A Guide to Allyship: The Authenticity Paradox and How to Help Women in the Workplace Move Past It

I’m often asked how to be an ally to women in the workplace and help them achieve their career goals. In thinking about developing a guide to allyship, I wanted to be specific about the reasons women need allies in the first place.

Well into his career, my husband came back from a trip overseas where he’d been traveling with several female executives, and he admitted to me how uncomfortable he found it to be “the only man in the room.” He reported that the business portion of the meetings, where the gender balance was more equal, were completely comfortable but the discussions before and after the meetings made him feel invisible. With empathy he said, “I think I get it now, how uncomfortable a lot of your professional experience has been.”

I was so appreciative. I felt more deeply seen in a new way, even by someone who has seen me for a long time. And it gave me insight into the authenticity paradox that had sometimes held me back in my career.

Photo by Yan Krukov 

The Authenticity Paradox: Being The Only One At The Table

For my husband, an international trade negotiator, this sense of professional alienation and (usually unintentional) unwelcomeness in the business context was a once-in-a-career experience. But while it’s relatively unusual for a man to experience this, many women find it a normal part of showing up to work, especially in senior leadership situations. To fit in, they are encouraged to minimize or eliminate their feminine selves, which is an integral part of who they are. Even then, it’s usually not enough to feel fully accepted. 

In framing a guide to allyship, we have to recognize that women come into the workforce learning that the best way to succeed rarely means “being your authentic self.” And yet, women are often advised (including by me!) that being authentic, for example, not trying to act like a man, is the best way for them to succeed. I call this on-the-surface-contradiction in success tactics The Authenticity Paradox. 

The Authenticity Paradox: the way to success is authenticity but you work in a culture that penalizes authentic expressions of your identity. <=Click to tweet

Being a woman in a male-dominated environment is full of challenges. As the “different one” of any kind you’re always aware that everyone else in the room is looking at you through the lens of stereotypes and unconscious biases that emphasize your otherness. As a woman, you’re used to hearing these perspectives expressed by the men around you as:

• Surprise and verbalized appreciation at your competence
• Assumptions about what you want by people who don’t ask you what you want
• Not even noticing you’re there, even when you speak up
• Verbalizing your ideas as their own, probably as a result of not noticing you’re there 
• Minimizing the value of your ideas unless they are verbalized or supported by a man
• Questioning your judgment rather than addressing your idea
• Openly judging your physical appearance or emotional state
• Assuming you understand and can speak for everyone “like you”
• Delicacy and discomfort with uncomfortable and emotional issues, which often turns into discussing important topics after you’ve left the room
• “Locker room talk,” passed off as humor but through which you hear insults or threats of violence to “people like you”

The challenges of being “the only one” are not limited to women. 

As a black woman surrounded by white women, a black or brown person surrounded by white people, a gay-presenting person surrounded by straight-presenting people, an Asian surrounded by Europeans, etc… When you’re the only one of your kind in a group, you’re acutely aware of the burden you carry to represent “your people”, which becomes an inhibitor on your natural willingness to be authentic in any way that would cast a negative light on everyone else “like you.”

Being “the only one”, or even one of very few, is a precarious position and can easily lead even the strongest of us to anxiety and overcompensation as basic survival strategies. This takes a personal toll, especially over time, on the individual who comes to see themselves through the “otherness” lens. They often feel they must be flawless and must continually earn their seat at the table every time they show up. 

Being the only one is exhausting. And it’s everyone’s loss.

The Price Paid by the Majority 

Sadly, the cost of these interactions are not only born by the “only one.” The group with only one member representing a diverse experience (i.e., one person who is holding back and ignored or minimized by the group) does not reap the benefits of diversity in its decision making. And there are many benefits, including a wider variety of ideas generated, more attention to risk management and greater creativity, all of which results in better outcomes.

In a variety of ways, research has shown that when someone is not the “one and only” (i.e., at least 25-30% of the group shares an identity or viewpoint), these individuals become more willing to offer their authentic value to the group. They reduce their inhibitors and present more unique and important contributions, enabling the group to be more successful than those with reduced diversity. 

Diverse groups also tend to demonstrate more overt respect for each other. They value each other’s contributions more reliably, talk over each other less and support each other’s ideas to the group, thus helping to balance the group’s tendency to ignore or minimize minority members’ contributions. 

In short, women and other diverse leaders who make up 30%+ of your group are good for your business. 

