Strong Leaders Serve with Teri Schmidt

165. Women Leaders Helping Men Thrive: Insights from Moe Carrick

• Teri Schmidt

Share episode

Send us a text

For women to achieve workplace equity, men's wellbeing is important.

Curious about how women leaders can help men thrive at work? 

In today’s episode, Moe Carrick shares powerful insights on fostering male-to-male support, shifting emotional expectations, and creating inclusive, emotionally intelligent workplaces. Join us to learn how these strategies can elevate both genders to new leadership heights.

Resources:



Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teri-m-schmidt/

Get 1-on-1 leadership support from Teri here: https://www.strongertoserve.com/coaching

Set up an intro call with Teri: https://calendly.com/terischmidt/discoverycall

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

I wanted to kind of challenge myself as a feminist. And. My friends and colleagues around to say, wait a second, all is not well in Rome and we as women is if we're pushing for equity and equality, we cannot do it unless we are also pushing for well being of men.

Teri Schmidt:

Well, here's a topic that you don't hear about very often. In fact, our guest Mo Carrick said that it can often be quite unpopular. But the fact is, if we're going to be strong leaders who serve and truly care about making a way for others to courageously use their strengths, we can't turn a blind eye to what the current data is showing us about men's well being, and we can't fail to think about what women leaders can do about it. We're diving in deep today with Mo, talking about our definitions of masculinity and leadership, tackling stereotypes, and talking about how both men and women can foster healthier workplaces. Mo Carrick is a pioneering expert in workplace culture, whose award winning frameworks have transformed companies like Nike, Amazon, and Reddit by improving employee engagement and reducing burnout. Her work, based on her 1. 5 million data points. Has earned multiple accolades, including the thinkers three 60 award. And her insights have been featured on TEDx South by Southwest and in best selling books. So let's get into it. I'm Terry Schmidt, executive and leadership coach at strong leaders, serve partnering with leaders and teams to turn potential into performance for positive change. And this is the strong leader serve podcast. Well, hello, Mo. Welcome to the Strong Leaders Serve podcast. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today because it's something that we have not yet talked about on this podcast, but I'd love to jump in just with you starting a little bit about your story and in particular, the experiences and the stats really, because I'm a data person that inspired you and your passion around redefining masculinity at work.

Moe Carrick:

Mm. Thank you so much, Terry. Great to be here. And yeah, this is sort of become like an accidental topic for me because I've had a consulting and coaching press practice for 30 years. I've been focused on creating leaders that are good for people, cultures that care teams that are cohesive. And, you know, in that journey, of course, I'm always paying attention to research about what good leadership looks like. We know what creates healthy cultures and what doesn't. And along with That journey. And, of course, as a person who identifies as a woman as well, I've noticed some of the mixed messages that come up to us around what does good leadership look like, which behaviors create healthy teams and cultures, et cetera. And in particular, I would say what I've noticed In the course of my career is that there are outdated notions about what good leadership looks like in most workplaces, at least here in the global West that aren't really serving us anymore. And so when we when we look at what's going to be required for leadership in the future, it's really different than than the mindsets we inherited from the Industrial Revolution. One of the biggest studies, I know you love data, is the work done by Michael D'Antonio and John Gerzimer, who wrote a book about 10 years ago called The Athenian Doctrines. You've probably. You're familiar with, and they had more than 100, 000 data sets that they were looking at globally, and they asked two main questions. One is what are the leadership characteristics are going to be critical for global business success in the next 50 years. And they also ask, which of those leadership characteristics do you see as masculine or feminine? And this was one of the first studies that got me thinking about like, do we attribute certain traits to men versus women? And what that study points to is that the characteristics that are going to be required for effective organizations in the future are also seen as largely feminine. So they would include things like, Empathy, connection, patience relational agility and Yet, the characteristics that were often seen as more masculine didn't fall off the map. They don't become unimportant. So things like decisive action, or independent thought, or assertiveness, or analytical ability. They don't go away in Gerzima and D'Antoni's study, but they become less critical as these other characteristics. And of course, since they did their study, we've seen a global pandemic. which has forced every workplace in the land to really be rethinking. How is it going to attract and keep the people they need? And what we're seeing is that connection is really the future of performance. And so many of the skills of connection have been overly seen, I think, as feminine and undervalued in leadership in general, or taught in MBA school or medical school or whatever. So I think some of that data really queues us up for examining more clearly our own gendered notions of leadership and then asking ourselves which of those are outdated and need to be dropped.

