Welcome to the first episode of the Stop Sabotaging Your Success podcast. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast for focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

You may be curious as to why I think we’re sabotaging our own success. It’s not that the challenges aren’t real because they are, but life isn’t just happening to us. And it’s easy to blame the system, our bosses, and everyone but ourselves for our lack of progress. What we also need to consider is the role we play in all of this. 

In today’s episode, I’d like to discuss some of the challenges we face in advancing our careers and navigating the barriers to our success. I’d like to shed some light on our common experiences and share a little bit about my story as an engineer in the process.

My goal is to grow a community of like-minded, ambitious, professional women in engineering and technology. I’d like to provide support to women at the intermediate and senior levels, while preparing the younger women for what they might encounter as they progress. 

We need to stick together. As women, we’re often in the minority, and sometimes we’re the only ones in the office. It can feel really lonely at times. And it’s up to each of us to show up for each other, no matter where we are in our career journey. 

So a shout out to all the women who get up each morning and head to the office or to the site trailer. We’re the women who followed the rules, we got the good grades, we went to university and got that engineering degree so that we could get that good job. We trusted that if we made it through all of that, we’d have made it yet. 

So many of us find ourselves unhappy and frustrated and feeling stuck in our jobs and continue to struggle with the challenges we face just trying to do those jobs.

I believe that career success is made up of three things. First is performance, but you might be surprised to know that performance is only about 10% of our success. Secondly, it’s how you’re seen and perceived by others that might account for another 30% or so. But the bulk of our success is from our visibility, whopping 60%. 

Hard work is only one piece of the puzzle. And one could argue that competence is a minimum, so it’s expected. We need to be provided with the opportunities to present our capabilities to others, to build the right relationships and enhance the common perceptions of us by those who make the decisions. So keeping your head down, and being the fixer or the grinder, is just not going to get you there. 

We face a lot of challenges, but they can be categorized into three big buckets: the first is societal barriers. These are the stereotypes and the cultural cues. Secondly, there’s organizational barriers. These are the structural obstacles and the work culture. And thirdly, is the personal barriers. These are the choices we make, the mindset we bring to the office, and then what we make it mean about us.

So let’s dive in to the societal barriers. These are the subtle and often unspoken cultural messages that we receive over our entire lifetimes. We absorbed them. We adopt them. And sometimes we forget to question them. They reinforce the way we think we have to behave. Gender stereotypes start at a really young age, and we buy into it, all of us.

The social cues come from all directions: parents, teachers, coaches, family members, and the media. They create perceptions about what behaviour and choices are expected of women. These subtle social cues reward conformity with stereotypical behaviour, and penalize non-conformity.

There’s a lot to consider there. So I’d like you to ask yourself, “How have I contributed to perpetuating these expectations and stereotypes?”.

So we covered the first bucket, the societal barriers. Let’s move on to the organizational barriers. And as I said, there’s two parts to this: the policies and the procedures that make up the structural obstacles, and the work culture that’s created, and that’s made up of the unwritten rules of what gets rewarded. 

The structural obstacles interfere with our ability to get the experiences, to develop the skills and build those critical relationships and get the exposure necessary for career success. Because lack of exposure and visibility are key risk factors for women’s progression. 

It starts with unequal mentoring and lack of sponsorship. The reality is that mentoring for men and women is very different. Women’s mentors help them understand themselves, their preferred ways of operating, and how they may need to change and adapt as they progress toward increasingly senior roles.

While men’s mentors help them take charge of their careers, plan their next moves, and back them up in public. Men receive greater sponsorship from their mentors and without this sponsor’s influence to advocate for them, women are not always equally considered for openings during career and succession discussions. 

And there’s just a lack of role models. I’ve seen initiatives in place to increase representation of women to up to 30%, but in my experience, I haven’t seen anywhere close to that, and it gets thinner as you go up the hierarchy. This results in very different professional networks for men and for women. And the professional network is critical. It provides access to sponsors and promotions, key information and referrals. It augments our power and our reputations. It influences the speed and likelihood of promotions, and then women are often excluded from forming ties with the most powerful individuals. 

And then there’s the work culture. This is where unconscious bias and gender stereotyping come into play. These are significant barriers to advancement, but they’re difficult to address because unconscious bias is seen as judgments that aren’t necessarily intended to cause harm. They come from a part of our mind that jumps to conclusions, even without our being aware of it. These assumptions aren’t always wrong, but often they are, especially when they reflect stereotypes.

And women are more likely to face microaggressions and everyday sexism. Men benefit from being rated on their potential. They’re automatically perceived to be more competent. Women are more likely to be assessed on their performance and track record, having to prove themselves over and over.

