Identifiers: LCCN 2019057084 (print) | LCCN 2019057085 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538139998 (cloth) | ISBN 9781538140000 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex discrimination against women. | Sex discrimination in employment. | Leadership in women. | Businesswomen.
Classification: LCC HD6060 .A76 2020 (print) | LCC HD6060 (ebook) | DDC 303.3/4082—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019057084
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019057085
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
—James Keller
Introduction
When I began my PhD program, I got feedback that I was a good writer, but that I was too colloquial. What an odd thing to say! I had to Google colloquial. It means informal, which begs the question of why not just say, “Carrie, be formal!” In general, academia is full of intellectuals who I am reasonably sure are reincarnated medieval torture coordinators. They poke, redline, disassemble, tweak, toss, disparage, disagree (with you and each other), and they force multiple rewrites. There is a particular way to structure, argue, read, analyze, critique, and write.
When I was putting together my book submission, my literary coach told me not to write like an academic—in other words, don’t be formal—facepalm! She also said, use your own voice, Carrie. And, so, I will, and thus, I do! I am a blend of informal and formal—I love language and stringing together words to form a meaningful sentence, but sometimes I just need to cuss out the phrase. It is with my voice that I introduce you to many characters and stories. Names and companies are changed to honor the confidentiality of the women who participated in this research but make no mistake; their experiences are real.
I have held onto these stories as long as I can, and now they are laid down in print. You may see glimpses of your own experience here and breathe a sigh of relief to know that you are not alone. You may read this and scratch your head, thinking—I did not realize. Soon you will.
I am far from a passive observer of the silenced female leader. I did not witness women in leadership from some safe distance and wonder why they were not using a more effective voice. I did not ponder this from an ivory tower or a successful, high-paying corner office. I do not bring you this book about female silencing from a place of pedigree. Nor do I have lunches with CEOs from Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or the World Bank to discuss the crisis of few women in executive leadership roles and ways to mitigate those issues moving forward. At least, not yet.
As one might expect, I bring it because I lived it.
Not only did I live it—I suffered through it in crazy and indescribable ways. I then slowly climbed out of it. I realized I was beyond it. I got super curious and decided to study it.
I am about as average as a white American woman can be. I grew up with two parents, two siblings, and a mangy mutt of a dog that we bought for $30 at a pet store. He was a smelly, Terrier-Chihuahua mix that never quite got potty trained. We named him A.J. because my mom, sister, and I had a collective crush on Jameson Parker from the TV series Simon & Simon that ran from 1981–1989.
I went to high school in Colorado Springs and attended a small college in Denver. I was not looking for substance, fame, or prestige. My parents were on the verge of divorce, and I needed to find a new home and get a job. College was the best direct route to ensure that was possible. I had solid grades in high school but my ACT and SAT scores were barely above average. Attending anything elite was out of the question, and since I had no idea what I wanted to do or be, I chose a bachelor’s in psychology. It made sense to study something that might help me better understand myself and get a four-year degree at the same time.
My undergraduate program fostered hunger in me that was unrealized until I was a few months away from graduating. It was 1993, and I was sitting in one of my last social science classes and was told to take the remainder of the hour and write a paragraph about my life in 2013. In my imagination ten years into the future, I wrote that I was married with one son; I had a PhD in neuropsychology and was published. In 1993, I didn’t even know what neuropsychology was, but it sounded pretty cool.
Today, I am married (second husband) with one biological child (daughter) and two stepsons sixteen months apart. I often joke with others that I may not have given birth to the boys but make no mistake—there was plenty of labor. Oh, and I tried to get into a neuropsychology master’s program in my mid-twenties. My legacy of poor test-taking did not improve with the GRE and no surprise, I was not granted acceptance.
The path of education for me has never entirely been straight or smooth—but it was undoubtedly a relentless internal desire to achieve. When I was twenty-five years old, I decided to make a yellow afghan. I wanted it to be large enough to cover me in a king-size bed. It took me fourteen years to finish. I called it the yellow yard. When I was thirty years old, I did go on to get a master’s degree in organizational management; later, I got accepted into the leadership coach training program at Georgetown University. Eventually, like the yellow yard, and fourteen years after the master’s, I got a PhD in human development. I have learned that most goals are accomplished if you give them enough time.
Parallel to that journey to get a doctorate, I had a career in healthcare. I held professional and leadership positions within HR and organization development. I am known to say that I am a recovering human resources director.
I have the same story as many of my readers. I have an ex-husband, an excellent second husband, stepchildren, a biological child, coworkers, extended family, neighbors, church, community groups, old friends, new friends, clients, pets, and life. I have a regular middle-class existence. I have a heap of failures and a mound of things that make me proud. Despite my very average reality, I am intensely aware of my privilege. I am a white, heterosexual, Christian female in good health.
I am blessed with everything I just named—my life is full of people and opportunities that leverage my voice. Those same blessings can quickly turn on me, and if I am not careful, they can silence me. The groups we belong to, the relationships we cultivate, the careers we work hard to achieve, the bosses we aim to please, the employees we hope will love us, and the customers that are always at the back of our brains can swiftly and effortlessly take our good intentions and suppress us. It is hardly a conscious move and something we rarely see coming. But it happens.
My experience with voice and silence is tangled within that twenty-year career of navigating a leadership role within the complexity of systems, relationships, and a desire to understand self. In 2011, I began my own consulting and coaching business. It was here that I paused and looked back at myself and the systems that raised me. I also reflected on the clients that I have coached and their systems. I thought about the women in my life who spoke with passion, clarity, and purpose. I also thought about the women who had it in them, but the words never surfaced. I wondered about the language women use that inspire both genders to lean in and follow. I pondered the words we hear that make us disengage and reconsider our willingness to support. I was swimming in a lot of mystery and inquiry of voice and silence—but I was mostly thwarted by what I perceived was prevalent female silencing—my own and those around me.
However, this is not my story. I had to examine myself first before I could study the silenced female leader. I