Jeffery Tobias Halter
Corporate Gender Strategist
President of YWomen
Jeffery Tobias Halter is president of YWomen, a strategic consulting company focused on engaging men in women’s leadership advancement. Founder of the Father of Daughter Initiative, creator of the Gender Conversation QuickStarters Newsletter and the Male Advocacy Profile, Jeffery is a former director of diversity strategy for The Coca-Cola Company and is the author of two books, WHY WOMEN, The Leadership Imperative to Advancing Women and Engaging Men and Selling to Men, Selling to Women.
I would not be where I am today if not for some amazing men who opened door for me during then course of my career, my goal is to acknowledge men who get it and ultimately provide a roadmap to multiply them. Jeffery created the road map.
I reconnected with Jeffery to get his perspective on some serious issues, including COVID, impacting women today.
Here is Jeffery’s insight.
· Has COVID impacted women more than men? If so, how?
The pandemic has affected everyone. However, women are taking the brunt of the impact. Many men -- for the first time or in new ways -- are experiencing the myriad of challenges involved with balancing children, homeschooling, work obligations and virtual meetings. Women are dealing with more stress than they've ever experienced, and they are ultimately taking on significantly more work than in the past or dropping out of the workforce altogether.
A July Fortune article reported that while only 6 percent of working mothers reported in April that they would likely need to quit their jobs, that number had risen to 27 percent by mid-summer. I can only presume the number will continue to rise. Additionally, we must consider four factors that are impacting women more than men.
Women are experiencing layoffs at a significantly greater rate than men.
Women are often on the front lines of the virus in their day-to-day work -- not just healthcare workers, but now teachers and most service professions, which are dominated by women.
Women are, as always, experiencing the double-bind of having a full-time job at work and another at home, but now have added the triple-bind of managing home schooling to their already crammed calendar. I’ve talked to women who, after getting their kids to bed, are staying up until midnight or later to catch up on emails and work and getting up again at 5 a.m. to manage the household and prepare for the school day. While men have stepped up, it still does not match the data we're seeing for women.
The uncertainty of the pandemic has caused an unbelievable amount of stress in women’s lives. Women are saying they’re drowning, and too often, their managers and senior leaders are not noticing the white flag being raised.
· Why is leading with empathy now more important than ever?
For the reasons we discussed above, as we navigate COVID, leading with empathy is more important than ever. As a manager, if you’re interested in retaining your team and coming out of the current crisis without a major disruption in your women’s leadership metrics, leaders must be attuned to their employees. Historically, most leaders and managers have never been trained to demonstrate, let alone embrace, this critical leadership trait. The ability to lead with empathy will create the kind of atmosphere that Google has identified as necessary to nurture high performing teams. This includes one that exhibits psychological safety, which features empathy at its core. Empathy requires tapping into the authentic desire to understand another’s experience, which is at the heart of inclusion culture. Senior leaders must prioritize listening to women’s experiences and work to find solutions to challenges.
· What are steps men can take to advance women at work?
To advance women at work, men must Listen, Learn, Lead and Have the Will. These are the solutions to the four common barriers that can prevent or hinder active male engagement. And the order is important! Often, men in senior roles are conditioned to lead first, which includes coming up with a solution to a problem quickly. However, it’s important to first listen and learn before trying to lead. In the listening and learning process, senior leaders will gain a deeper understanding of the root causes and systemic issues that have halted progress over time.
It’s a mistake to dismiss the importance of men in driving a women’s leadership initiative. In most organizations, men are still 80 percent of Senior Leadership, which means they represent 80 percent of the solution. Simply put, we will never drive long-term systemic change for women without active male advocacy.
“Leadership looks like asking tough questions. ”
· What are your thoughts on men who comment "I'm a husband and a dad so of course I support women"?
I will acknowledge that more men are stepping up, particularly millennials. But there is a difference between supporting women and becoming a true advocate for advancing women.
Believe it or not, many men never make the connection that if we as men, as fathers of daughters, aren’t advocating for women’s advancement and workplace equity, we are actually betraying our daughters and their opportunity for a better future.
In my experience, most men still lead very compartmentalized lives. For the most part, we head off to work in the mornings focused on the workday ahead. We may drop off the kids once in a while or coach our daughter’s soccer team, but unless a family event appears on our calendars, we rarely make the connection between family and work. This was my experience as a Boomer father.
It’s time for men to make the connection between women at work and the work environment our daughters will inherit. It’s time for men to make the connection between the women in their lives and the inequalities and biases in the workplace. It’s time for more men to become advocates for women.
“Advocacy means taking action. In this case, male advocacy means taking meaningful steps to create and sustain gender equity at work.”
My Male/Gender Advocacy Profile has shown time and again that most men (and many women!) believe in the concept of gender equity, but few take daily action to become gender advocates. The word “ally” is too soft in my opinion. There is a difference between saying “I stand with women” and actually taking steps to advance them in the workplace. Advocacy means taking action. In this case, male advocacy means taking meaningful steps to create and sustain gender equity at work, advocating for diverse slates and panels, making connections to your network for women and giving them opportunities for stretch assignments, speaking up against microaggressions, sponsoring women and filling the talent pipeline with qualified women and lobbying for gender pay equity. Whatever your sphere of influence, there are actions everyone can take to advance women at work.
