Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the influence and impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller. And I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. And I want to become the leadership BFF that you didn't know you were missing until now. It's international women's day this week on the 8th of March. And to celebrate, instead of producing a brand new podcast for you, I am bringing back two of our most popular podcast episodes from last year, which are just perfect for this topic. And they are for you. But if you've already listened to them, you can give them another listen because they're both inspiring, and also remind us what we're dealing with in the workplace on a daily basis. But mainly, I want you to share them, I would like you to share them with your line manager, with your colleagues within your organisation.

I've put loads of content in here, all of which is designed to help us all understand how gender gender bias is showing up in the workplace, and the really simple things that we can do to change it the actions and steps that we can all take, whether we're women, but mainly colleagues, and managers and leaders of women as well. So enjoy this episode, it was originally called breaking the bias because that was the theme of International Women's Day last year.

This year, the theme is embracing equity. And there is no need to do any actual embracing but metaphorically embracing the concept of equity. And at the end, I'll explain a little bit more about how if you want to do more on this, I can work with your organisation on that. Happy listening. Let's dive into this episode. And as I said, do share this with your male colleagues, this episode will be powerful for you to listen to. But it will be so much more powerful if you share it with the men in your working life and probably your personal life as well. So we're going to talk about why Gender Equality matters what men can do as colleagues, what men can do as managers and leaders and what men can do as a family members and friends. Now, it may be an obvious point, but men are absolutely crucial to gender equality. So the evidence shows that when men are deliberately engaged in gender inclusion programmes 96% of organisations see progress compared to only 30% of organisations where men are not engaged. And the reality is that many of the seats of power are still held by men, and in some organisations, the vast majority of them. And so getting men involved is so important.

Plus women who believe that they have strong allies at work feel a greater sense of inclusion and more energy and enthusiasm on the job. They feel seen. They feel recognised, they feel valued. There's also a really strong business case for gender equality. So there's a lot of research, including research from Goldman Sachs to show that having a diversity at senior level, so diversity in leadership, and having more women at senior leadership level and on your board increases profitability, it also increases innovation, creativity, improves the culture, there is so much research out there that makes a business case for gender equality, but there's also the human case.

So if you're listening to this as a man, think of some of the women that you work with, that you respect. They're facing challenges at work that you're probably not aware of, and you can make it easier for them to perform at their best and be recognised for that. And think of the women and the girls and the young women in your life that you know outside of work. Would you want them to be able to fulfil their potential at work without facing additional barriers that you have never had? To face? In all likelihood? There's a great case for everybody getting involved in gender equality and and for men becoming allies. And what does it mean to be an ally? Well, diversity consultant Jennifer Brown recognises that there are different stages of allyship she frames it in a continuum. ranging from apathetic where someone is disinterested or has no idea about gender issues. The next level up is being aware. So having some grasp of the issues, but not at all active or engaged in addressing them. The next stage up is active where you are well informed and willing to engage in gender equity efforts, but only when you're asked to. And then the final stage of ally ship is being an advocate where you're routinely and proactively championing gender inclusion. And my hope is that by attending one of my talks or listening to this episode of the podcast as a man, we can move everyone up a notch, not by making you feel bad, because this episode isn't going to make you feel bad about yourself at all.

This isn't a man problem. It's not a woman problem. It's just a systemic problem. It's about bias being the issue. But I'm hoping that this episode will open your eyes to bias that you might not know exists. And honestly, lots of women don't know it exists. I did not know it existed for years, I was experiencing it. But I put it down to lots of other reasons and just thought, well, that's the way the workplace is. And it is the way the workplace is. But what you will also get from this episode is some really simple ways that you can be part of the solution.

