In this episode, Wendy Kane, Director of Sales Leadership Development at Ricoh Americas Corporation, 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, Wendy Kane, director of sales leadership Development at Rico Americas 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?
Wendy Cane
I think so. I’m not sure how much of a stop it is, or it isn’t. I’ll give you a story. Back in my sales days, I found it very easy to get in the door as a sales rep. In fact, I had people that would jump up and open the door for me. I’ll use it. Right? You get in however you get in. That works for me. Right. So I would get in, but then I would find, as I was sitting in the office, that I sell technology, and I sell technology systems and infrastructure and programs and services. Well, pat, pat on the head. How could you possibly understand that? So I could get two sides of the same coin. Did I get in the door much more easily? Yes. Did it sometimes cost me from a credibility standpoint? Look at you.
You’re cute. There’s no way that you would possibly know anything about technology. So, there are assumptions that we as humans make about other people. And I think that there are those same assumptions that are made whether you’re male or female. There are certain assumptions that people make about women and what they can do and what they can’t do, what they know and what they don’t know. And it’s endemic in many ways, myself included. All of us grew up with a certain parameter, certain set of expectations, and even cultural cues that are even so subtle that you don’t know what exactly they are. But they still have influence. So, yeah, there’s a difference. There’s a difference coming and going. So trains go east, trains go west. Pick a card. We all have our advantages. Hopefully, we use them.
And we all have our disadvantages, and hopefully, we mitigate them.
Conclusion
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