01: Why Women Need to Take Up Space at Work

Shameless Leadership

Recent data overwhelmingly tells us that the number of women in leadership still doesn’t come close to representing the number of women in society. According to Leanin.org’s Women in the Workplace 2023 Report:

• Women represent roughly 1 in 4 C-suite leaders, and women of color just 1 in 16.
• Progress for early-career Black women remains the furthest out of reach. This year, for every 100 men promoted from entry level to manager positions, only 54 Black women were promoted. After rising to 82 in 2020 and 96 in 2021, the promotion rate for Black women to manager has fallen back to lower than it was in 2019.
• Because of our “broken rung” system, in a typical company, men end up holding 60% of manager-level positions, while women hold just 40%. As a result, there are fewer women to promote to director, and the number of women decreases at every subsequent level.
• The impact of “microaggressions” experienced at work by women or any other marginalized group are anything but “micro”

If women are to occupy more leadership roles, it is imperative that we start intentionally taking up more space. We must demand we take up more space. In this episode, we will talk about how women are socialized to shrink our bodies, hold back our ideas and opinions, and play small in all aspects of our lives. From there, we dig into specific steps you can take to start taking up more space and stop accepting without question the leadership, thoughts, and opinions of those who have more power than you (ie: men).

If you’re ready to take up more space, use your voice in new ways, and take a seat at any table, this episode is for you.

Links Mentioned:

• Leanin.org Women in the Workplace 2023
• Check out my other show: The Shameless Mom Academy
• Learn about my speaking, training, and coaching: saradean.com
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: saradean.com/linkedin