Male Allies Must Focus on the Details to Help Women Succeed

Experts say forceful and explicit actions are needed — not friendly pablum. Stop any subtle slights and make women’s advocacy a priority.

Commitments must come with consequences

That’s just the kind of risking “skin in the game” that men should be doing to advocate for women, especially since COVID restrictions have driven many women to work remotely so they can focus on caregiving duties, say Brad Johnson, Ph.D., and David Smith, Ph.D., professors and co-authors of Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace and Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women.

“Deliberate sponsorship has got to happen,” Dr. Johnson said. “Make sure your female colleague’s name is always in the pool for new projects and promotions. Women tend only to get opportunities if they have done the job already, whereas men are never reluctant to push for things they have never done before,” he pointed out.

In fact, the COVID crisis should drive male allies to seize the advantages of remote and flexible work. They can now hire talented people from any location and leverage the increased productivity that a remote workforce can bring, Dr. Johnson said. “I have to make sure that work is something I accomplish — not somewhere I go,” he said. “People can be more productive when you give them autonomy.”

Dr. Smith said leaders should create a new system to evaluate workers’ performance and reevaluate the best ways to communicate. “It’s time to reconsider the routines of communication, how often we meet as work teams, when there’s feedback, and how often we need to have a progress or performance check,” he said. “It’s getting managers comfortable and knowledgeable about how to lead people and programs in a hybrid environment.”

Part of the new way of leading involves situational awareness, Dr. Johnson said. His advice: Next time a male manager leads a virtual meeting, look for a way to acknowledge a female team member as an expert. For example, point out that “Sara has way more experience in this area than I do. What do you think, Sara?”

Or ask a question to ensure that a woman’s voice is heard: “I know Susannah has done work in this area before. I’d love to hear your thoughts, Susannah,” or “You always have such interesting perspectives on these questions. I’m really interested in hearing your perspective.”

It’s important that you “say it because you mean it,” he said. “Notice who is speaking during a Zoom meeting. Who is getting the microphone? Is a woman team member being overlooked, interrupted, or disrespected? Call it out and shut it down.”

And be alert when women volunteer or are expected to do what Dr. Johnson calls “administrative housework” — chores such as taking notes and producing agendas, activities that take time away from advancing one’s career. Encourage the women to say “no” more often. “Talk about the ramifications for their careers, and encourage them to practice saying ‘no,’ even if it feels uncomfortable,” Dr. Johnson said. “Then, have their backs when they say ‘no’ to a duty that would fail to advance their cause.”

Dr. Smith said it’s essential that the entire team of senior leadership act as role models and hold people accountable. “If I’m in leadership and trumpeting the value of flex and remote work, my frontline managers need to enact policies that reflect those values,” he said.

Leaders also need to model behaviors that may be the opposite of how people are socialized from the time they’re children. It’s critical that men take family leave, do flex and remote work, and participate in programs that women have traditionally utilized, Dr. Johnson said.

“If those programs are ones that women — and no one else — take advantage of, they’re stigmatized,” he said. “If men — the company’s leaders — use those programs and tell others, be transparent, it becomes destigmatizing to junior men at work as well,” Dr. Johnson said. “Otherwise, we’re stuck with a two-tiered system.”

The solution should be aspirational — a man who wants his legacy to include a female successor as CEO, for example, to get beyond zero-sum-gain thinking, said Glass Half-Broken co-author Ammerman.

Some studies, including a survey of Harvard Business School alumni, show that the #MeToo movement made men more aware of and sympathetic toward the inequities that women face. Other research showed some men viewed #MeToo, aimed at raising awareness about and stopping sexual harassment and violence against women in the workplace, as a threat.

More than one-quarter (28%) of American men said they felt that women’s gains have come at men’s expense, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center study. Yet Ammerman and Dr. Groysberg found that men who have mixed feelings about gender equality or who believe it’s not their place to lead workplace gender-parity initiatives could shift their stance when company leaders “frame the work of increasing gender equity as a collective imperative.”

More top-down efforts need to be made in academia, too, which runs the risk of losing valuable women leaders, Dr. Johnson said. “We could potentially see a massive loss of female talent in the teaching profession,” he said of college and university education. “It would be easy to go back to the old tenure and publishing systems and requirements. But if you have that level of rigidity, you’re going to lose women’s valuable contributions.”

