Gillian Fox in an interview with Gemma Dawkins, former Managing Editor for the EDIT, AllBright Collective – 21 September 2021

Career coach, mentor, sponsor – do you know the difference?

And do you need them all in your corner? Gillian Fox is the brilliant woman behind the women’s leadership and development company Gillian Fox Group. She knows what it takes, having been a senior executive herself. And she knows what holds many women back.

So, what is holding women back?

It’s not necessarily what you might think. “It really irks me when people say that the reason that women as a group can’t reach the top of their game, is because women don’t speak up, or they don’t ask, or they’re too nice, or another common one is they simply opt out. I think all of those messages tell women that they’re not enough, and they are. The women we work with are incredibly smart, ambitious. They have a great appetite to progress in their careers and in their lives.” In Gillian’s experience, women have all the qualities needed to step into C-suite. And she tells us exactly what they are.

But before you angle for the corner office, she says, the first step is to decide whether you actually want to. “There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to go all the way to the top”, she says. It’s not for everyone – but if you want it, she’s here to tell you exactly how to get it. Because “if you truly believe that you deserve a seat at the table, you will bring your own chair, figuratively speaking”.

So pull yours up, because we’re about to find out what it takes to be a leader, what a career coach actually does, and why the 10 year management mark can be such a complex time for women…

Unintentional gender bias

We know that only about 8% of the fortune 500 is led by women. Having seen it from both sides, what are some of the barriers preventing women from stepping into these positions in C-suite?

I think one of the fundamental barriers comes from second generation gender bias. Let me give you some background to that. First generation gender discrimination is intentional acts of bias against women. Second generation gender bias is unintentional, but it can translate as marginalising women.

Think of a situation where there might be 10 people sitting around a boardroom table, eight are men, two are women. During that meeting, two men lead the discussion. It makes sense that they lead the discussion, it’s their area of expertise. But, during that meeting, they made very little eye contact with the women present. Now, it may not be intentional. It could be very subconscious, but they simply engage the men in that meeting, not the women.

So the women leave that meeting feeling a bit depleted. They can’t put their finger on it, but they just don’t feel included or valued. This kind of bias is still rife in organisations, even in organisations where they’re trying to create more inclusive environments. It impacts culture, it impacts practice, and even though it can appear neutral and natural, it doesn’t produce a great result for women wanting to step up into executive positions.

Lack of sponsorship

Probably equally an invisible barrier, even though it’s very prevalent, is the lack of sponsorship for women. We know how important mentoring is to career success. Having a sponsor is even more critical to advancing in the workplace. I don’t think this is well-recognised. My experience is that a lot of people, and a surprising number of senior people, executives and board members, they actually don’t know what a sponsor is, or how they differ from mentors, and yet sponsors can create real opportunities for women.

The difference between mentors, sponsors, and career coaches

Mentors are confidants. They listen, they give advice and support. They are great at giving us perspective. While sponsors, they’re often senior people that see our potential. They’ll vouch for us. They offer visibility and help remove barriers. A sponsor will vouch for you when you’re not in the room. They’ll vouch for you when the doors are closed in the decision-making room. That’s why we say mentors help skill you up, but sponsors, they help move you up.

And career coaches are different again. A career coach is someone who’s going to ask you lots of questions. That is their job, to probe and ask questions, and to lead you on a journey of self-discovery. A mentor is someone who’s going to give you the advice and perspective. The sponsor is someone who’s going to vouch for you. So, they’re very different.

Which one’s the most high risk? It’s the sponsor, because if I’m sitting in a room saying, ‘well, this person would be awesome for that’, if they’re not awesome for that, it will come back on to my reputation. So, it’s a much more high risk. There’s lots of research that says that women are over mentored and under sponsored.

Building the leadership pipeline

This is one of the challenges, it kind of relates back to the first point around bias. People will sponsor people like them, with careers like them. That’s what we do, organically, it’s not intentional. So if you’re a male senior exec, and there’s plenty of them, it’s highly probable that you will sponsor someone like yourself with a career path like yours. That would be a bloke in a similar career journey. This is a huge problem for building a leadership pipeline for women.

The interesting thing about sponsors and mentors, is that you could ask me to mentor you, but you can’t ask me to sponsor you. You have to earn that. Sponsorship is alive and well in organisations, but unfortunately, it’s got that filter of sponsoring people like yourself. It doesn’t put the spotlight on talented women. I think that’s a huge barrier. That lack of sponsorship in organisations, I think, is preventing talented women from advancing into senior and executive roles.

Creating an open and inclusive environment

Let’s go back to the example you gave of the board room meeting where the presenters only made eye contact with the men in the room. How can women address these sorts of issues?

Companies are trying to create these open and inclusive environments. Let’s say one of us attended that meeting and we had that experience, and we made the observation that ‘I feel depleted because I wasn’t included, there was not enough eye contact.’ I would go to the person that perhaps I had the best relationship with in that meeting, and I would say to them, ‘I found the meeting today a little disruptive. My observation, it may not have been intentional, is that the conversation was very much geared towards the men in the room and the eye contact was with these people. As a consequence of that, my experience and my feeling is, I felt a bit marginalised. I didn’t feel included in that. Is that something that we could do differently next time?’

But I think you need a trusted ally to say that. I think that’s the sort of situation where either the conversation is a success, and you stay with the organisation, but if the conversation and maybe subsequent ones aren’t, then you’re probably not going to stay with the company, are you?

10 plus years of management experience? What next?

Talk to me about what happens when you have say 10 plus years of management experience. What are the next steps?

I love this question, because I don’t think people think about this very much. I think it’s a very important time of a woman’s career. 10 plus years, so they’re in their thirties, maybe early forties. Things feel very different for women at this time. It’s a very interesting time. These are some of the things that they will tell me. They’ll say, ‘The business environment feels more political, my stakeholders more difficult. I’d love some more feedback, but I’m getting less feedback than ever, because my boss is really occupied, and I’ve never worked so hard in my life.’ So while on paper they might look like these seasoned leaders with their 10 plus years management experience, this can be a time when their career feels more complex and uncertain than ever before.

I know through career coaching these women, they ask themselves things like, ‘should I aspire to more? I’d like to move into an executive role, but how do I do that? Can I do that?’ I think there’s a couple of reasons driving this questioning, this uncertainty. One, can sometimes be just a lack of role models in the business. If you’re a female sitting in a leadership position, and you look up to the senior executive ranks, and there’s a sea of blokes, I think it can be disheartening. It makes women cautious. Another reason that I hear a lot is, women can have great experiences with their performance reviews, but they don’t have someone actually helping them to take the actual steps in the organisation to progress. We all need someone in our corner advocating for us and helping us make that next promotion.

Developing C-suite and board potential

How do you develop C-suite and board potential? Is it just a matter of extra training? Do we need to be thinking about diversifying our skills? What can women do to really be proactive about this, if that’s where we want to go to next?

Well, when I’m coaching women who aspire to an executive or board position in the future, I encourage them to do some research. I want them to go out and understand what the role looks like, where their skill set might be, and if it does truly excite them, because there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to go all the way to the top. It’s still an impressive ambition, wanting to be a high performing senior leader. Part of the research, and this is set for them in the coaching process, is I tell them to hit the market. Go speak to some executives and some board members. Be curious. Ask them about their career journey, what they’ve learned along the way, what’s been the hardest lesson for them, what they loved most about the job, and what advice you would give to me.

They go off and do this, and they come back to their coaching session with what I call the data, all these findings. They’re full of energy. They’re literally bursting with possibility, because now they have a deeper sense of the opportunity. They feel connected with it, and they’ve hung out with some incredible human beings. Most people are pretty generous, they see the situations and are happy to provide insights and advice. I think women need to be very proactive with this sort of stuff. You’ve got to start by really having a good understanding of what you’re pursuing and build that wire frame for yourself.

Making decisions with speed and conviction

Are there any particular qualities that women in C-suite and on boards possess, that you notice?

I’ll hone in on three. The first is around strategic thinking. You have to have that ability to articulate the strategic direction, and effectively execute that strategic vision.

The second is adaptability. I think even though everyone needs to be adaptable, it’s just the spotlight is so much on the executives, and they have to lead the charge. They probably have to be more agile than the rest of us.

The final one, which I think catches people off guard if they’re not good at this, is their ability to decide with speed and conviction. Earlier on in your career, you get to consult. You have a little bit more space and time. But when you get to the more senior ranks, you need to be decisive, particularly under pressure. You need to make decisions earlier, faster, and with greater conviction. It’s a skill. Because people need that direction.

Accessing the pathway to the C-suite

What can businesses do to support the women rising up through their ranks, and make sure that they have access to this pathway to C-suite, if that’s where they want to go?

I think businesses need to do just two simple things. I think they need to create more opportunities for senior women to broaden their experience and network. They need more visibility. They need that breadth of business experience to help them rise. We probably need to listen more. When you look at things like the WGEA data, a lot of organisations experience a higher attrition at that senior leadership level for women. It’s hard to build the leadership pipeline if the women aren’t there. When women leave, I think organisations need to get a lot better at asking them why they’re leaving, really trying to understand why they’re leaving, and using that information. Data can be very powerful.

Quotas versus targets

California requires all corporations to have at least one female director on their board. Do you think this is the way to go? Are quotas and targets necessary to improve the gender gap at the executive level?

Everyone asks me this, and it’s a good question. It’s a really good question. I’m a bigger fan of targets than quotas. There’s only a subtle difference, I know. But for me, a quota is imposed. They are experienced as a mandated business outcome, whereas the target is more of an aspirational goal. I think as businesspeople, we’re very conditioned to achieving goals and targets, and I think we do it well, but I’m a big fan of the old target. I think the biggest issue in it all, is the lack of systematic reporting. Just getting transparency, doing the exit interviews, and just collecting that important information that helps us make better decisions moving forward. Targets just feel more inclusive to me.

The passionate career coach

As a career coach, what’s been your proudest moment, and have you got any success stories you can share with us?

There is this kind of quiet sense of pride that you experience every week being a career coach. It might just be as simple as scrolling through LinkedIn and seeing someone you coached five years ago, appointed to a senior gig. It might be an existing client that you saw in the morning, and they’ve told you that they’ve had the guts to have this important conversation, and it’s had a really positive impact on their career. Or, it might be getting a beautiful heartfelt note in your inbox from someone that you coached a year ago, telling you about their promotion, and how much the career coaching helps them.

I think good career coaches are very passionate about wanting the people that they work with to be really successful. Whatever success is for them, I think it’s that real genuine desire for them to feel good about themselves, and get out there with a bit of courage, and go for it.

If you’d like to hear more on mentors and sponsors, head to Episode 8 of the Your Brilliant Career podcast or search for Your Brilliant Career wherever you go for your podcasts.