Glass Ceiling Epiphanies: Key Moments That Altered the Trajectory for Women in Business and How to Harness Them in Your Career

By Hannah Menzner

It is high time we close the gender leadership gap so that women can leap across the missing rung of the corporate ladder once and for all. What if we could do this by taking the "aha" moments other women have experienced in the workplace, applying the lessons learned from those experiences to our own careers?

Hannah Menzner's

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Sep 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885046749

Book preview

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Glass

Ceiling

Epiphanies

Glass Ceiling Epiphanies

Key Moments That Altered the Trajectory for Women in Business and How to Harness Them in Your Career

Hannah Menzner

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2022 Hannah Menzner

All rights reserved.

Glass Ceiling Epiphanies

Key Moments That Altered the Trajectory for Women in Business and How to Harness Them in Your Career

ISBN

979-8-88504-557-5 Paperback

979-8-88504-883-5 Kindle Ebook

979-8-88504-674-9 Ebook

Contents

Introduction

Part 1 -

Setting the Stage

Chapter 1:

A Brief History of Women in the Modern Workplace

Chapter 2:

It’s Personal

Chapter 3:

Why Now?

Part 2 -

Epiphanies for Yourself

Chapter 4:

Be Courageous

Chapter 5:

Negotiate from Day One

Chapter 6:

Don’t Hold Yourself Back

Chapter 7:

Utilize Feedback

Part 3 -

Epiphanies for Others

Chapter 8:

Ask for Change

Chapter 9:

Be an Empowering Boss

Chapter 10:

Embrace Transparency and Vulnerability

Chapter 11:

Be a Light

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Appendix

Introduction

When I first started writing this book, I knew I wanted to interview my friend and mentor Noreen Hansen, who had spent much of her career in consulting (even a stint at my own former firm) and had worked her way into the coveted title of managing director (MD). We had met a few years earlier in Washington, DC, through a mutual friend and had bonded over our experiences working in management consulting. She had offered me some sage advice in the past, and I could picture myself following down a career path similar to hers. We set a date for a Zoom interview, but I hadn’t yet homed in on the major themes—let alone the title—of my book, so I wanted to see where the conversation would take us. I figured if I came with the right questions, we’d land on something that would spark inspiration.

Just a few minutes into our conversation, Noreen shared with me a key moment and discovery that helped shape not only the future of her career but her core values as a leader. In a previous managing director role, she was tapped to lead the first and largest hybrid cloud partnership deal of her company’s time. She was confident that she and her team could get the job done, but there was one problem—the client.

One specific client counterpart soon became notorious for interrupting Noreen’s team members, specifically the women on her team. This infuriated Noreen and made her team members, who were often targeted without clear reason, extremely uncomfortable. After one too many contentious meetings that included yelling and wild gesticulating from said client, Noreen realized this behavior could not continue.

Noreen decided she could not sit by silently and that she would say something in the next meeting. She confirmed this decision with her male boss, who provided his full support. They agreed the message would be best coming from her as the only female MD on the project.

So, she did it. In that next meeting, when the client kept interrupting the female tech lead’s presentation, Noreen calmly stood up and said:

Excuse me. I think Amy was talking about something that’s very important. If we could let her finish and pause all questions and comments to the end, then we’ll go ahead and address your concerns.

Everyone in the room, aside from Noreen’s boss, took in a collective breath of shock. Sticking up to a client like that was unheard of. The client didn’t appear to appreciate the comment and began arguing with Noreen. His typical gesticulating got even wilder than usual. It appeared as if no one had challenged him quite like this before, even though Noreen’s tone was as polite and professional as she could make it!

It took Noreen’s boss and a junior male colleague to calm the client down. After leaving the meeting, the three other male MDs on the project looked at Noreen as if she had grown two more heads. One even pulled her aside and told her that she had made a mistake. She shouldn’t have done that. The client was always right.

However, Noreen knew she had done the right thing, and her boss agreed and even corrected the other MDs for their poor assumptions (talk about an ally). In that moment, something clicked. Noreen realized that she wanted to be the type of leader and boss who would stand up when anyone on her team was being treated unjustly. She not only put this new mindset and mission into practice but quickly became known for this kind of approach. She was brought onto her next project because her firm was having trouble with a more overtly sexist client.

Noreen had experienced this epiphany at a critical point in her career, as someone in leadership who still had the opportunity to build a niche. Implementing her new guiding principle changed everything for her and for those around her. Her ethos evolved and was strengthened by the conviction that she would stand up for what she believed was right, even if it meant standing up to the client.

What if more women had these key moments, these aha realizations like Noreen’s, that could unlock a key to growth in their careers? Is there a way to share these kinds of epiphanies with others, so we don’t simply repeat each other’s mistakes? Quite a few barriers seem to exist for professional women that these kinds of revelations would surely help alleviate. Would sharing these epiphanies with each other help us close the gap for female leadership?