Teri Schmidt:

Yeah. One thing you said there, you know, I think is a critical sound bite that I love is the connection is the future of performance. It, Is so true. And hearing more and more about the relationships between people, the relationships between people in their work, people in their organization, is critically important as we move forward. I'm curious, as you work with teams and as you work with leaders, how that varies, and the male and the female leaders that you work with.

Moe Carrick:

Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things I would say on that. One is that over the course of my career, I have worked more often with men. Actually, that I have with women, although I don't specify that I work with men, that's just been how it has evolved, partly because I've worked primarily in the C suite and the majority of those seats remain still occupied by men. And, oftentimes, the skills that we've been called in to teach and to coach men about are really strongly grounded in the emotional and social intelligence and capital skill. That I find many men come to executive positions and senior leadership positions under qualified to do. They're not, they're just not trained for connection. And so they feel underskilled. They have weaker muscles around leveraging those relational dimensions of the job than they do other things like solving problems or bringing their product expertise or working in the market or being the public face of the company, whatever that role may be. And so I think that's one difference. I've seen the other difference I've seen notice over the years is when we do work with women, which of course we also work with women. Women, senior leaders in particular, we see, and I personally have experienced, as I'm sure you have, Terry, too, the double bind that comes with women who are given models of leadership to follow that include behaviors that are perhaps slightly outdated but still relevant, like be assertive, be commanding, be leader like, right? But when women show up with those behaviors,

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Sorry, I just had a laugh at the leader light. You know, like,

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

we don't like, right?

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Well, totally, but when women do the same behaviors, those are seen often as a negative character attribute, as opposed to what happens when men portray those things, even if we take one of those, like have a commanding presence. When a man has a commanding presence and can manage a room, he may be seen as, you know, very leaderly and authoritative and, you know, really people People may laud or applaud his behavior. When a woman shows those same characteristics, she may be seen as actually cold or over, overly domineering or controlling or even, you know, the B word. Which means, and she's set up to feel like, hang on a second, I thought I was doing what good leaders are supposed to do, but it's not, it doesn't play as well with me. So now I've got to figure out, you What would play well. And so I think we have real challenges with the gender attribution we make about certain qualities that actually don't honor and acknowledge the fact that men and women both have these characteristics. So they can develop characteristics for effective people leadership, but the social bias, the confirmation bias around genderization, I think really could limit us.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Agreed. Agreed. And I I think I mentioned that I had a prior conversation with Nina Simons, and she was talking about the spectrum of leadership between male and female, and that we're all, we all have both those characteristics and need both at specific times. But, you know, your story that you were talking about the double bind just really struck me as well, because I did have a client that, you know, was told that, You know, you need to display these masculine characteristics, but she just didn't feel like that was her way. And she was seeing her way as being kind of overused strengths. She felt very strong in, you know, emotional agility, emotional intelligence gaining consensus skills like that, that I think would. typically be labeled as female or feminine. And her leader was essentially saying, no, you need to change that. But then when she changed that, not only did she not feel like herself, but it wasn't being received well, you know, people were like, Ooh, she's mad. And, and, and we had to work through that to find something that really resonated for her. But just like you said, she said, I don't have any models for this.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

right. Exactly.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

really tough space to be.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

It is.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

and you know, we've, we've talked a lot about women in leadership on this podcast. I know you did a TEDx talk particularly about how women can and should support men at work as well. I'd love to hear a little bit about the backstory of that and went into that and what came out of it

