Last week, in the “speech that stopped the nation”, former Australian of the Year and sexual abuse survivor Grace Tame, and former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, laid bare, with eloquence and fierceness, the anger and frustration felt by women across the country about the structures and power imbalances that hold them back.
While the review of workplace culture sparked by Higgins’ allegation of rape focused on Federal Parliament, there are important lessons to be learned, and most critically – actioned – by public sector leaders. As Higgins said, “If we truly want a gender-inclusive society, we need more vocal women in rooms where key decisions are being made to ensure that there is a gender lens placed over national policy.”
The reality is that women simply aren’t in those rooms in great enough numbers. The research on the barriers to women’s advancement in the public sector is damning: it shows that male-dominated departments favour masculine social and leadership behaviours and that unconscious bias and a lack of role models compound negative effects on women’s confidence and leadership.
By contrast, in departments with more women in senior executive positions, there is a greater acceptance of a range of leadership styles. Aspiring women leaders describe many more opportunities for them in these more diverse spaces – and better outcomes; from financial management to positive social impact.
So, what are senior leaders to do with this information? How can you respond to Higgins’ and Tame’s call to action? The solution: use your voice and power to champion and support women’s advancement and visibility. How? Here are three things we’ve heard from women in the public sector about what they need to step up and lead.
1. Make space for women to step forward.
Having worked with hundreds of women public sector leaders, we’ve seen, time and time again, the life-changing power of a nudge from an influential supporter for women to step up and out. In the leadership and visibility self-assessments women complete in our programs, they – regardless of position or level – chronically underestimate their abilities to succeed and fear the backlash that can come with greater visibility.
The power of being seen and encouraged to step into leadership roles, and supported once they’re there, by senior leaders around them – particularly men – can be transformative and make the difference
2. Invest in their development, to overcome barriers.
Being allowed the space and time to think more deeply about their leadership impact, and being supported with tools and training to upskill and be deliberate about their leadership strategy, can have a huge effect on a woman’s willingness and ability to go for senior leadership roles, and therefore tackle the structural barriers in the way of them and other aspiring women leaders.
3. Support them to think strategically about their visibility and influence.
Our data has consistently shown that women, more than men, tend to rely on the quality of their work to speak for themselves: they believe that hard work, rather than self-promotion, is the key to their advancement. They tend to be repelled by what they see as ego-driven visibility for vanity’s sake.
So supporting women to think of their visibility and influence differently – as a purposeful strategy for extending the impact of their work, projects and wider team – is very helpful. Sponsoring and elevating their reputations, encouraging them to invest the time and thought about who their most important stakeholders are, expanding their networks and actively cultivating their influence as a leader and seeing the link between that and their wider impact is critical.
Creating space for the stories of women leaders – in departments and organisations, in the media, and at events – will allow this targeted visibility to inspire other women to step forward too.
Three practical ways you can support public sector women
If we are to really listen to the Tames and Higgins of the world and tackle the structural and systemic barriers to women’s advancement, justice and equity, it must translate into action. Through constructive support and the elevation of women, and courageous advocacy by both men and women with influence in the public sector, we can see change happen quickly.
The best thing? Everyone benefits from having more women in leadership positions. And it’s clear no one will settle for their omission from public sector leadership any longer.
As a director of Visibility Co, Julia May is a communicator, strategist, facilitator and coach whose intention is to support change-making individuals, organisations and movements with the will and skills to create better outcomes for themselves and their families, organisations and the planet.
As a director of Visibility Co, Julia is a communicator, strategist, facilitator and coach whose intention is to support change-making individuals, organisations and movements with the will and skills to create better outcomes for themselves and their families, organisations and the planet.
She is a founding leader of global leadership initiatives WE Africa, a ground-breaking movement for African leaders in conservation, and Homeward Bound, where she co-created the strategy and co-founded the visibility and communications program. Julia is a former foreign correspondent, who covered politics and government in Australia and the UK and has worked with hundreds of leaders in the Australian Public Sector as a strategist, facilitator and coach, running leadership and visibility programs and working 1:1 with high-impact leaders.
