Page 2 - Module 5 - Downloadable Workbook

The Impact of Gender Boxes on Promotion
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Gender Boxes & Ambition
Our social conditioning can affect career growth in two ways:
• Whether women and men will want and ask for promotions, stretch assignments and seek power in equal measure.
• How they are perceived if they do (or don’t) ask for progression – especially by managers, and the impact this has on their development and promotion.
In many cultures, women often haven’t been socialised to display ambition – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they
aren’t ambitious. Men are often expected to be ambitious and to display this at all times, to not do so can be seen as passive and not serious about their work.
What About Your Team?
Now think about your team members and how they interact in the workplace.
• Do all of your team members share their ambition, regardless of their gender?
• Do you note a disparity in ambition between the genders?
• Could any disparity be a reluctance to display ambition, instead of a lack of actual ambition?
• Have you ever offered a woman a promotion or career enhancing opportunity and she’s turned it down?
• How do you decide who gets a career enhancing opportunity?
• Do you only give opportunities to those who ask for them? Or do you take into account who actually deserves them?