Taking a one-step approach, such as requiring managers and workers to take training to recognize their unconscious biases, won’t work, said Ammerman. “You’re not going to see any real difference if companies stop there,” she said. “Make that education part of a shared mission. Make sure that the decisions you’re making about doling out assignments, awards, assessing people and other measures show that you’re critically reflecting in order to minimize the unconscious bias.”

Don’t further marginalize those already marginalized

While staying clear-headed about how to empower women, managers also must take care to understand issues of importance to others who are marginalized, including LGBTQA+ employees. Nearly a quarter (24%) of surveyed professionals were not open about their identity in their workplace, according to a new survey, with 26% of respondents worried that being open about themselves would cause co-workers to treat them differently.

The survey, conducted by YouGov for LinkedIn between April 30 and May 12, 2021, reflected responses from 2,001 U.S. LBGTQ+ professionals ages 18 to 69.

• Nearly a third (31%) of LGBTQ+ professionals say they’ve faced blatant discrimination and/or microaggressions at work. A quarter of survey respondents said they left a job in the past because they felt unaccepted at work.
• More than half (57%) of survey respondents said they would like companies to have clear policies to protect LGBTQ+ workers.
• 45% said they wished their employers would create safe spaces for LGBTQ+ workers, such as employee groups.
• More than half of the respondents said they felt inspired by seeing openly LGBTQ+ senior leaders.

The added stress of COVID had a sliver of a silver lining in that company leaders have become more open to providing mental health and child care support, said Kweilin Ellingrud, lead author of the McKinsey & Company report “Diverse Employees Are Struggling the Most During COVID-19 — Here’s How Companies Can Respond.”

The global research encompassing 11 countries, published in November 2020, showed that employees who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or gender nonbinary disproportionately feared losing ground at work and reported feeling more isolated during the pandemic.

And though roughly two out of five companies said they’ve increased their diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts during COVID, only one in six diverse employees said they felt more supported during the pandemic than they did before the crisis, the research showed. “Women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ colleagues tend to be over-mentored but undersponsored,” Ellingrud said.

So closing the sponsorship gap — the act of proactively finding opportunities for certain employees — is important to equalize the playing field at work, she said.

The McKinsey report urges companies to rethink working norms and expectations about employee productivity and to expand benefits such as paid time off. Companies also need to speak out about the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and show that they mean it through their work with suppliers, the community, and philanthropies, the report concluded.

Another researcher, Katina Sawyer, Ph.D., assistant professor of management at The George Washington University School of Business, wrote in a university blog post that allies “can use inclusive language and educate others on inclusive language, defend colleagues when they witness harassment or discrimination and advocate for more inclusive policies, practices or initiatives within their organizations.”

“When you are butting up against a norm within the organization, or you are taking an action that might be viewed negatively by others, but which promotes inclusiveness at work, taking those risks sends a stronger message of value to members of the trans community,” Dr. Sawyer wrote.

Stop playing the protector and close down the “always on” culture

Making assumptions is a habit fraught with peril. In fact, women said they had been denied opportunities because their male bosses had sought to “protect” them, Ammerman said. One woman said her manager never told her about a career possibility because he assumed that since she had recently gotten married, she wouldn’t be interested.

“Male managers may think they’re being helpful” by shielding women who’ve recently married or who have young children from opportunities, Ammerman said. The answer is to have open conversations about employees’ career goals, Ammerman explained. “Women’s outside responsibilities shouldn’t derail their careers.”

Male managers also must fight today’s “always-on” work culture on behalf of all employees, according to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Smith in an October 2020 article they co-wrote for Harvard Business Review, “4 Ways Men Can Support Their Female Colleagues — Remotely.”

“We talk about how you get an [instant message] with a quick request at 7 p.m.,” Dr. Smith said. “You’re always there. Even if it’s dinnertime. You are on it. But it can devolve into an arms race that leads to burnout, especially if everyone else is doing the same thing.”

Does a promotion come at too high a cost? “Does a promotion mean missing Friday evenings with your family and children? That’s a high cost,” Dr. Smith said. The always-on culture, including seeing leaders working while they’re on vacation, should be penalized, he said. “Companies with the happiest employees who were working partly remotely said their managers led by example. They took holidays.”