Invisible Obstacles, Unstoppable Women Leaders | A Conversation with Claire Peet

When a male colleague gets told bring your A game tomorrow. It's just a comment for women leaders That might actually mean a sleepless night Today we're unpacking why and what we can do about it Hey, everyone. I'm Shane Leaning. Welcome to global leaders the chat topping leadership podcast for international schools I'm an organizational coach and in this show I get to know the teachers and leaders and innovators making a difference in education across the world Now before we jump into this conversation I'm excited that today's episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association Stay tuned to learn more now My guest today is Claire Pete Claire is the managing partner at PD academia and the PD coordinator for a chemist and nesic their two Organizations in China professional learning organizations So she provides professional learning for their member schools in her previous role She founded the learning and professional development division for a big education group in China And she is massively dedicated to coaching mentoring But her core passion lies in championing women in educational leadership So of course, that's what we discussed today this conversation Challenged me in the best possible ways and I know you'll love it. Let's jump in

I think it's always interesting to talk about the challenges for women leaders because it forces us into buzzwords and stereotypes and They have been used for a long time now to help us to help us make sense of The challenges that we face and to process those and frame them around our mental models But we also find that as soon as we start to label something that can become incredibly problematic One in terms of the attachment that we give to it and how it then becomes representative of us as this kind of fixed entity But also then how that's increasingly used against us and dismissed You know, I think about the ideas of oh, she's a perfectionist And how that's become this kind of buzzword that has such a negative association I love my perfectionist tendencies. They're some of my best behaviors and skill sets they get me through incredibly challenging times and yet Society as a whole is convinced that I should be squashing those that I should be quieting those tendencies that Want me to push to be Better to be bold to be ambitious Almost being told that they're things that you should be shying away from still in this day and age and in the same way, I think terms like Imposter syndrome have also very sadly Become to be used against us in a way The label is no longer serving the initial intention that it had And it's another stick to kind of beat people with now, which is such an odd situation I think work-life balance is another one that has just been morphed into something and stretched out in so many different ways that We've kind of lost the point around why that existed in the first place why the conversation needed to happen and to be happening by Women leaders. Yeah, i'm thinking these words. They're almost like Diagnoses that we take it's something that has to be fixed. Yeah, and sadly so many of these words are so often

associated with women leadership like the idea of imposter syndrome We were just speaking before we came on the podcast about A book that i've been reading about setting up a new business two weeks notice, which is aimed at women leaders But it's often kind of targeting these kind of areas But yeah, I think there can be on two things one. We use these words around women a lot But two they're seen as issues rather than What is imposter syndrome? Well, it's actually believing that you maybe could be better in a situation It's maybe believing that you're not the cleverest person in the room. These are good things to embrace Exactly. Yeah, they're so easily morphed into

Labels and stereotypes and then we automatically assume that their challenges to be overcome Instead of recognizing that these are incredible superpowers That idea of imposter syndrome plays two important roles in my day It keeps me safe And I do need my brain to do that to keep me safe to know my limits and my boundaries But it's also the thing that makes me get up the next day and say I want more i'm capable of more and i'm prepared to go out and boldly search for those Which I think can make other people feel incredibly uncomfortable Particularly other women culturally within everybody's individual upbringing That is taught to us as something to fear in others You know kind of get back in your box Who are you to behave that way or to go against the crowd? Even for very ambitious and determined women. It's still smart It still makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable to talk about Wanting more wanting more for ourselves wanting more for our family wanting more from our careers It's an incredibly sensitive topic still in society when it really shouldn't be but we're still there I think in a lot of ways And and probably more so because we've got Such a masculine definition of what leadership is that's been defined over the years because we've had many male leaders It's just developed in that way that these attributes that many women can bring to the space Can just be seen as this negative and this thing have to fix. Oh, absolutely imposter syndrome Is that classic example of leaders shouldn't have doubt?