So for the rest of this episode, I know that there are lots of women listening to this, but I'm going to address it to the men that are listening. And I want to talk to you, I imagine that one of your biggest fears about one of these talks or one of these episodes and talking about gender equality, is that you might be made to feel wrong or guilty. And I just want to be clear, this isn't about making men wrong. So do men need to feel guilty for having an advantage? No, or most of us would spend our time feeling guilty because many of us listening to this podcast have advantage of some kind or in the world of equality. The term is privilege. I am a woman, I also have many, many, many advantages and privileges. And feeling guilty about that doesn't actually help anyone being proactive and informed about it is much more helpful. Does the fact that these biases exist mean that men didn't work hard for their positions? No, no, this isn't about taking away from the fact that you, as an individual have probably worked incredibly hard to get your job. Does it mean that men have not experienced challenges at work to know there are many life and work challenges outside of bias. You know, we've all just lived through COVID We all have loved ones that we worry about or that we may have lost.

There were many parents that are juggling things, many carers. So you know, there are so many different challenges in life. And I am not saying that you haven't experienced challenge at work. Also, there are many different forms of bias, including race, sexuality, mental health, neurodiversity, you're probably a very blessed person. Indeed, if you have not been and not experienced some bias, I had a guest on a couple of months ago who shared that I think there's over 200 unconscious biases out there. So we've all got some work to do on that. And breaking the bias is about understanding that women face additional barriers to success in the workplace, because of these unconscious biases. And as I said, right at the start of the episode, many of these biases are held by women too, because their social norms, their assumptions and expectations about gender, that we've absorbed from society, and we've absorbed from the workplace, I started working well, I started working as a Saturday girl at a little woodshop back when they were little shops. So that is really, really ageing me. But I started working in an office environment in 1990.

Maybe 1995, or six, just before I graduated, the world of work was very different than but some of the biases that were so ingrained then are very much around now. The world of work hasn't changed as much as we hope. And well as much as many women and many people will have hoped it would although I think that change is now accelerating and COVID for all of its downsides, has also accelerated that change. But my point is, we have all been absorbing these messages for a long time, whether they're messages about what it means to be a woman in society, or how girls should act and how men should act, but also what it means to succeed in the workplace. If like me, you've been working for 2025 years, you know, so much was ingrained from those that first decade of working When management styles were very, very different, trust me.

Okay, so I've broken this down into a few areas. The first is what can men do as colleagues to be allies and to help break down that bias and the first one is to share the non promotable tasks. So what is a non promotable task? Well, it's time consuming. It won't be recognised as valuable. It doesn't significantly contribute to the business. And it won't show up in your performance review. It's that kind of it's, it's that helpful work. It's the organising activities, scheduling, taking notes, filling in for a colleague. All of these are things that need to be done, but they are non promotable tasks. And why does it matter who does the non promotable tasks, because if you are spending your time on those tasks, you have less time available to spend on tasks that will be measured in your performance evaluation, or will raise your profile, or will help you to build strategic relationships. And so you're unable to really fulfil your potential because you're spending time on things that aren't helping to advance your career or your profile. Now, when it comes to these non promotable tasks, women volunteer for them more often.

So they volunteer for them. 48% more often than men do. They are asked to volunteer 44% more than men are asked to volunteer. And they say yes, more often. So when asked women say yes, 76% of the time, and men say yes, 51% of the time. And why is this? Is it because women are more helpful than men? Is it? Well, I mean, there could be any sorts of reasons. But actually, there was some really interesting research done that showed that there is a shared understanding by both men and women that women will volunteer more. So when they did the research with a group of women, women volunteered about the same percentage of women volunteered as normal. When they did research with a group of men, men volunteered, because they knew someone had to do it. And there wasn't any obvious choice looking around the room because there wasn't a woman in the room. Equally when, when it was a group of women, they knew that someone had to do it. When it was a mixed group of men and women, it was always the women that volunteered. And then they say yes, more often, and therefore they are more likely to be asked. So what can we do about this? Is it is the onus on women to stop volunteering so much? Well, possibly, but actually, if society expects us to volunteer and we don't volunteer, then that doesn't help us very much either. So as if you're a manager, you can assign tasks on rotation fairly.

