Why More Women Don’t Lead and Innovate - Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation - page 41

our career potential and the career perception pyramid. Understanding ourselves
and how to most effectively respond to the cultural and organizational challenges
is critical in learning how to navigate the career path. Think about it: there are
numerous situations where one person seems to manage comfortably in what
appears to be a difficult situation while another person completely falls apart
under the pressure. Much of this has to do with individuals' differences. The
outcomes associated with confronting and addressing our individual challenges
such as misperceptions, areas for professional development, and personal biases
can pay great dividends in the path to our personal and career development.
Luckily, our individual perceptions are the category of challenges that we
have the most control over in the career perception pyramid! I have created a list
of some of the most common issues women face, based on my personal experi-
ences, the literature, and observing many other women over the last 20 years.
The individual career factors include the following:

Because we don't believe we can l

Impact on family life l

Not recognizing our strengths l

Perception of limited opportunity or failure to recognize opportunities

l

Lack of role models and mentors l

These factors have consistently appeared as reasons for women not pursuing
and excelling in leadership positions in STEM and non-STEM careers. How-
ever, with a clear understanding of the issues and a plan to overcome them,
women can succeed and lead in their careers.

Because We Don't Believe We Can
The “conditioning” of our expectations in leadership may have a basis as simple
as stimulus-response theory. Stimulus-response (S-R) theories are core to the prin-
ciples of conditioning and are based on the assumption that human behavior is
learned. For example, if the stimulus is the recognition when in pursuit of a leader-
ship opportunity and the resulting response is not favorable, this will eventually
lead to a learning outcome. Theoretically speaking, when this learning “outcome” is
negative we have essentially been “conditioned” not to pursue leadership opportuni-
ties. The negative response leads to interpretations that ultimately suggest to us that
we cannot be successful in these opportunities. Simply put, when no positive rein-
forcement is offered, but rather negative reinforcement, this will lead to a change in
behavior, in this case failure to consider or pursue leadership opportunities.
Additionally, women may be especially vulnerable to losing confidence when
not rewarded in male-dominated careers such as STEM fields. This can lead to
feelings of insecurity, “not belonging,” and, ultimately, a lack of confidence.
These feelings manifest when we begin to think about our leadership visions.
Often, that “little negative voice” within us inhibits our desire to lead, questioning
our own abilities to handle the new challenges that leadership entails. We do not