These questions floated around in my mind as I reflected on my initial motivation for writing a book. My interest in writing swirled around my anger and frustration with the gender leadership gap. I wanted to dive deep into the latest statistics and ask why things are still the way they are without necessarily offering a solution. I pondered how over two decades into the twenty-first century we are still lagging in terms of gender parity in the business sector. I couldn’t help but home in on the following facts:

The wage gap is ever present, with multiple contributors. In the US, women earn eighty-four cents for every dollar men earn, on average (Barroso, 2020). Even among new college graduates, men out earn women. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, average starting salaries for men graduating in the class of 2020 were 22 percent higher than those of women in the class of 2020. This is still the case even though women make up the majority of both college students and college graduates in the US (National Student Clearinghouse, 2022)! It’s even worse for minority women. According to the Center for American Progress, Hispanic women experience the largest pay gap, earning just fifty-seven cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men. Black women earn just sixty-four cents for every dollar (Bleiweis, 2021).

A nonsensical gap also exists for women at the executive level. Women represent 45 percent of the S&P 500 workforce but only 6.6 percent of the CEOs (Catalyst, 2022). According to Grant Thornton’s 2021 Women in Business report, women in North America hold just 33 percent of leadership positions, which is just slightly above the global average of 31 percent. While this is a marked improvement from 2018 numbers (21 percent in North America and 24 percent globally), women still hold approximately one out of three leadership positions. And just in case we needed to justify having more women in leadership, a 2020 McKinsey study found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile. Since we know so many of the top companies keep a close eye on their bottom line, why haven’t they made enhancing the diversity of their leadership a higher priority?

We know these issues persist, and several articles, self-help books, and even podcasts have come out telling women what we can do to better advocate for ourselves and take a sledgehammer to the proverbial glass ceiling. My first exposure to such content was Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 book Lean In, in which she encouraged women to lean into their careers by being more ambitious in the workplace and by recognizing and fighting internalized self-doubt. As a high school student who knew I wanted to pursue a business degree, I found it salient and eye opening. The working world has changed quite a bit since 2013, but gender inclusion and diversity in general have still lagged. Clearly, we don’t yet have all the answers to the problem, and more perspectives need to be shared. More women likely have stories and advice to bestow, and several of those women likely haven’t landed a role as chief operating officer of one of the top tech companies worldwide like Sandberg had.

Sandberg’s book is one in a very large stack from other women who have reached the corporate peak or have successfully launched a unicorn start-up. These women have taken a hard look at their experiences over the years and have extracted the key lessons they learned. We in turn defer to these women for their keys to success as they must have some kind of secret sauce or genuine brilliance that led them to their achievements.

When taking a closer look at these women, however, I noticed a key factor at play. The women who have made it have one thing in common: major moments in which they realized something that completely altered their perspective, way of work, or professional ethos. This dynamic change was for the better as it helped shape them as leaders, self-advocates, and compassionate human beings. These moments, even the ones that were seemingly small and inconsequential, instigated paradigm shifts in these women’s careers that contributed to their success.

Not just women at the top have these moments. Even someone within the first five years of her career (like myself) has likely had quite a few experiences that left a mark and offered an opportunity to make a change for the better. I personally have a distinct memory of the first time I was up for promotion, when my career counselor mentioned to me that I needed to demonstrate I was already doing the work of someone a level above to show I was ready for the next title. We spent our time during that meeting talking through the job description for the next level up (senior analyst compared to my analyst role at the time), comparing it line by line to the bullets I had added to my resume at the firm thus far. I identified all the points in my resume that coincided with the senior analyst job description and put together a strong case. Lo and behold, I was promoted that cycle!

I had my startling realization, examined how it played out (I got the promotion), and then put it into action in a long-term capacity. Now every time I am up for a promotion, I conduct this same exact exercise.

This is precisely what so many of the successful women we read about have done. They had pivotal moments and discoveries that caused them each to take a step back, reexamine the situation, and make a purposeful shift. These shifts end up being positive moves for their careers, either in the short term or after some time. The women we see thriving seem to not only act on these epiphanies but to recognize their significance and take the time to thoroughly determine how to apply them over the duration of a career. These women truly win these moments. Utilizing these epiphanies is a key contributor to their success.

After my conversation with Noreen and some reflection, my vision for the book shifted. I wanted to share more of these so-called epiphanies from women with various professional backgrounds and to demonstrate how the lessons gleaned can be applied in your own career. Why? Because we should work smarter, not harder, and not have to repeat each other’s mistakes to learn the same lessons. If someone has had an experience that led to an important career discovery, then by all means she should share it so that we can learn from her experiences. The majority of this book does just that—shares some of the key discoveries women have had that have led to their career growth.

For example, I had an amazing aha moment by listening in on a Real Talk leadership call within my former firm. About once a month on a Friday afternoon, one of our female managing directors would have a completely unscripted, agendaless, hour-long Microsoft Teams call that anyone could sign up to join. The Q&A was completely open, with at least one hundred