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yeah. Right. What came out of that for sure. So yeah, so it was actually in 2019 that I gave that talk. it was my third TED talk. And it was the one that I would say had the most passion for me. Although my first talks are all about what my books are about. So like I have passion there too, but what I, I had noticed, I think it had a more personal side to it, which was that men as a whole are not doing that well, especially white men. So when we look at opioid addiction, we look at being both perpetrators and victims of gun violence. We look at suicide and ideation for boys and men. The statistics are not good. In our culture right now for men and as a mother of two grown sons and a grown stepson as a partner and an ex partner of white men. I have been acutely aware of just even the tensions and challenges that the men that I love, my brother, my father have faced in. navigating their own thriving because of some of the social biases that exist towards men and because of sort of the expectations we have on men, etc. It got me really curious, especially as someone who is an admitted, you know, feminist who's worked really hard for women's rights and equality. I started to feel like, gosh, we, there's some inequity here around how we're paying attention to the thriving of men. And of course by, you know, my my medium is work, is the workplace. So I particularly was I'm not sure if you're noticing that, but there's some social implications there as well. And furthermore, what I wanted that talk to be about was what is women's role in healthy masculinity? Because I don't think that I as a woman can fix whatever ails the big group that identifies as men. But I am aware that I have a role as a mother, as a sister, as a friend, as a colleague to male thriving. Which, you know, when I say that in feminist circles, Terry, I sometimes I feel like I'm. Persona non grata, right? It's like what we're about. Women's, you know, activation and women's rights. But look at the statistics, for example, around how boys are doing in school admission rates to colleges again, mental health issues. Men are not doing that well, and women are doing better as a result largely of the feminist movement. And so I think that there's a little bit of a catch up that we need to do around where we go, we go together. And so what is it that needs to happen to, to ensure that men are thriving both at work and at home? And I'll, you know, I'll give you one example. One of the things I saw my own sons do. Deal with, and I have one son who's in recovery. All three of my kids, I have a daughter as well, have struggled with their own mental health challenges. And my boys who are now men, have articulated feeling less supported for their mental health journey, their their, their other dynamics than I think I experienced their sister.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm-Hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

They also both talked about both of my sons have been involved in different kinds of men's groups. My husband as well, that they had to work pretty hard to find and to become part of. It was more difficult for them to find a community of close male friendship and support than it has been for most of the women that I know. And in particular, there's some real data about this. There's a wonderful movie. You may have seen it called the mask we live in. Yeah.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

I haven't,

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

which is a documentary that's about how men and boys are perceived and seen in our society. And one of the things they talk about is how close, intimate friendships and relationships for men and boys drop off significantly at middle school. When rugged individualism as a cultural norm becomes the way men are expected to show up, which leaves men often lonely and disconnected. If they're in heterosexual relationships, they often Then defer and put their emotional well being largely in the hands of the women that they marry or are connected with, again, leaving them isolated and alone. So we have typically seen that men are accessing and given permission to access mental health resources at much lower rates. And, and yet we see these rising social problems. So for me, I wanted to kind of challenge myself as a feminist. And. My friends and colleagues around to say, wait a second, all is not well in Rome and we as women is if we're pushing for equity and equality, we cannot do it unless we are also pushing for well being of men. And one of the areas that I speak about in the talk that really hit me as a personal, you know, as a mother in particular, is that until men are seen as good carers as good caregivers, we actually won't get the kinds of Need at work.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm. That's interesting.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

you know. Yeah, right. I mean, we've, I push so hard as I'm sure you have for equity at work, for equal pay, equal salaries, and yet we continue to see women hitting limitations at the point of childbearing where they have, they have to be, or they are becoming the primary carer, they're doing disproportionate numbers of tasks around the home where men's careers proceed In an uninterrupted way. And so we, we aren't going to get equity or equality there unless it's also okay for men to be at home and doing some of those things while women pursue financial

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, that it has so much there that we could go right into, you know, and the question I originally was going to ask, and I think you answered it a bit, but it may be worth digging into a little bit further. You know, you mentioned in FEMA's survey. Feminist circles, this message, you know, may not be well received. I think the same thing, you know, obviously I mentioned to you, this podcast was originally called moms that lead. So our audience is you know, very, very heavily skewed toward the female, toward leaders who identify as female. And I wonder. If some of them are thinking right now, okay, why, why should I care? You know, why, why should we care about masculinity at work? And maybe for some people, anytime they hear masculinity, the word itself, they always put toxic in front of it.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yes.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

So yeah, what, what would you say to them? Why, why should they care?