Allyship: How to Help Women into Leadership

The solution to helping women offer their full and authentic value, thus reaping the benefits of gender diversity for the group, is fairly simple, and well documented: support women seeking leadership positions so no one is the “one and only” woman at the table.

A guide to allyship for women must include insights into what men can do to help. As the default power-wielders in corporate culture today, it’s important for men to be proactive in allying with women to gain leadership positions. What can men (and other women) do to be good allies?

• Assume their competence
• Become educated about the unique challenges women have in pursuing leadership to become a better mentor and coach
• Mentor and coach women to help them adapt their specific strengths to the organization’s culture and needs
• Verbalize what you’re learning about women’s challenges to educate others and help women feel seen
• Sponsor women within the organization to boost their visibility and defend their achievements
• Don’t speak over them and call others out those who do with a reminder to respect and credit the opinion of others
• Allow women to be individuals, resist the urge to generalize about women (and men, for that matter)
• Become aware of your own biases and limit their impacts

While these are things anyone can do to support women, there are extra dimensions of allyship that may be needed between women. They help everyone manage the authenticity paradox they encounter in less gender-diverse settings.

Female Allyship: Unique Opportunities For Women To Help Women (Especially Women of Color)

As someone whose career developed in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s without female role models, I can personally attest to the challenges women face when they have no visibility to (much less support from) more senior women above them in the power structure. Of course, I didn’t know what I was missing, so it’s only been recently that I’ve come to understand how important role models truly are. 

It turns out that when women have female role models in senior leadership they have a reduced perception of “stereotype threat” and an increased willingness to compete. This makes sense because it gives younger women a vision of what it looks like to move beyond the Authenticity Paradox, and to find a way to be authentic and earn the respect of others in power. Without female role models, especially in a competitive environment, the women most likely to succeed are less willing to compete, thus, pulling themselves out of the competition before they have the chance to win.

From the perspective of a guide to allyship, we can extrapolate from this research that women passively help other women succeed simply by being successful. However, as the dynamics of allyship above in general suggest, there are many other, more proactive,  strategies women can deploy to support each other.

Women can become more aware of the biases they carry that unintentionally affect their female colleagues. Even in trying to help other women, they can assume they know things about their associates’ ambitions and preferences, and by voicing these things to others may accidentally limit the other woman’s choices. Taking a stand for the other woman’s ability to choose is a better strategy. 

It’s also important for women with influence to sponsor and promote other women, and to do so with clear communication around the fact that supporting other women does not mean you’re engaging in favoritism. 

White women, in particular, must become more aware of their biases around race. Sadly, women of color often do not feel supported by white women, with 47% reporting that white women make them “feel inferior/invisible/like I do not matter” in the workplace. This is particularly sad since many white women know what it’s like to be the only woman at the table. Women who enjoy a racial privilege must become more empathic and supportive of women who are not only the only woman, but often the only person of color AND the only woman of color.

This demonstrates that the unconscious biases that limit women’s advancement opportunities are not limited to men. It also means that when white women make the effort to support other women, especially factoring in racial challenges, they have a very powerful ability to make a difference in the careers of women of color.

The Right Way to Help Women in the Workplace Be More Authentic and Succeed Anyway

Given the complexities of the Authenticity Paradox and moving past our unconscious biases to help women in the workplace, what should any of us actually do? I’ve boiled down what I believe are the most important aspects of allyship, which I believe works for everyone. 

• Intention: While not enough, having a clear intention to help women succeed–all women–is a critical first step. 
• Awareness: Given that gender and racial biases pervades our society, active in women and men alike, simply accept that you and everyone around you are not immune to unconscious bias and become more aware of how these biases affect your own thoughts and actions. Replace judgment and anxiety regarding sexism and racism with curiosity about how you show up and how you might be able to become more effective at helping women–all women–succeed.
• Respect:  Learn to respect women–all women–while allowing them to be different than you. This requires looking past your biases. It means allowing those you would help to choose not to see you as their savior.
• Action: Do something to activate your intention to help women in the world. Sometimes you’ll succeed and sometimes you won’t, but don’t stop. Make mistakes and try again. Change the bias dynamics so deeply embedded in our culture one small action at a time. Keep going. Don’t stop.

I believe that these four elements are really all that’s needed in a guide to allyship for women (or anyone, really). Everyone has these abilities and when you use them you will support women on the journey to making a difference in their organizations and in the world and side-stepping the authenticity paradox when they encounter it.