So rather than doing that asking for a volunteer thing, and either picking a woman or a woman volunteers, because there's that awkward silence, and then eventually she goes, Oh, I'll do it. assigned tasks instead and assign them fairly. And men can volunteer more is a really, really simple thing that you can do. To help even things out. You don't have to do it all the time. But don't let it always be the women in the meeting that are volunteering. So that's the first thing you can do share the non promotable tasks. The second thing you can do as a male colleague is to become a micro sponsor in meetings.

So women have a hard time getting heard in meetings and being credited for their contribution, they get interrupted significantly more often, their points get repeated by other people and claimed as their own. And they have to evidence their point a lot more, they are just seen as less credible. Again, these are society norms, this is gender bias. So how can you as a man help in meetings? How can you be an ally? Well, the first thing to do is to think about this as coming from a place of equity, not protection, by which I mean, you don't need to rescue women, you don't need to speak on their behalf. Even if if the intention there is very positive, actually come at this from a place of respect. I respect the women that I work with, they do deserve equal space, equal ability to be heard and recognised within a meeting or within the workplace. And one of the best ways you can do that is basically to use that American term to pass the mic. So if you notice a woman being on the receiving and some unhelpful behaviour.

You don't need to say I think what Sarah is trying to say is, or I think the point Sarah was making is, instead, you can pass the mic back to them by saying, I'd like to hear the rest of Sarah's point, or I think Sarah was saying something interesting. Could you tell us more about that? There are some fun phrases to help you recognise when this is happening in meetings. So we've heard of mansplaining, where men explain things to women that they already understand. But there's also man interrupting. So if you notice someone who's mad interrupting, or you know, women do do this, too, is just statistically, men are much more likely to interrupt women, if you notice someone interrupting, pass the mic back to the person who was talking. And if you notice someone who repeating which is a phrase that I have only just learned, but does ring true.

So when someone's heating, if it's a man, and basically, they are making a point that a woman has already made earlier in the meeting, they're probably making it longer repeating it more often. And and they're getting the credit for that point. And if you're a man listening to this thinking, Does that really happen? Oh, my gosh, it happens all of the time. And so so often women have made a point, but they've made it, they've just made it simply, they've made it once is a powerful point, probably most of the people in the room who are listening heard it, but then someone else, usually a man, then takes that point, makes it again, in their own words, but but takes up a lot more space in the meeting, doing it and claims the credit for it. Like it's an original thought when actually, they've been building on someone else's point.

Maybe not even recognising that they're building on someone else's point. But the other people in the meeting should absolutely be recognising that that's happening. But reality is that we we are just trained to listen to men more than we are to listen to women, we're going to talk a little bit at the end about that parenting and raising children side of things, because that is where it starts. So pass the mic back to them. The other thing you can do is something called amplification. So this came about from some women that worked with a bomber. So they were working in one of the most well, the most powerful place in the world, with a leader who certainly appears very evolved. But they still weren't being heard in meetings, they still weren't being taken as seriously. And their contributions weren't being valued, as highly as the ones that were made by the men around them. And I think it was Michelle Obama that said, she stopped being intimidated by those rooms, that clever people when she got in them and realised that they weren't all quite as clever as they appeared. And so some of those people may have got there through being very, very good at communicating and appearing very confident and playing the political game very well. Anyway, the theory of amplification is a bit like passing the mic, it is basically about celebrating the points that women are making, and celebrating the women that are making them celebrating their contribution to a meeting. So saying that was a fantastic point, or what a great question, or I think that there was some really wonderful insight there. Or again, I'd like to hear more about that, basically, amplifying their voice.

