Anne Marie Graham

It is neither a shock nor a secret that the research shows that companies who have gender balance on their boards and at C Suite level tend to outperform the organisations that do not. One of the biggest changes I am seeing in my almost 20 years of working with and dealing with women leaders is that finally women are not just talking about gender equality, they are actually proactively fighting for it and challenging it, the most notable and well document element of this being closing the gender pay gap.

It is my experience that women bring more diverse physical, mental and emotional experiences to the table and as organisations are now looking at a more values-based leadership model, this gives women an ideal opportunity to shine, as the skills, attitudes and perspectives they demonstrate will allow organisations to make decisions in a different way and become more innovative. And as women, we need to embrace this, we need to be visible, we need to be out there leading this discussion now.

I saw the gender inequality at the very outset of my career, which started in nursing. Nursing is a predominantly female led profession and yet the majority of the senior level and executive level management positions were held by men. This was a historical issue, certainly in Ireland and the UK. About 2 years after I qualified, I went into Occupational Health (Workplace Health) and the same scenario existed, executive and management positions, both healthcare and administrative, were predominantly held by men. I teach my clients to create their own circumstances and if they do not like the circumstances in front of them, they must challenge their perspective and look at what they can do differently, for a different and a better outcome. I saw earlier on, that while many women complained about the gender inequality, few were really willing to challenge it and do anything proactive. That lead me to setting up my own workplace health company, if I owned the company, I was going to be the CEO and have total control over all of the decisions of my business and my career. It also meant that I was in control of my own destiny and wasn’t going to have to wait until the females in my profession challenged the gender paradigm.

In my own career, I also realised early on that building a supportive network in a space that males dominate (I have been in business almost 20 years) was a chance to seek both men and women as connections and mentors who helped me along my career path and the networks which I have gained the most experience from, have been the balance of both genders. But it required me to change, my gender inequality paradigm. Being female in a predominantly led male environment actually allowed me to be more visible when I decided that was the perspective, I was going to view it from. I love the quote that “we find what we focus on”, when I focused on being female in a predominantly led male environment actually allowing me to be more visible, that is exactly the outcome I got, and it helped me grow my business. In requiring myself to be visible, to be seen, I also had to come out of my comfort zone, and had to challenge myself and change my perspective. Whilst being self-employed is not suitable for all women, the principles are the same.