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Well, oh, there's so much there, Terry. I think one thing is that, you know, most women that I know whether they identify as hetero or queer or gay, also have relationships with men that they care about, whether they're their family members or whatever. And when, so I think when we look realistically at our experience with men, and most of the women I know also love men. They have men in their lives that they love, so it's not a binary. We're not in binary circles here, where the women are only with women and the men are only with men. We have relationships with men that matter, and so I think that when we really get real with ourselves, what we often see day to day is not only toxic masculinity. There's a lot about masculinity, actually, that we love. Right? There's a lot of rewarded and positive characteristics about what it means to be masculine that I think women are attracted to and want to grow their boys to manifest. And also some of what society says boys and men need to do is toxic. And how do we help that be less so? Like one of the simple examples for me is the messaging we give little boys about emotion. You know, Jennifer Bosom is a University of Florida researcher, and she talks, she's this great expression. She says the band of emotional expression is very limited for boys and men.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

And meaning that like, if they're walking, they're walking on a precipice and they can easily fall off on either direction. And really, there's only one emotion that she speaks to that men are given full permission to express from the time they're little boys, which is that of anger. Whereas women are given a much wider platform for emotional expression. With one exception, which is anger, right? So we've got like almost the complete opposite that's happening. So because of that, we have all kinds of colloquialisms that we say to boys, for example. Boys don't

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Man up.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Right that deliver a message that says other feelings that they have are either abnormal or not valid or don't matter Which means that men then subvert those feelings and they leak out as feelings do in other ways that are toxic But what happens when we start helping boys feel that they are also normal for feeling pain for expressing fear Just like women Right? So that we can help those behaviors be seen as validating and not as negative, which I think can really reduce what we have come to call toxic masculinity. But as women we have to get, I think we have to get grounded in our own sense of what that means. Like here's another example. So do you remember When, and regardless of people's political affiliation, I was really struck with when Barack Obama won his second term. There was a video that went out that kind of went viral of him coming back, oh, the next day after the election, talking to his staff. Do you remember that?

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

I don't. Yeah, tell me about it. It might jog

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Well, it was a short clip. It was a short clip that I saw, but in it he's talking to the staff about the feelings that he has about having won. Again, and he was expressing his gratitude for the team that helped, but he got a little bit emotional. He didn't, like, he didn't cry or weep on the stage, but like a tear kind of rolled down his face and he, he clearly had some tenderness there around the magnitude of that moment for him. I thought it was really touching and very connecting and it drew me to him as a human, like vulnerability often does. But what the media did with that was to talk about how weak he looked.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm. Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

And I thought, you know, this is part of the problem.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

He was having a normal reaction to a powerful emotional event. Now, again, he wasn't lying under the table weeping. He was showing a normal emotional expression. So I think, you know, as women, if we're in the media, and we're having a reaction to that as weak, we need Look at that and say, why am I thinking that? Why am I not seeing this capacity to express a tough emotion as strength? That's what I would see perhaps in a woman. And so we can create a lot more parity around that.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah. And, and with that parody, that being one example, I know you talked about other examples of what women can do in your talk, but with that example, you know, being more open to both all genders showing all different types of emotion, what impact can that have on the workplace?