So if you think about it, when they are speaking what they have to say what women have to say, is just as valuable. But the volume just doesn't seem to be as loud in terms of how it's heard. You have the ability to speak with volume, so use that to send it back in their direction. And then finally, notice how much space you are taking up. In meetings. When you come out of a meeting reflect on well, how much did I talk? How much did the men in the room talk? And how much did we hear from the women in the room. Women are less comfortable interrupting and actually we are judged more harshly for interrupting. When a man interrupts you're actually recognised for adding value to a conversation. When a woman interrupts we are judged and thought of as disrupting the conversation and distracting from it. So we just don't have as much space. In fact, it shows that men have I think it's two thirds as much space as we do in a meeting when we're equally represented because we are just not taking it up and we are not heard as much.

So you can notice how much space you're taking up in meetings and how much space you're sharing with the women in the room because if they can't interrupt, are they getting an opportunity to contribute on an equal basis?

The next thing you can do as a colleague is to recognise your invisible advantage. So there was a flurry of press coverage of this situation in 2017, where a man had was working alongside a female colleague. And he for a couple of days, they have a shared account, and he was sending emails. And for a couple of days, it was accidentally being sent out under her name, not his name. And he wasn't getting the same response, as he would do. Normally, he was coming up against a lot more tension and friction being asked to evidence things more. He mentioned this to his female colleague who said, Yeah, that happens all the time. And so they did an experiment where they swapped for two weeks, I won't use his exact language to describe what he said about it. But he basically said it was terrible. And he was totally shocked by it. She wasn't shocked by how easy her communications were, for the next two weeks, internally. And externally, he found that he was just getting so much more pushback and having to work so much harder to get yeses. And to get things done.

As men, you have an invisible advantage. So as an example, in academia, female researchers have to provide twice as much evidence of their credibility and to back up what they're saying in order to secure funding. And studies show that men tend to be overrated, and women tend to be underrated, including by themselves. And these cultural biases mean that women have to prove that we're not incompetent, whilst for men, the opposite is the case. I mean, can you imagine having to constantly prove that you are competent, rather than the assumption being that you are competent. And I just wanted to highlight again, here, this isn't just something that it's men's fault, or something men are doing. Women do this to other women, as well, we all have these biases. So if you want to take action to help on this point, look for signs of women's competence, when you go into conversations with women reset your brain to assume that they're competent rather than incompetent. And, again, these are generalisations.

So I'm not saying every man does this, and there will be some of you that are already proactively doing this. The next thing you can do is be aware of your language when you're describing women. So that again, there's been some really interesting studies done, which show that when men and women display the same behaviours they are described differently. So men, when displaying anger are described as assertive. Women are described as aggressive, or emotional. For example, when there was a study that looked at the words that were generally used to describe men in this particular scenario, and women in this particular scenario, and the men had two negative words and eight positive words, with the women it was the other way around. And words like bossy, or emotional, bitchy, there's all sorts of words that actually are only applied to women. And yet women and men have the same emotions.

And women that generally have worked on their emotional intelligence a bit more, mainly because we have to enable order to be able to survive and thrive in life and the workplace. So be aware of the language you're using when you're describing women. And I'm not talking Yeah, if you're listening to this, you're not bad mouthing women or using derogatory language. There are people out there that do. This episode isn't aimed at anyone who is busy sexually harassing people, that happens, it happens more than you think it happens. But if you're listening to this, it's not you doing that. But you might be using language that actually isn't very helpful to women. Now what you can do is you can ask and listen and learn. So you can ask your female colleagues what they find hard about operating within your organisation or with external stakeholders, and their answers might show your bias that you had no exit idea existed. You can listen with an open mind so it might feel uncomfortable, you might want to try and make them feel better. Because that's a natural human instinct to make people feel better, but give them space to talk about it without trying to fix it or making them feel better.

Just honour what they're saying listen, and then try not to dismiss or be defensive try and get curious. It might be the some language you're doing or, or an action you're taking, which you had no idea actually had negative consequences for someone that the fact that they're sharing that with you means they trust you with that information. So try really hard not to be defensive or dismiss it. Get curious go away and think about it, you don't have to respond immediately you can say that's really interesting. I'd like to go and reflect on that. What you want to do is to understand what it's like to be in their shoes, and then ask them, How can I best support you? How can I be an ally. And about a minute ago, I touched on inappropriate behaviour and said, I'm sure it's not you. But you may see it, it does happen in the workplace. And if you see it happen, and you don't call it out, it will be seen by whoever's perpetrating it as acceptable and possibly even endorsed by you. So don't let it slide.

