Like you, I flinch when I hear gender adjectives used where they aren’t necessary – a ‘female’ GP, a ‘female CEO’. We shouldn’t need to call these out. The gender is largely irrelevant.

So why have I written a white paper specifically on Female GMs? (Download here)

The further up the company you go, the fewer women you see.

There are hurdles everyone has to jump to make GM and this paper would be useful for anyone applying for the role.

However, research shows that not only are the hurdles higher for women due to organisational/societal bias, but women are often mistaking what they need to succeed – what the hurdles are.

One could argue that companies should place higher value on what women bring. Even if when they don’t bring some skills/don’t demonstrate some behaviours, they bring others. Of course.

However, while I’ll petition for the world to change, I want women to know what’s holding them back that they can actually do something about – without having to ‘become men’ to do it.

I want women to succeed in this world, not just a future world.

While we need to do more to crack the glass ceiling from above, we can give women better tools to break through from below.

This white paper provides some of those tools.

Get it here.

And if you are a people-pleaser, giving your self-worth to random strangers to look after, start planning how to take it back and own it.

Others will be careless with it. It’s not as precious to anyone else as it is to you.