Right, but for women it's lose lose because you either adopt some of those masculine traits and you're criticized for that you're seen as bossy or Difficult or being too direct and you know, you need to rein it back in Or you're criticized for not having enough of those behaviors in your work You know, you could really do with being more authoritative You could really do with taking a stand the way you interact with people needs to be more forthright There's always a loaded criticism for women that just isn't inherently there for men So you you go through your career feeling like I can't win regardless and I think as women get a little bit more mature and older in their career They reach a point of saying Okay, i'm just going to be who I am because i'm tired of this game That i'm always going to be not everybody's cup of tea There's always going to be criticism and the older you get the more you just sort of come back to Maybe I just need to be myself and really lean into that and leverage it which I think we're seeing increased movements, too But that's an incredibly complicated and difficult ask Socially and culturally for women to feel accepted to do that for better or worse because sometimes it is still For worse for them. They make a choice to live their true life their identity To say I don't know and that doesn't always have the positive consequences that we'd really like it to have Yeah, I really hear that catch 22 situation of yet And I know many women leaders who have almost taken on those masculine traits to get by and and I think some it serves Well, and some serves terribly as well because you know, it just seems to rub some people up the wrong way But then on the opposite side just being authentically you As well and also we're making stereotypes here aren't we like we're saying women leaders are this and of course That's almost a ridiculous thing to say like women leaders are as diverse as any leaders I'm almost thinking now The irony of what we're talking about is that education is dominated by women We know for example girls often do better at school than boys on average or we know for example Most teachers around the world are women not men and yet most leaders are men and still that that masculine trait Is still directing us even though as educators we're trying for something different. We're looking to something different It's a deeply frustrating irony and it's something that you do a lot of work around I know you're very passionate about the groups that you've set up so maybe we could dive into one of those areas we talked about which is Self-doubt which I think many women leaders might be listening going, you know self-doubt affects me as a leader We're not just talking about acknowledging your strengths and your weaknesses and working with that but talking about doubts stopping me Stopping me from making that leap. Is that something that you encounter a lot with women you work with?

Absolutely. I think the brain's an incredibly clever instrument And like I say is designed to keep us safe and that's a really good thing But a part of that is that we do tend to doubt ourselves I think there's two key themes for this within education specifically One is when I think about a new leader coming into a school And if that's a male leader, there tends to be an assumed competency Just by virtue of the fact they've been given the job When a new female leader comes into a school They have to earn that same understanding of competency and sometimes The hardest nuts to crack in that area Are actually other females For other females in the school We will look at a new female senior leader coming in and we will doubt Their competency in a way that we wouldn't necessarily do If a male was coming into the same role And I think the other side of this in terms of the female experience is the a-game story This idea that a female leader is getting ready to leave at the end of the day And a male colleague says to them Hey, we've got a big meeting tomorrow. Bring your a-game and Immediately that female leader's head goes Bring my a-game Was the last meeting we had not my a-game? What even is a-game?

Should I do something different? What does a-game look in this context? How should I get there? What happened last? Was that not good enough? Has nobody told me that I wasn't good enough the last time?

Why did he feel the need to say that? I've never been a male so I couldn't possibly know if men also ask themselves the same question But I hear particularly from female coaching clients that this level of self-doubt is an automatic response It's the way we analyze the simplest of sentences And this male colleague may have meant absolutely nothing by that statement Yet for the receiver and of course communication is all about what is received not what is said It caused a sleepless night, you know, it allowed them to Really go down a rabbit hole of what if I'm not good enough? What if nobody's told me and last time we did this work, you know, it fell badly What am I missing? Our brains are sort of automatically wired to go. Where's the deficit? What do I need to change and

Should I feel ashamed? because Maybe people know Already that I haven't been ringing my a-game and nobody's told me and they've all been talking about me The brain just runs off in all of these Possibilities and then that's what creates the stress right and the additional strain because Stress is just the brain predicting the future And that's what we see very commonly with female leaders that their brain will automatically Induce them into a stress state because they're making predictions based on you know Our mental models are the coding that exists in our brain and is thinking about all the possible Issues beforehand and all of the ways that this could play out rather than just accepting A very simple statement for what it is. Oh, we're expecting good things tomorrow. Great to know We break it down. We over analyze a comment like that

So where does the responsibility lie in that kind of place? And i'm thinking with this as well My wife doesn't listen to all the podcasts But i'll tell her to listen to this one because I know she'd be smiling Because she's also a leader but in a different field in writing and journalism And she's had those experiences where I know she's received emails About a proof and she's read something in a certain way and it's just destroyed her thinking for the night She's been thinking what have I done wrong? Just a guy has made a comment about one of her bosses do this or can you change this and she's thought what have I done Wrong, where has all this gone wrong and then actually learned very later that It was just a quick comment put in there and this guy didn't even really realize Just what it would do. But where does the responsibility lie in helping us get past that?

There's no simple straightforward answer to that, right? I certainly think that as women leaders there's work that we can do to Recognize it 90% of the battle is just catching yourself going. Oh I've climbed up some crazy ladder here the stories i'm telling myself If I view them objectively, are they true? You know, what do I know to be the truth?

And if we can recognize this is our brain just whirring on around things that we don't have Complete pieces of information for then we can let some of that go and we must you know That is a skill that all of us, you know, all human beings need to work on is Just stopping and taking stock and saying what do I know to be true? Are there other ways to interpret this message? I really love the six pack technique that they use in nlp around What are the other versions and they can be wild but just what other perspectives could we take? From this one sentence or this one piece of communication And it's not even about always coming to Another story that feels more appropriate. It's just going through the process of acknowledging

That there are so many alternative views and perspectives around what's happening and why it's happening This episode is supported by the international curriculum association The ica have been around for about 30 years now championing quality Unlocking potential and improving learning in international schools And what I really love is that right at their core is the model for improving learning This is a model focused on the learning experience and they have tons of great curriculum materials PD resources and even an accreditation pathway for schools just like yours if you're interested head over to international curriculum.com I'm thinking as a leader in the space, you know as a man, where would my responsibility fit in? Let's say i'm a leader in a school and I want to reduce that self-doubt Happening in the school like at the places where I can start to take a bit of responsibility Yeah, you know, nobody is saying to like a male leader. You need to be careful of what you say That's really dangerous territory because what a double standard for me to sit here and say this about women and then say to men You've got to be something that you are not But if you're prepared to have that conversation If you're prepared to use it as a way to build relationships and build trust and say You know what when we communicate?

What are aspects of that communication that you really like? What do you need from me? How can I best serve you and your style within my own leadership? Just recognizing that I don't think there are many leaders out there that say things with bad intentions There's always going to be crazy leaders spiteful leaders difficult people Those aside, you know, they're just universal where we have to figure out other strategies to work through them Generally, these things are done with incredibly good intentions or no intention that they're just neutral So being able to sit down with female leaders and say what do you need from me is incredibly important And to revisit that regularly as well I have a female leader who I coach that says at different points in the year. I need different things

At the start of the year. I really need somebody who's going to champion me who's going to over egg the praise Who's going to resist the temptation to make minor corrections because those minor corrections are incredibly overwhelming For a senior female leader who's trying to manage getting the kids back to school The kids are you know these last couple of weeks at the start of school Kids are crazy. They're behaving their very best in school They get home and they get into their parents arms and all hell breaks loose You are their safety net and it ruins all of your evening as well You can't get any work done if you wanted to go to the gym forget it because it's just such an intense Experience for your children to get back into that routine. It's an incredible pull and it's exhausting We love our children and we love our families, but there is a toil to the emotional overload of Going back to school if you have kids, let alone going back to work Being the support system for other family members and doing a good job and wanting to be successful yourself So to go back to this female leader, she was saying this first month of the year As much as you might see incremental ways that I can improve please save them. I'm not

Secure enough to deal with even the smallest Request right now Let's talk about these things maybe in october in november But right now you only have to say one thing and i'm gonna hone in i'm gonna focus on that So just having the kind of relationship which supports those conversations around how can I best show up for you? What do you need from me? What are three things you'd like to hear me say this week? What are some things you want me to avoid bringing into your work or space this week?

Where are you, you know, just using a simple thing like a scale technique is a check-in and saying Where are we? How are we all feeling coming into this week? What have we got going on that might influence our work and our relationships? I love that simple question, you know, what do you need?

And for me it's it's bringing up i'm imagining some listeners might go gosh Does this mean i'm having to treat my women staff differently to treat in your male staff and actually this is a good question You should be asking for everyone really But it's just going to really help those people who do need something from you or do need to communicate something from you And then if you can respond to that Then you are making your organization much more a safe place for a much more efficient place as well Because you're playing to each people's strengths But you're just giving them the tools to express that and it takes some modeling and there will be people that never access it and say Nope, i'm fine. Thank you very much. Leave me alone There are other people that will say no, that's a really weird question But then they'll see that being modeled by others that who are prepared to say well, actually this is what's going on for me Right now so over a longer term process if you're prepared to come back to these check-in points You'll see people go. Huh? Okay, that's interesting. That was actually a fruitful experience

It wasn't held against them because that's another thing that a lot of female leaders fear if they open up and share What are you going to do with that information? That's right And not only that I imagine but people thinking if I come across challenging in any way To what's happening, you know, what's going to happen not just like you but what can happen in our relationship between me And this is my colleague got me and my manager i'm thinking back claire I think it would be good for us to talk about so for listeners claire and I both in shanghai both now in the same Office i've got an education office, but so yes to that. Yeah and we Even though we've both been in shanghai while we only met recently And we met up for lunch and we were chatting and claire pulled me up on my podcast Which I think what has been So useful for me, but I think it links to what we were just saying and how you can approach these conversations in the right way So let's kind of go back to that space. So We were sat, you know having a lovely meal and you mentioned something about the podcast. You've seen something right? I did