If you see sexism, if you see negative stereotypes, if you see banter that isn't actually harmless, but is building on negative stereotypes, or is making life harder for someone else, call it out. So those are the things that you can do as a colleague, if you're a manager, or leader, there are some things that you can do as well. The first thing you can do is look under what Jill Whitty Collins who's the author of white men, when at work, which is a book, I would love every male leader to read and to share around with others. She talks about this umbrella metaphor, where basically, we were working under an umbrella were people above us and to the side of us can't see all the things that we're doing. And what happens is, men are really, really good at communicating what's going on under their umbrella. And in particular, they're good at making themselves the hero of the story.

So she tells a story she works at. I just got to check my book, think it's Procter and Gamble. Yes, she worked at p&g, but she was at a very senior level. And she noticed in meetings that her male counterpart, were constantly sharing about the massive crises that happened and how they had solved them, and getting a lot of credit for that. And then she recognised actually what she what they were calling crises were actually everyday problems that she was dealing with, and just making no fuss about, and not telling anyone about because she thought doing a good job meant just getting everything done. But what was happening is her boss couldn't see under that umbrella. So he could see under all the men's umbrellas because they were telling them and they were telling a really good story as well at the time, but he couldn't see under her umbrella. So he didn't know actually what she was doing. So if you're a manager and leader, look under the umbrella of the women that are working for you look and see what they're actually working with, get them to talk to you about the challenges they're facing and what they're doing. Talk to you about those wins that are happening daily, and then share what you see with others. So advocate for them.

The next thing you can do is to have career and salary conversations with them. I remember there was a point where I was managing 12 people, and there were two men. And none of the women ever asked me for a pay rise or a promotion, both of the men every time I had a one to one with them, which is probably about once a month, ask for a pay rise or a promotion. And each time I was like, well, you're doing your job when you go above and beyond your job. Let's have a conversation about it. But I don't think that that is unusual. So and again, actually women get judged for asking for pay rises and asking for promotions, and they can't let that stop them. Women that listening don't let it stop you. But wouldn't it be great to have male allies? Wouldn't it be great if you as a male leader, actually initiated those conversations, talk to them about their career aspirations and how you could help them with that looked at the salaries that you are paying your team, because women are paid a lot less over the length of their career. And what often happens is they come into your team paid less, and so they never catch up. And actually, they're not being paid less, because they're less experienced, they're not paying paid less, because they've done less work.

They're not even being paid less, because they had some time out to have children, which was always the assumption I think I had in the past, they are being paid less because they were paid less right at the very beginning. And everyone is asking them what their salary is. And then they're just getting small incremental rises from there. What needs to happen is someone needs to press the reset button. Someone needs to look and say actually, I've got five people all doing the same job. They're all doing it as well. Or maybe you know, some are doing it slightly better than others and some nice some support or whatever. But I would bet that the women are performing equally as well as the men because studies show that we do and in certain areas we perform better. Why are they not all Being paid equally regardless of what they came in at. So you can have a really powerful impact in pressing the reset button there on the gender pay gap. And equally when it comes to bonuses and things like that, be as equitable as you can just because someone asked for more and asked more frequently, doesn't mean that they should get it. So make sure that if you are having that conversation with the men in your, in your team, because they're bringing it up, have the same conversation with the women. The next thing you can do is give specific feedback.