We tend to be interrupted, ignored, sidelined, and even used as scapegoats. We regularly have our comments or ideas dismissed and then stolen. We’re subjected to demeaning comments and more often than not, we’re the ones expected to take notes or make coffee. And we’re often mistaken for someone much more junior or, my personal favourite, being mistaken for someone’s daughter at the office.

Then there’s the glass cliffs. These can show up in two forms. First, where you’re constantly required to fix projects started by others that have gone off the rails. And that’s usually only after the client demands a replacement. Then these same projects are used to demonstrate that women are being given high profile roles on projects, but what they fail to mention is that it’s only after others got the prestige of starting them.

And similarly, on a larger scale, in firms that are struggling or in crisis, women are much more likely than men to be given those leadership roles where the chance of failure is highest. And all of this results in deterring women from wishing to advance their careers and reducing their belief that career advancement is even possible. 

I’d like you to ask yourself, “What can I do to build my own professional network and increase my visibility?”.

So we’ve covered the first two buckets, the societal barriers and the organizational barriers. And now we’re going to move on to the personal barriers. This is the biggest one by far. These are the choices we make, both professionally and personally. And professionally, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to make it known what we want, and where we’re headed. 

And personally, we need to be aware that you may be put on the “mommy track”, whether you’re actually having kids or not. I’ve seen women passed over for promotions because they might get pregnant, sometime in the future, and that might cause a hassle with the client if they were to go on leave.

Then there’s the mindset. This is our confidence, our presence, our ambition, and our drive. It’s how we present ourselves in the workplace. And we walk a fine line between being too much and not enough. 

Then there’s our reluctance to put ourselves forward for promotions and high-profile assignments. We want to avoid the social backlash that results from women acting outside of those gender stereotypes by self-promoting. We tend to have a much more conservative view of our own abilities than men do. We tend to underestimate our performance while men tend to overstate it. And women are far more reluctant than men to put themselves forward if there’s a chance that they may fail. 

And then there’s just trying to replicate the male model of leadership, where we’re pushing to have our seat at the table. And even when we get that seat, when we attempt to participate in meetings, we’re interrupted or talked over by those who believe that “he who talks the loudest must be right”.

Men and women start out their careers with similar ambition levels, but these can be diminished over time by the negative experiences and more so, if they’ve experienced a lack of career support in the past. 

And then there’s confidence. Confidence is commonly touted as a factor accounting for fewer women at the top. But I think confidence still appears to be viewed through a male lens because women can appear so much less confident relative to men’s overconfidence.

And then there’s simply that women are held to a higher standard than men. We tend to be sidelined even when we know all the details of the project or proposal better than anyone. We’re still not invited to the important meetings. We’re robbed of the opportunity to be a part of and influence the decision-making process. And we’re unable to gain exposure and visibility with the important people with power.

We’ve learned early on that we had to be twice as good. So we worked hard. We became a “reliable grinder” and we were recognized with the occasional “good job”, but the real reward was just more work, or better yet, fixing other people’s mistakes. And then we are passed over for promotions because someone decides that we’re just not yet ready. 

It all comes down to unequal access to high profile opportunities. Women tend to be waiting for an invitation or for someone to give them permission. We think that our great job performance will be noticed and rewarded, without the need for self promotion, because that’s uncomfortable for us. But doing great work is a minimum requirement for progression, and not the most important. And we are not prioritizing or recognizing that high visibility experiences are often the building blocks of senior careers.

And then there’s the benevolent sexism. This is where less challenging tasks are allocated to women and well-intended men are inadvertently killing our careers with kindness. 

There’s also a social penalty for women who negotiate on their own behalf, and unfortunately, both men and women respond unfavourably to this. So we have to weigh the benefits of negotiation against potential social backlash. This makes women far less likely than men to instigate negotiations, and it affects our ability to negotiate. But it’s not because we don’t know how, because women can negotiate just as successfully or more so than men, when we’re negotiating on behalf of someone else.

Then there’s a lack of political savvy. This is the ability to effectively understand others at work and use this knowledge to influence how they act to enhance the achievement of organizational objectives or our own agendas. Women with high levels of political skill are far more likely to achieve career progression in male dominated organizations. 

Then there’s the likability penalty. Our ability to be decisive and make tough decisions is sometimes seen to be at odds with a more feminine approach to leadership. This creates a double bind for women. It’s hard to be seen as both competent and likable at the same time. And which is more important to you?

And with all this going on around us, we also have the internal chatter and what we’re making it mean about us. And we suffer the career penalties as a result. 

There are a lot of personal barriers, but I’d like to you ask yourself a few questions:

• How am I blaming my lack of progression on others?
• How can I make it clear what I want next? 
• What level of confidence do I project?
• How can I celebrate my own progress? 
• Have I surrounded myself with a team of supporters, those allies, mentors, sponsors, and advocates that are so necessary for career success?