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Hmm. Well, I think it creates much healthier culture, you know, when every employee however they identify as male, female, or Something different than that, I, think, becomes more capable of real connection at work when they have more groundedness in healthy, emotional intelligence and in social intelligence to be able to tune into each other like we do as social beings in ways that facilitate relational strength, partnership, trust and optimism, you know, I think, which obviously helps make teams higher performing, creates more capacity to navigate conflict and say the hard thing in a productive way, and therefore better results, you know, over time. I also think that, you know, when we look at the cost of you know, how do I say this? The workplace itself can be bad for us. You know, if we're not mindfully managing our own well being, working with our employees to make our own well being a priority. And so I think part of how we can reduce the cost that we all incur when people have, for example, stress related illness. When people are overwhelmed or burned out, those things are very costly for our businesses. And some of that is happening because we aren't building communities at work that are resilient. So I think we can reduce waste and cost of the consequence of not thriving at work by creating stronger connection across the gender binary. Lastly, I would say it activates more openness to women in key leadership roles, just like it could facilitate more openness to men as parents. You know, one of the things I think Terry, you and I talked about when we were prepping is that I find it very interesting that it's that men have been very slow to adopt paternal leave policies when they have Children or adopt Children. And I talked to my clients a lot about that. And often what the men say is like, I'm afraid of it being a career. D ray, which is, of course, what women have been feeling for years. Like if I take off to have a baby, but men are now getting this and they're and they're seeing the strain of that. And so many are opting not to take that benefit, even though it's a good one. Well, so then that automatically opts them out of primacy as a carer in a way that may limit the depth of joy and love and connectedness that they may feel at home, which we know from like the Harvard Longitudinal Study. Well, being really impacts them at the end of their life where they may not have those relationships. So I think we work. When we have those kinds of policies, we can be much more supportive of utilization of them with both men and women in a way that creates stronger engagement and feeling of being seen.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

mentioned some things that women sometimes do you know, for, for the, the female leaders that are listening, what are some habits that may be well meaning in the workplace that we're doing either in the workplace or at home that may be contributing to some of the stats that you talked about, about men not doing well at this time.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because when I gave that talk that we discuss I was fascinated by who came and lined up to talk to me after because it was mostly women.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

huh,

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

So I actually think that women are hugely invested in the well being of the men that they love, and often feel lost about how to help because they, they, they know they can't do it for men. Right. I had a woman in a training the other day who was talking about the feeling connected at work. And then she said, and then I go home and there's my husband who's miserable and I'm happy and I can't do anything to help him feel better about his team. And so I, I, I feel that most of us, right, we want the right thing, but I think part of what, so, so what can women do? I think what women can do, women leaders in particular, I think they can really look at their own bias about, Men and how they show up to make sure that they're embracing the full Including caregiving, including emotional expression humanity, the way it may show up in men. I think they can also notice, I think we as women can notice our own bias around things like heteronormativity, cisgender normativity, because there are gay men in the workplace who also, or trans men who may not feel seen or accepted for their full identity by us unless we're willing to, you know, Kind of notice and look at that. I think leaders can also role model the creation of the kind of culture that they want that really sees and values the many identities that men have, which would include, of course, a culture where conflict is handled productively and directly with compassion. Where workplace flexibility to the best that it can be is supported for men as well as women in terms of their caring responsibilities or their other pursuits. And I think another big thing that we can do as female leaders, as women leaders, is to notice our own enculturation. As women and become more effective. I'll give you an example. One of my ways of trading as a white woman was I was taught to be helpful and to be supportive. So that contributed to me doing lots of things that actually, I think, reinforce I'm gender stereotypes at work, so for example, if I'm coming into a meeting room in the morning, and the coffee's not been started, I'll start the coffee. What happens if I stop taking care of all that stuff? And I talk to my male colleagues about, hey dudes, like, the coffee wasn't on this morning, did any of you think, like, could you think of that? Like, not to worry. Make them feel bad for not doing it, but instead to resist my own temptation to be helpful. Another thing I think we do as women is we talk for men. So let's say I'm, let's say I've got a male colleague or an employee who is upset and he seems angry and I don't know why he's angry. And I may be like, well, he shouldn't be pissed. There's no reason for him to be. What would happen if I turned that into an emotional, intelligent conversation around, Hey, I'm noticing I'm making up that you're angry. What's going on? And then he says, Well, I'm just pissed. Tell me more, right? To create some space rather than just jumping to the assumption or doing the work for him, you know, which I could easily do like, Well, are you feeling sad? Are you feeling upset? Are you feeling demented? You know, and he's like, Well, he's like waiting in a way that is fairly passive for me to carry that emotional burden. And I think we as women can stop doing some of that. Let letting that Facilitating men owning their own states of being in a caring and compassionate way, being patient while they discover that dynamic. And I guess the last thing I would say is to turn to help men find support in other men, you know for, and I'll give you an example. Oftentimes when we're looking at. issues at work like bias or discrimination. Women feel a lot of pressure sometimes to help men be educated about, you know, what's fair, what's not fair, what's good behavior, what's not good behavior. We know men sometimes feel fearful, like am I going to be doing something that's perceived as harassment? One of the things I think women can do is to help and to encourage men to talk with other men about their concerns instead of always coming to us as the ones with the answer. You know, because they know they know they support each other around. Is that a sexist thing to do or say, you know? And then I don't have to feel like I'm doing extra work to educate