So I recently learned that men and women receive different feedback in the workplace. So if we think about at manager and leadership level, men are given really specific feedback. And they're given very strategic feedback about building their profile, about influencing upwards about getting opportunities, women are given vague feedback. And they are often given feedback that they need to improve their confidence. But it's really vague. Rather than saying in this meeting, you could have been more assertive. And they are often told to go and invest time in relationships sideways, to ease friction, they are not encouraged to develop the skills that will position them for leadership. And again, it's an unconscious bias. This is gender bias. And so I my understanding is that it happens, whether it's a man or a woman giving the feedback. But generally, it's more likely to be a man giving the feedback because he was these were senior leaders, and we have more men at senior leadership level. The next thing you can do is to value different perspectives and approaches. So is there a default way of doing things in your organisation, and is that default way, evolving from the people at the top of the organisation who are mainly men. So there is more than one way to lead and traditionally, the workplace has recognised certain traits such as having, being visionary, being strategic, etc, as being powerful ways to lead. some really interesting research came out during COVID.

So in the first year, when COVID hit, saying that actually, what leadership needed at the moment was more empathy, more compassion, more ability to deal with uncertainty, more flexibility. And actually, these are traits that many women have been bringing to the workplace for a long time and have not been recognised. That emotional intelligence piece, for example, was so important during lockdown. And those that didn't do well with that are now seeing the impact of that in terms of people leaving during what's been called the Great Resignation. But basically, if you can value and recognise difference in all ways, and many of the things I'm sharing here will also apply to other areas of equality and diversity. But if you can recognise that being different, contribute something rather than being wrong, then that will really add to how things are done. I was talking to a client recently, who works in a very, very large male dominated national organisation. And she really struggled with a particular area of her role. And because she's about to implant, I won't go into too much detail. But basically what she thought she wasn't very good at this particular thing.

When I had a conversation with her and talked about her experience, and etc, it turned out, actually, she was trying to do it like all the men in the room who had very different personalities from her. And therefore, she felt like she was faking it, it felt inauthentic, and she hated doing it and dreaded doing it. When she did it her way. And she reframed it. We were in time she was comfortable with she was actually exceptionally good at it. And this is happening all over the place. You have some really, really talented women that you're working with, who feel that they can't show up and do things their way. So they're trying to do things like the men around them are trying to do things in the dominant way of the organisation, and it doesn't come naturally to them.

They're struggling and then that is causing them to doubt themselves and have imposter syndrome. I swear so many women are experiencing impostor syndrome, not because they have massive personal self-doubt, but because they're trying to succeed in an organisation that wasn't and isn't designed with them in mind and isn't embracing diversity. So my view different perspectives and approaches, it's a really, really simple thing you can do to empower people to be themselves. And then finally, you can sponsor the women in your team.

So, in the UK, we talk a lot about mentoring. And mentoring is often about sharing information with people guiding them on their career. Sponsoring is more proactive than that. So sponsoring a woman is about advocating for them. It's not just about offering advice and time, it's about being more invested in offering opportunities, giving them chances for visibility, giving them chances to connect to others. And if you, for example, are given a chance to talk on a stage and you're being offered this opportunity, often could you give it to a woman that you're sponsoring.

So there was a survey in 2016, for the centre of talent into innovation of about 10,000 workers in the US and the UK, that found that 44% of women with sponsors felt comfortable asking to work on high profile projects. And that number fell to 36% for women without sponsors. So if men want to elevate more women to leadership, then what you can do is take an active role in introducing women to the experiences and opportunities that help them to succeed. And JP Morgan Chase have an initiative for this, which they call 35. One, and it's designed to bring women and men together to support their female colleagues. So employees are encouraged to spend 30 minutes each week with a talented women, five minutes congratulating a female colleague on a win, and one minute praising that woman, to other colleagues. So 35, one win, even if you just took one of those principles, that would really help. Now, I'm conscious, this is a long episode.

So I'm not going to dive deep into the next few points. But I just want to share them with you to get you thinking, what you do outside the work outside of work, what you do at home and in your life also has an impact on gender equity in the workplace. So the first thing you can do is share the load at home. And that load looks different for different people. But if you are in a relationship with a woman, Are you splitting that load fairly? Or is it falling on her all the time. And even if you get paid more, she's never going to be paid more or progress in her career if actually, she's held back because she just has so much on her plate. So that load might well be about childcare, that load might be about who does nursery cord or who to school call when your child is sick. Even if you're both working. It might be about who is able to travel for their career, it might be about that life admin side of things. And who does things like remember birthday cards and presents for family members, it might be about the housework, it might be about the cooking.

