In this episode, Kelly Chickos, Senior Manager of Global Learning and Development at STERIS, talks about the challenges women face as leaders.
Episode Transcript
Introduction
Welcome to Leadership Quick Takes from The Center for Leadership Studies. In this episode, Kelly Chicos, senior manager of Global Learning and Development at STERIS Corporation, talks about the challenges women face as leaders. For The Center for Leadership Studies, here’s your host, Sam Shriver.
Sam Shriver
How about women in leadership? Do women leaders, in particular, from your experience, face different challenges than their male counterparts?
Kelly Chickos
Let me start with the question. As a male, has anyone ever asked you how do you do it all?
Sam Shriver
No.
Kelly Chicos
Okay. So, as a woman in leadership, I get that question all the time, and I got it more so when my children were younger, and I was working full time. So, that is definitely a huge challenge. So, the solution for that challenge for me was having a great partner. My husband was a tremendous help in all the family responsibilities and such so that we could both have successful careers. But I think women hear that message all the time that you can’t have it all. And sometimes very talented women will, I’ll call it, opt-out from higher opportunities because they feel that they can’t be successful in leading a family and in leading at work. So, it’s unfortunate that some women feel that they have to opt-out.
The other thing regarding women in leadership that comes to mind is if you talk to a male that is mentoring a woman so often, they will say that they’re really looking at mentoring so she can show up stronger, have a higher degree of self-esteem. But if that same male is coaching another male, he may say he’s coaching on business finance strategy, so they’re not equal conversations.
Conclusion
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