Women are natural communicators. When we get together to talk about anything at all we come alive, and thrive on sharing ideas. This was borne out at a seminar last week hosted by The Coaching Room for women seeking professional fulfilment. The room hummed with 27 inspirational women – engineers, lawyers, digital strategists, naturopaths, accountants, web designers, actresses, therapists and band managers to teachers of traditional afternoon tea.
The generations represented in the room had been raised with the expectation of gender equality, both in the home as well as workplace, only to find that nothing has really changed since their grandmothers’ time.
It quickly became apparent that the issue of career choice and how to combine a domestic and professional life presents a profound challenge, particularly for mothers taking maternity leave from highflying careers.
We also heard from apologists who claimed to be only mothers, one of whom admitted that whilst heading for senior management, her greatest joy was building towers with her baby.
The generations represented in the room had been raised with the expectation of gender equality, both in the home as well as workplace, only to find that nothing has really changed since their grandmothers’ time. In many professions and industries, the parity in the numbers of men at women at junior level transforms at senior management into a preponderance of men….look at the Cabinet.
As participants shared their challenges and insights, they experienced validation in their struggle to reconcile ambition with motherhood, and for those without children, between love and financial independence.
The event provided a forum for women to connect beyond colleague or friendship, as a supportive system where externalising internal conflict became a shared battle.
Using the awareness demonstrated in these ideas to build female-supported corporate cultures, where high status career paths allow for successful personal lives, women can create a satisfying professional life for themselves and for the men around them.
The Coaching Room organises in-house seminars to provoke and stimulate conversation, in the service of personal and professional development. Topics include High heels in the Boardroom, How to Handle Difficult Women/Men, Dealing With Covert Gender Bias, How to Stop Emotions from Becoming Organisational Problems and How Can Introverts and Extroverts Work Productively Together.
Author Bio
The Coaching Room partners are Yifhat Arnstein, Ros Stone and Maxine Altman, a specialist team of psychologists and executive coaches with management experience in finance,media, sales, law and publishing. With an eye on the human side of business, we are committed to practical, pragmatic and accelerated outcomes. We challenge our clients to think, act and speak in a way that inspires them and others to succeed.