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm. Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Does that make sense?

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

It does make sense. It does. You know, I think, you know, when you were talking, unfortunately, and just kind of my bias coming through, when you were talking about men talking to other men, I was, for some reason, the praised locker room talk came into my mind, and you know, I so I, you know, I wonder, in case anyone that's listening is, is thinking about that, you know, how, how do you ensure healthy, you know, Male to male dialogue that does have those outcomes that you mentioned.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Good question. And you're spot on, right? It can digress.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

I have a colleague who said to me one time I was talking about the value of of men's groups in for mental health, but I've seen and she said, I don't know. I get nervous when men gather and I thought, What do you mean? And she said, You know, the whole world's a boys club.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

hmm. Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

The whole world has access to power and status that I don't have. So I'm not really sure I want to encourage men to gather. You know, and I thought our feeling was really valid around the history that we've inherited around women feeling fearful around being on the outside, we've worked hard, you know, for equity. So I think it, it's okay to have those feelings, but I also think it's okay to notice that, you know, locker room talk, for example, that's all asked the Grabbing or, you know, making terrible comments, looking at naked body, like whatever is happening there is only one dimension of men and that we can hold space for the other dimensions of them in ways that are generative, you know, in the workplace and give them permission. I have a lot of men that I work with, for example, who are leaders who feel just when they get promoted, they feel just as freaked out about, like, Am I going to be an effective leader? How am I going to do this job in addition to the other jobs I hold? And yet they're given, they feel that they're given less room to name those feelings of being an imposter or those anxieties that they have. And so I think that's powerful to say, Hey, you know, for new leaders, all new leaders, it can be intimidating and scary. How do we create permission for them to express those feelings without having to feel that pressure? Yeah.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah. What I'm, you know, what I'm hearing throughout our conversation, you know, you started out talking about, you know, when, when one of us thrive, you know, in order for one of us to really thrive. We all need to be thriving. I think so. That's, you know, a principle there about do we value each other as whole human beings to start off with? And I think that, you know, addresses the locker room talk, but then also the. to the power that comes with command and control leadership, which would be, you know, usually defined as more a masculine form of leadership. The, the kind of quick wind nature. Of that type of leadership, I think can be very appealing to both women and men to all genders of leadership. And I think that can sometimes get in the way of us seeing people as their whole selves, allowing people to act along the whole gender spectrum in terms of their leadership characteristics. Anything that you've, you've found that helps To, I guess, mitigate that draw and, or encourage that respect of people as whole human beings.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yeah, such a good question, because you're right, it is sort of seductive, isn't it? In fact, business as a whole is hardwired to be very focused on things like results and action orientation and speed. And I think that while those characteristics may be seen as more masculine, they're actually, at their best, we can see them as, like, good for business in a capitalist society, which is what we live in. And so I think it's okay to acknowledge and name that, to have women be able to have permission to show up as agile in those spaces. But also to be able to recognize. Oh, and that's not all there is. In addition to speed, we need quality. In addition to decisive action, we need collaborative input so that we make good decisions. So kind of acknowledging and recognizing the non binary nature of what good looks like. I think in how we can be. Really want to show up in healthy teams and culture can really help reduce that genderization and make it more fluent that are our strength really do lie in our diverse ways of showing up. So I think that's part of how we get there. And of course, that work is deeply grounded in what we value.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

