turn reinforces the stereotype of think leader think male because there are fewer women in leadership.

Round and round we go.

Here is the spoke in the wheel.

What if women knew how to navigate that double bind with integrity and thrive?

That’s my job now.

And we need to get on with it – for our daughters and god-daughters and nieces and best friends’ daughters and their daughters and their daughters.

The sooner we can normalise women in leadership, the sooner we will all be unleashed from the double bind.