We actually have a whole episode coming up on that. And I'm ill equipped to talk about this because I am a solo mom. So I do it all. But many, many women are taking on more of that load. And we really saw that during lockdown with a lot more women having to leave the workplace than men because the owners of childcare fell on them. And obviously, a lot of women are choosing that, but not all of them. I've sat on plenty of my calls were the women have had to drop out because their partner has a call and their partner school has taken priority even when they're in equally senior and important roles. So just think about am I sharing the load equally take shared parental leave when it when it's offered. I know a lot of men really love to do this. There's still in some organisations a stigma about it. And the more men that take it, the less stigma there will be. And the more it will be embraced that fathers are taking an active role in raising their children that so many dads out there doing amazing things here. Let's help to break the stigma around that. And then when it comes to parenting, be aware of biases. So actually really, really young.

We train boys to think that what they have to say is really really valuable and we don't do the same with girls. So first of all, parents recognise or or parents overrate the intelligence of all their children, but they particularly overrated when it comes to boys. So when parents are asked to rate their children's IQ, they rate the boys IQs higher than the girls even though girls actually do better at school and mature and develop quicker than boys do. even from a young age, so those biases are there. And those biases are there in the classroom as well. So if a girl shouts out an answer to a question, she's told to raise her hand, and she's rebuked for it. If a boy shouts out an answer to a question, it is more likely that their answer is just accepted, because of these gender norms. Because we think, Oh, that's just a boy. And actually, we're glad that they're asked, they're answering the question. So let's encourage that.

We all have these norms. There's a lot that you could do outside of work. And as I say, I've got an episode coming up on that which you could listen to, even though you're not a female leader. And so, just to summarise, because we have covered a lot there, as men, you are so important to helping the women that you work with, be recognised and valued at work. And there are so many things that you can do. And I really hope that this episode has maybe surprised you. Certainly, when I first learned this information, some of it was surprising to me. And that you will take at least one action from this to make things better, and maybe you'll move up in that allyship spectrum. So maybe you'll move up to being active, or being an advocate. If even just a few people, become advocates or encourage someone else to become an advocate if you already are, that would be a brilliant. And just to recap on some of the actions you can take, share the non promotable tasks and allocate them fairly.

Be a micro sponsor and meetings and pass the mic. recognise that actually, you've got an invisible advantage. Be aware of your language, call out inappropriate behaviour, ask and listen. And then if you're a manager, or leader, look under the umbrella of the women that work for you have the career and salary conversations, give specific feedback that helps them to develop on a leadership track, value different perspectives and approaches and sponsor the women in your team. So thank you for listening. And I would love to hear from any of you that have found this useful. If you have found it useful. Do please share it. Men are so important to this. And as I said right at the start, none of this is about making men wrong. This is about breaking down the bias, which is what International Women's Day is all about. And as I said again, at the start, I'm really, really happy to come in and talk to organisations about breaking the bias and what men can do. Take care.

I hope you found that episode thought provoking, I hope you've left them with some really practical steps that you can take. If you are interested in continuing this discussion. please do get in touch with me. I run ally ship workshops. I give keynotes and I also have an Embracing Equity Toolkit, which is basically some of the key really simple messages from this podcast and the talks that I give focused into five two minute videos. So your colleagues can sit there and binge watch for 10 minutes. Understand the simple steps that they can take that can really make a difference to women's experience in the workplace and to their development. And then there's also an action sheet with all the key points and talking points that you can use within your organisation so it's perfect for International Women's Day, but actually is perfect if you're just an organisation that is committed to creating an environment where women at all levels can succeed as easily as men can. So do get in touch if you would like to find out more about that.