Unfortunately, the struggles we face follow us throughout our careers. And based on my own experience in engineering in both the US and Canada, women continue to face the same struggles to achieve career success. I’m not saying there haven’t been any improvements over the years, but honestly, there have been as many setbacks as there have been improvements. 

And while there are exceptions, and some women are having a much more positive career experience than I enjoyed, from the anecdotal evidence it appears that many of these positive accounts are from women in the early stages of their career. The “demonstration phase”, where you’re demonstrating your skill and learning as much as you can, that happens from graduation to early management, up to about 35 years of age. 

Typically, it’s the beginning of the career track for many women. Women are expecting their road to success to be a meritocracy, like school was, where we work hard and we advance. And they believe that they alone are in charge of their career success.

They want to do it all, and have it all, just like the men. But sometimes, we encounter barriers before we even set foot in the office. And without awareness, it’s difficult for women to understand why they’re struggling.

Sometimes, even having access to that first career opportunity is more challenging because of the standard of what good looks like in most recruitment processes. 

When women start work in their twenties and thirties, we have an internal sense of control over our careers. And we believe that being driven and assertive is the way to get ahead. And it isn’t until the next basis of our careers, where we start to encounter much more resistance.

In my own career journey, I’ve seen it all, experienced it all. And thankfully, I’ve lived to tell about it. Generally, I’ve been one of the few women in technical roles in my organizations, and frequently, I was the only one. 

I’ve worked for some really good people and I’ve worked for some terrible people. And each of them, in their own way, has provided me with learning experiences and opportunities that have shaped my career. I’d like to think that I succeeded in spite of some of them and their efforts to sabotage my ability to succeed.

It’s not my intention to put them all in the same bucket, that same good old boys club. I’m not saying that doesn’t exist, because it does. I’m just saying that they’re not all the same, just as we’re not all the same. 

So keep in mind that growing in your career is made so much easier when you surround yourself with a strong network. It’s much like raising kids takes a village. 

I’ve spent years in the field doing site review alongside construction teams, but the bulk of my time was spent in the corporate office environment. I’ve received catcalls, and inappropriate comments, and more, and that wasn’t just out in the field! In the office, patriarchy and sexism are much more subtle, but they’re certainly alive and well. I’ve experienced microaggressions at their finest! 

There were many people I worked with who were smart and challenged me to lean into my potential. My ambition didn’t intimidate them. But there were others who made it crystal clear that they believed that engineering was no place for a woman. And not only did my presence and my smarts intimidate them, I apparently was perceived as a threat. It wasn’t until years later that I was able to reframe that and understand that they understood my value to the organization. And that’s why I was perceived as a threat to be neutralized.

Early in my career, I did not suffer from imposter syndrome or feeling unworthy or wondering if I belonged. I knew I was great at my job, and I knew I deserved to be there.

It wasn’t until later, after the negative experiences began to accumulate, that I really began to question whether I still wanted to belong anymore. What I never fully appreciated until after was the magnitude of my greatness, and the level of power I had to control my own destiny. I had been gaslighted for so long that I had begun to question my judgment and my abilities.

What I learned through my years in engineering is that you need to be clear about what you want and work within the system to achieve your goals instead of trying to write the injustices of a system that will take generations to reconcile.

In order to play the game, you need to be savvy and strategic, and you need to play to win!

Looking back, I wonder why I stayed as long as I did, but I realized now that I wanted to be an example of what is possible for those young women in engineering coming after me. I want it to just be a little bit easier for them than it was for me. 

I was a bit of a unicorn in my industry, being a married woman with a family and building a successful career that allowed me to retire early and to pursue the next phase of my life.

I choose to believe that there has never been a better time for women in engineering and research shows that having a more diverse senior management team is good for business. I believe that we have a responsibility to the next generation to not just give in or give up, but rather to be a catalyst for change. 

I believe that my parents were right when they told me I could do anything I set my mind to and I believe that we are more than capable to hold our own in an industry dominated by men. I believe that together, the possibilities are limitless. 

So I’m curious, what do you believe about women in engineering and technology now, and in the future? 

I’ve given you a lot to take in and unpack. For a summary, please go to the shownotes and download your Guide for Identifying Your Barriers on my website under podcast, episode one.

The reality is there’s a lot here for us to explore, and each week we’ll dive into some of this and take a closer look at what we can do to improve our own experience in the workplace. 

Remember, you’re not alone in this, and we can’t wait for the system to fix itself or for someone to take us under their wing.

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide for Identifying Your Barriers at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode one. 

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch. I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked the show, please tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger and thank you for joining me.