In taking the “Gender-Leader Implicit Association” test in Northouse Chapter 15 and reading through the Catalyst (2016) report for inclusion ideas I recognized that my profession of campus chaplaincy tends to be “female-dominated.” This is reflected in the greater amount of women on my staff team in comparison to men. Currently on the team I co-lead, we have 7 women and 2 men.
My “Gender-Leader Implicit Association” test score was negative, showing that I do not automatically associate favouring males in leadership. This is probably due to being a women who is particularly passionate about developing women in leadership, as well as being in a female-dominated team and profession. In the past, I likely would have been more towards a positive score, due to how I grew up, what I saw in church and society, and what I believed about myself as a woman.
Since my work place is evidently female-dominated, we tend to have a good culture of fostering recognition and a sense of belonging for women. However, there are some areas that could be further improved that the Catalyst report mentioned regarding how employees experience feeling included (Nugent et al., 2016, p. 2). Nugent et al. (2016) state when employees feel included when they experience, “A sense of uniqueness– that they are recognized and valued for their specific attributes and contributions” (p. 2). One way this could be done in my workplace is the following:
- Being intentional about publicly recognizing individuals for who they are, their unique gifting/skills, their accomplishments and a job well done.
My team is encouraging to some degree, but I have observed that encouragement does not come as naturally. I would like to create a “culture of encouragement” to help both the female and male team members feel unique, recognized and valued for who they are and their accomplishments/contributions to our team and ministry (Nugent et al., 2016, p. 2).
Nugent et al. (2016), in the Catalyst report mention another important element for inclusion to be experienced which is, “A sense of belonging–that they are welcomed and valued as part of their workgroups and among their colleagues” (p. 2). I see this applying in regards to the part-time moms on my team, as they sometimes struggle with feeling like a part of the team. One way I could apply this is:
- Intentionally assisting the part-time moms on my team more by hearing out their needs and helping them keep a healthy involvement on the team.
The struggle with this I have found, is sometimes “over-accommodation” for the moms with kids leads to them being distant from the team and not really being or feeling involved. I want to find a way that is still accommodating for the moms, but does not take-away from team-dynamic and their sense of belonging. I want the part-time moms on our team to feel welcomed and valued on the team, as well as contributing and participating (Nugent et al., 2016, p. 2). I think this will ultimately help them feel more included (Nugent et al., 2016, p. 2).
Additionally, I have learned from supervising a mom coming back from maternity leave, how helpful it was to be very clear on what my expectations for her were, due to her reduced work hours, situations of day-care drop-off times, evening event conflicts, etc. I was very impressed and appreciated how this staff member told me directly that she felt that I was expecting the same things of her as the rest of the team.
I think she mostly felt this because a lot of the communication happened in the team setting and I lacked implicitly stating that for her, certain situations were “optional.” She found herself feeling stressed, thinking that I expected the same things from her as the other full-time staff. I learned from this and having this clarifying conversation one-on-one was very helpful. Since then, I have been careful to clearly state my expectations of her specifically.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2018). Leadership: theory and practice (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Nugent, J., Pollack, A. & Travis, D. (2016). The day to day experiences of workplace inclusion and exclusion. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/the_day_to_day_experiences_of_workplace_inclusion_and_exclusion.pdf
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