And being able to articulate what we value and and how those values manifest in action in our workplace so that people, everybody is rewarded in in the same ways, you know, for embodying those values and then given support to develop the skills that are required in those values, which, you know, again, kind of cross. gender binary in a lot of ways. You know, it's interesting, isn't it, Terry? Because I often, people have said to me for years about the work I do, they're like, oh, you're the one that's all about the soft

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

And it bugs me so

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

because I'm always like, have you tried real collaboration? Have you tried real empathy while also holding accountability for performance? Because if you've tried that, And you know, there is nothing soft about it. It's hard. It's hard to activate the talents of your people for success. So for me, that's another opportunity for us is to stop delegating or relegating the idea of people skills, of bringing out the best in your team as soft. because they are not soft. And I think that's changing. I think the global pandemic has turned that on its head a little bit. I'm hoping anyway, you know, that that's beginning to shift because those are actually very nuanced, sophisticated skills. And again, it doesn't mean that I leave my other skills at the door. Those still matter. But now I've got to strengthen more muscles for relational intelligence than I maybe did in the past. But there's nothing soft about

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wholeheartedly agree on that. And I, something you said about, you know, detaching focus on results, focus on speed from any gender I think, you know, maybe, maybe we need, you know, Even though we, like you mentioned, you know, the Athena doctrine and, and identifying those different skills and ways of acting along that gender spectrum, I think maybe we need to detach some of that because if you're. If we can detach the focus on results from being something that's purely masculine, maybe we can then not think that we can't allow people to have feelings or spend time supporting each other in those feelings with getting results, if that

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yes,

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm-Hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

yes, absolutely. We can see them all as a path to results, you know, which again, like I, that's how I see well being and thriving because when I am thriving at work, which doesn't mean, by the way, that I'm happy at work every day, right? It's just that I'm thriving every time that I'm more likely to bring all of my good stuff, you know, to work. Now, there's one thing we haven't talked about that's interesting that just occurred to me as you were talking, and that is that there's a, one of the ways I think genderization shows up around the work the workplace is around both ambition and competition

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

because men are enculturated from a very young age to ask for What they feel they deserve financially that it's just it just sort of like leaks into their upbringing, you know and women are not women report to me probably to you as well that they really do not feel competent asking for example for form for more money if they get an offer and So there's two sides of that that I think are toxic. One is I think women erode their economic potential sometimes by not asking for and receiving compensation that's worthwhile. They also may hide their ambition under a bushel because it's seen as unsavory. The other negative consequence is that men feel an unrelenting pressure to have financial success above all else, which means that if you've got, I've got several friends, for example, whose husbands or partners are primary for the children and they talk often about how difficult it is to be at the playground. And be the only man there and feel less than this one guy was talking about going to a company awards benefit with his wife, where all of the things for the spouses were very feminine facials and massages. And he's like, I just felt like an

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Huh. Huh. Mm

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

so how do we reward and support women in their ambition and in their making bank and also support men in choices that have to do with. caring or the quality of their life without having their identity only be about what they're making.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

right, right. It does make sense. And I think it's along those same lines of, you know, what, what is helpful to keep attached or labeled as a particular gender and what is not, you know, what are, what has been part of that feminine package. So to say that we don't need as part of that feminine package anymore. And what is that feminine package that we can uplift and is valuable for all. And the same on the masculine side.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yes.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

So yeah, you definitely got my wheels, wheels spinning and I'm going to be thinking a lot, a lot more about this.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Yeah, absolutely. Good. Me too. You know, and I'm reminded when I was a young mother, my children are all grown, but I remember being a young mother. I was a consultant, worked for another company and I was traveling all over the world, gone a lot. It was tough, but I, I can, I had this experience, which you maybe have had as well, which is that I would show up at client sites and almost always when people learned that I had young children, they would say, Oh, who's watching the children when you're gone? Right? And I, it happens so often. And it happened to me. It didn't happen to

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

I never saw them. He asked that question,

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Right.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

I don't know, like who is watching them. I wonder who it is. And the reality is who was watching them was their father. Right. Or their stepfather or the carers that we had hired together to support the surgeon in their name. And so, but I think that's one of those tiny, tiny things that we can notice in ourselves. And ask. And similarly, what about the guy who shows up and he's on a business trip and nobody ever acknowledges like, gosh, it must be tough to travel and leave your family as much as you do in sales. It never feels seen for that. Choice that he's making and how it is sort of hard. So I think there's like those little micro moments where we can notice, wait, how is my own bias around gender and identity at work showing up in, in my behavior and could I, how can I shift that

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. And I, I think that's a great way to end that part of the conversation. One question that we do ask most of our guests that I'd love to ask you is, what does strong leaders serve mean to you?