Yeah, oh gosh, so I'd seen the podcast growing in popularity On linkedin and just through sharing and of course the first thing I noticed was the lack of women And I thought when I go for lunch with shane I must tell him not ask him. I must tell him About his lack of women on the podcast. So i'd climbed straight up as well in sort of making an assumption Shane is actively avoiding putting women on his podcast. I'm gonna have to talk to him about this And you know straight out sort of very directly asked you that question which Again going back that's probably one of the bold streaks that other men find problematic Um, but i'm so glad I did because I saw your face light up to say Well, you know claire No female has approached me And me stopping and thinking What what do you mean and you going on to explain and say yeah, you know Male leaders getting touched me all the time and say hey i've seen your podcast i'd like to come on and be a guest female leaders Don't do that I mean and that started a wonderful conversation between us around well How do we create the conditions for women to do that? What's missing?

What might be that block and just talking about how you know I'd also been guilty as much as I enjoy going for lunch What I hadn't done is messaged and said shane you need me on your podcast In the same way that maybe a male leader in my position absolutely would have done So there is a mental block there There is something that Is stopping women from putting themselves forward and out there in the same way that A male counterpart may find incredibly intuitive Which for both of us felt such an incredible area of inquiry, right? Yes, it really really fascinating and to me I did light up at the question and and I guess both of us working in the coaching area. We love questions Anyway, so these kind of things are good, but I'd also I recognized i'd seen that as well for myself I remember putting a poster together for my podcast at an event. I was speaking at and thinking Oh gosh, look at that like look, you know how little women are presented there There's a problem there saying what's happening here And I think what was really powerful for me is just the fact you asked that question because it forced me to challenge myself To think well, what do I need to do to make this better?

And this is where you know, I feel um, he says a lot of controversial things But at this I feel very strongly against the kind of narrative that is being set by people like jordan peterson or people like that in the world where You know the patriarchy doesn't exist for example or just that there are certain places where Women are drawn to and men are drawn to and there's there's absolute truth in that, you know, no doubt denying that But the problem is is that also just puts an excuse to people like myself who run a podcast It could be an easy excuse to go i'm not being approached by that many women therefore not my problem Not my problem that they're not coming on the podcast, but it is my problem It's it's all of our problems because if I truly believe in Inspiring leaders and helping leaders with strategies then I need to be speaking to all leaders and representing all leaders So it is my problem So then it gets you thinking on well, what can I do to reduce those barriers? And I think that's where our conversation was quite interesting. It's like where do I sit within that space? As a podcaster, how can I reduce the barriers to some women who may not be actively Pushing outwards towards me. Does that mean I have to change my strategy and approach more people less people come to me

Does it also mean that I have easier barriers from getting in for example one thing is Afterwards I didn't share this with you, but I have a also an application form that guests can complete Now interestingly, I offer this to most of my guests Most guests who take it are women who prefer that structure thing I can compose myself and represent myself well enough if i'm given that space Yeah And I wonder if that's another Thing that because I know now i've got many women guests coming up on a podcast who have opted to complete this application form structure Their thoughts and it's led to a great conversation together, but it's taken me to send them something to structure that So it's really got me thinking How am I approaching? Others and not just women by the way, but also how am I i'm based in asia? I don't think i've yet got an asian person on the podcast. That's a problem. Yeah

You know, how am I representing the black community? How am I represent lgbtq like And it's not just about going through and ticking the box and getting the percentage, right? But how am I making sure my message is getting out there and encouraging people to get involved? And I guess it's a similar thing that a leader has to do in terms of reflecting What is the culture that i'm putting out there? What am I just taking for granted?

