It can be intimidating to be a woman entering an all-male workplace. Even though the reception is professional you aren’t sure it’s an accurate representation of the environment. You don’t know what your male colleagues really think about working with a woman in their career field and what they are saying about you behind your back.
I’ve navigated this situation many times. I was successful because I didn’t look at the situation from my perspective but through the perspective of my male colleagues.
I know. Many women don’t like me to say that. They believe men simply need to get over their biases and just accept that a woman can do the same job as them.
However, that response fails to recognize that most of the men are in a situation they are absolutely clueless on how to handle.
They need help.
That is why I go into this situation seeing myself as the bigger, more secure and confident person who can help my male colleagues learn and grow. I see beyond myself and my personal interests to recognize that my male colleagues – in spite of their bravado – also have trepidations.
Their primary concern is that they don’t know what my presence means to them personally. Therefore, they don’t TRUST me.
To men trust is enormously important. They want to know that the presence of a new person will not negatively impact them. That is how they define Trust.
As a woman, I only had to look to the negative stereotypes to figure out my male colleagues’ “Trust issues” with a female colleague. Unfortunately, most of them heard about or experienced women that men couldn’t trust. This put an extra burden on me so they needed to Trust that I would:
- Not be a man-hating feminist with an agenda to take down as many men as I could.
- Not be a DEI hire with special privileges.
- Do my job thoroughly, completely and accurately so none of my work was dumped on them.
- Be willing to work hard, get my hands dirty and put in the hours needed to get a job done.
My male colleagues also had some positive expectations of women that I used to build Trust. They learned these from working with women in traditional support roles. And while a few of my male colleagues bravely admitted men knew these were true, they told me not to expect men to admit to it.
- Men knew women were much better at communication. They needed women in writing assignments and for creating presentations. Women could transform their garbled ideas into logical, flowing expressions.
- Men knew women are far better at details and forming complete ideas and solutions.
- They knew women had a smartness, wisdom and intelligence that they needed to listen to because it could keep them out of trouble.
- Women had a different kind of strength. We can handle a tough situation better than men. So, when men really needed to be bailed out, they knew they could depend on women to rescue them.
As women, we need to understand that all of the items I listed are starting points for building Trust. Men have fears so we can’t play into those. Instead, we focus on our strengths and demonstrate that our presence doesn’t create a burden.
We aspire to show that our presence is an enhancement to our workplace.
From my experience I know that the male-dominated workplace is very flawed. And men, no matter how hard they try, can’t fix it on their own because the critical flaw is that their workplace is too male. Therefore, when women come into a male-dominated workplace, we are a natural enhancement if we assert ourselves properly.
However, many women immediately stumble and create unnecessary challenges for themselves. We focus too much on being a woman. We focus on the negatives of biases, discrimination, harassment and what men need to do to make us feel accepted. We create obstacles to building Trust which damage our relationships and careers.
Any woman entering a male environment must recognize that Trust is the foundation on which working relationships are built. After we create Trust, then we can earn Respect. Trust and Respect then work in conjunction with each other to build alliances with our male colleagues.
Those alliances are what we use to advance our career.
Empowered Women Build Trust
To learn more, watch this YouTube video: