Women Professionals Share Wisdom, Insights at Manatt Women’s Initiative Summit
No one argued with author Liz Cornish when she stood before a gathering of female executives and declared that "being a professional woman is exhausting.” But they are also full of determination and perseverance, which is why the attendees leaned in to hear from Cornish and a roster of other experienced, accomplished speakers at the annual Manatt Women’s Initiative Summit, held on May 13 in Santa Monica.
The speakers, who also included an executive coach and an astronaut, provided a wealth of insights and provocative views on how to navigate the distinctive challenges and opportunities that women face in today’s professional world. And while the summit presented no easy solutions for the issues facing professional women, speakers and attendees did concur on the need for women to pay particular attention to their own needs—to nurture themselves along with their careers and their families, so that all three can flourish.
“I think the challenge is to do what matters to you,” Cornish said. “You don’t listen to the noise outside, you listen to what matters to you.”
The same could be said for men, but for women it’s even more important, given the demands placed on them. “Women still don’t have the bandwidth that our male counterparts do,” she said.
Successful women clearly have the ability to solve problems on their own, but when it comes to battling through challenges, Cornish said, it’s vital to create support structures, and to know when to turn to them for help. “You’ve got to avoid those stress fractures by identifying the support you need,” she said. “Sometimes, professionally, that’s where we get caught up.”
The road for women could get less arduous as more women move into upper management roles, Cornish argued. “I truly believe that we need more women at the top,” she said. Her goal is to see women make up 30 percent of executive teams because “at that point, the conversation changes.”
The conference was an outgrowth of the Manatt Women’s Initiative, a program the firm introduced in 2007 in an effort to promote gender diversity and work-life balance. “This summit is specifically designed for our women clients and friends to, we hope, educate, entertain and inform you,” said Timi Anyon Hallem, the Initiative’s chair and a partner in hospitality, real estate and land use for Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.
“The conversations among the participants and the connections that are made at these events are crucial,” said Bill Quicksilver, the firm’s CEO and managing partner. “The work of our Women’s Initiative, and particularly these opportunities to bring together women business leaders, puts the firm’s core values into action.”
Notably, none of the speakers felt the need to defend women’s abilities to lead. But while that issue may be fading into the past, there clearly remain many issues unique to the experience of women in the professional world. Executive coach Tom Henschel, the founder and principal consultant at Essential Communication—and the lone male speaker at the summit—said the gender conversations he has with professional women are shaped by their individual experiences and perspectives, and yet they all have a common theme.
“In virtually every coaching session I have with a woman, we talk about gender,” he said. “Gender is a topic that’s in their lives. Not all women think and feel the same way about it, but it’s a topic.”
Gender can also exacerbate feelings of inadequacy or insecurity that are widespread among both men and women. Dr. Valerie Young, the author of The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, talked about what she calls “imposter syndrome,” the insidious feeling that one doesn’t deserve success. While men can feel this as well, Young focused on the peculiar ways it can affect women. And she again emphasized the need for women to take care of themselves, in this case by avoiding self-defeating thoughts.
“The person who doesn’t feel like an imposter, he or she is no more intelligent or competent,” she said. “If you want to learn to stop feeling like an imposter, you need to stop thinking like an imposter.”
Knowing when to turn to others for help is important even for an astronaut, according to Colonel Eileen Collins. The first woman ever to command a space shuttle mission and commander of the STS-114 Discovery in 2005, Collins stressed the need for women to build teams, and to rally them when the thorniest problems arise.
“Communicate well with caring,” she implored. “Our tasks are so complicated that we cannot do them alone. We have to do them with teams.”
But in order to lead those teams, women have to learn to develop and protect their mental, physical and emotional well-being. The key, the speakers agreed, may be for women to recognize that while they will encounter pressures and obstacles, they can overcome, achieve and succeed—but only if they are kind to themselves.