Yeah, what little tweaks can I make to bring women more to the front or make them more likely to have a voice? Absolutely. Yeah, and that's so interesting you mentioned about the form as well Because it just goes to show how different women may also process this Because I looked at your form and replied and said Shane i'm not filling that in Well, i'll fill that question in but i'm not filling the other question in You know how many other people will have looked at the form and gone? Oh gosh, that feels incredibly intimidating. I'm doubting my knowledge

I'm doubting what I can offer what my value and therefore i'm just going to pretend that I never requested the form So, you know even just being inclusive of adding blurbs on things that say hey Here's some questions that are designed to guide your thinking if they don't work for you Yeah, great. That's a good if you want to take a different approach great i'm all ears. This is not prescriptive They're merely there as a tool if you choose to leverage them Little things like that are a great way to just show flexibility without fundamentally changing the need that You need people to think through what they want to talk about on your podcast Things like that. They're not a huge deal. I love that i'm going to change that. I love that

I've taken that advice. I'm definitely going to look at that and what I love about these things is it's not about saying Okay, uh, you know i've only got 30 percent women. So for the next two months i'm just only going to approach It's not about like creating All women's shortlist for your podcast or whatever like that and they have their place in places Absolutely, but it can just be about just changing your mindset and thinking what might it be like approaching from the other side? Yeah, and not just for a woman but also for you know, a man who might have that That trade it's not just about attracting women But you're also probably likely in my case attracting a very certain type of man in the situation Correct. I was invited to apply for a job last year and the recruiter sent me the website link to the school

And I clicked on the link and I won't say too much detail because I don't want to give it away But it was a group of six men in black tie Shaking hands all of them shaking hands and I immediately replied to the recruiter and said nope Number one, there was obviously no women on that picture. But number two Automatically in my head that one image told me a huge amount whether accurate or not about the school and about the culture and immediately I had No desire to read on so just thinking about you know, an image can be incredibly powerful The decisions we make about the pictures that go with our even our social media text I can remember a few years ago pulling up a marketing team for The headline being about the girls football team winning the league But the lead picture on the carousel was the boys team And just again very innocent. Yes, nothing meant by it But just such a small change, you know How do we ensure that the headline story is also the first picture on the carousel? Little things like that that just require a bit more attention to detail And that's the word it's attention, isn't it? That's the power. That's the power move here. It's not about

Taking on a strategy x y z it's just about attention Giving attention to this and maybe just asking yourself a few questions that might make you a bit uncomfortable at first or you know but if you approach them with Openness and humility and and hopefully if you're raising this you're not doing it in a judgmental way But like you're doing it in a safe way Then that reflection process in itself might give you the answers you need Rather than going and finding an expert to tell you what to do on how to you know, it's always the process That's where the majority of the learning is right I love brené brown's example when she talks about you know, here's what I have heard And here's the story i'm telling myself And I think recognizing that that story is a fabrication in our brains and that's worth exploring Absolutely. So is there anything that we haven't covered in that conversation? By the way listeners we plan to talk about all sorts of things that we've just Gone off on a total tangent and talked about what we wanted to talk about which is great But I wonder if there's anything that we've missed that you feel is important to get across Oh gosh, well you're pulling a thread that could unravel before your very eyes there shane But um now I think we've covered a lot of the main points I suppose i'd i'd really like to end just with an invitation to be bold To explore and to not carry or try to not carry the shame around decisions particularly Letting go of what has already happened if you're one of those women that are plagued by Should haves and could-ofs or I wish i'd have handled this differently. I wish i'd done that differently giving yourself the space and the Forgiveness to just let go and say i'm a different person today than I was yesterday and eyes forward Let's march on and i'm gonna do my very best and bring my best for better or worse This is me what's and all and just look for opportunities to leverage who you are Your true identity and and if you're not sure who that is, then that's worth exploring Didn't I tell you this conversation was going to challenge you it really got me thinking about rethinking those leadership Labels, you know terms like perfectionist imposter syndrome. They often become weapons rather than actual

Frameworks and what appears maybe as a weakness like that perfectionism actually can be strengths It also really opened my eyes to the double bind from many women leaders who adopt traditionally masculine leadership traits It leads to criticism, but not displaying these traits can also lead to criticism. I really liked that there was some practical steps I think there's a few things we can do from this episode. We need to check our communication patterns How might messages be received differently by different communities in your school? Can you have a review of your visual representations in your school communications? What do they look like?

What are the barriers for participation and leadership advancement for women in your setting? And when you're looking for change, can you look for systemic changes rather than quick fixes? It's not just about Counting representation. It's about creating conditions where all Leaders can drive and you should pay attention to those small details that signal exclusion and really challenge Yourself and others about what good leadership looks like You can find Claire and Claire's amazing work using the links in the show notes Global of Leaders is hosted by me Shane Leaning Thanks to the show editor Pete McGill and for the original music by Guilleme Silver Thank you so so much for tuning in today. And if we don't speak before

I'll see you here next week If you want to improve learning in your school, don't forget to check out the ICA at internationalcurriculum.com