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

I love that question. I love that question. And I love just those words that you've put together, right? Strong leaders serve for me in embedded in those three words being together is this idea that strong and serve go together because sometimes we don't conflate them as being together. We think often of strong as alone

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Mm-Hmm.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

as heroic, as courageous in the old definition of courage, slaying dragons, right? And we think of serve as like collaborative and maybe weaker than in support of. And for me, you've put them in the same sentence, which disrupts, I think, some of those old myths to say, actually strong doesn't mean heroic. It means courageous. And it means To be able to serve those that you're working with and for. So I think it's a, it's a little bit of a Like it catches your attention, but it speaks powerfully to the paradoxes that I think are going to be required for the next 50 to 100 years in organizational life.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Yeah. Thank you for that. And, you know, as you were speaking, it reminded me, it paralleled a little bit the conversation we were just having between, you know, the masculine and the feminine and what we have in our minds and in our biases classified as each and how that might need to change for us all to thrive as we move forward. Yeah,

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Terry, don't you? I'm 62 and I thought it would be better. You know, at this, at this stage, I thought we would have more more progress than we do. We're getting there, but it's still painfully slow. So hopefully the centers are all, I'm sure they're all part of trying to

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

yeah, definitely, yeah, that's, that's why we're doing this, so hopefully that will be the case. So Mo, if people would like to learn more about you and your work, where's the best place for them to go?

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

absolutely. Thank you for that. So I the easiest place probably to learn about me and about what we do at Momentum is at our website, which is just momentum. com with that funny spelling M O

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

I love that by the

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

spelled for me. Yes. That was my mom's idea. And I learned that that is how they spell Momentum in

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

Oh, perfect.

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

So a little fun fact there. It's not only in this spelling I'm also on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with your listeners there. We publish a weekly newsletter, and we also have a really cool resource that some of your listeners might be interested in called the People and Culture Pulse Check, which is a quick 10 minute way to assess your team or your company for how they're doing on those three key levers of of health. And that's on the website, too. So I'm on Instagram, too. Not as often, but love to see people there. And it's just my name on both LinkedIn and Instagram. Mo

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

excellent. We'll make sure that all of those get included in the show notes, so it's very easy for people to access. But thank you again for your time today. Thank you. For the thought and research and thought leadership and in this area, and just in general, in the area of leadership and team performance, I am honored to have had this conversation with you and to be kind of warriors together on this journey of

moe-carrick_1_09-25-2024_110852:

Love it. I love it. Thank you. Thank you, Terry, for the invitation. Such a great conversation. I know we could go on but thank you for the really good work you're doing in the world. It matters.

_1_09-25-2024_130851:

thank you.

Teri Schmidt:

What did you get from that episode? Here are three points that I got. First, the importance of fostering inclusive conversations. Women leaders can encourage open and emotionally intelligent dialogues in the workplace. Second, the importance of modeling shared responsibilities. In other words, not making sure the coffee pot is always hot. Challenge traditional roles by modeling behaviors that promote shared responsibilities, both at home and at work. This can help break down the gender stereotypes and support men in taking on caregiving roles. which ultimately benefits everyone. And number three, value diverse leadership traits. Advocate for a broad spectrum of leadership qualities that include empathy, patience, and collaboration. Recognizing and appreciating these traits can help men feel more comfortable expressing their full range of capabilities. Until next time, lead with this quote from Mo Carrick herself. True equality in leadership means recognizing that both men and women thrive. When we redefine strength as collaborative and service oriented, rather than heroic and solitary.