How to Avoid Push-back as you Lean In

With the relatively recent release of Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In, much has been made of the need for women to advance their careers by learning to lean in to the meeting room table.  This requires women to be more assertive about taking on new responsibilities and opportunities, seeking challenges and taking on more risks. The problem, most posit, is that women don't Lean In enough, that they don't assert themselves and demonstrate the leaderships qualities necessary to get ahead.

As much as I agree that this is an issue for many (women have long unconsciously adopted many behaviours that help them be liked by others that also rob them of leadership presence) there is an equally large barrier for women's advancement that Sandberg fails to give equal airtime to; the Push Back that many women experience when they do Lean In.

When women behave in confident and assertive ways (as a Leader) they often find that they receive Push Back from those around them. Stereotypes still prevail, where women are seen and expected to behave as the nurturers and people-pleasers.  However, Leaning In requires women to behave in ways that may contradict these expectations, behaving in slightly more 'masculine' ways, which isn't as expected and therefore not as accepted.  Thus, they get push-back from others, pushed to once again conform to the stereotypes.

This then forces women to either:

1. Revert to stereotype, Leaning Back, not In 
2. Lean In and preparing for the need to confront the Push Back that will follow, challenging stereotypes and the associated systemic discrimination it creates
3. Learn to walk a tight-rope, balancing precariously between being seen as 'too' Feminine, and thus not strong enough to assume Leadership positions, or 'too' Masculine, and thus get labelled a 'bitch' and ostracized from Leadership roles.

If your goal is to get ahead, then option one does not do it for you since it merely keeps you where you're at. Option two, though a worthy cause, is more likely to help advance the careers of those that follow than it is to provide you with more opportunities.  This is not to say this is not a worthy fight but many of us lack the energy or desire to head off to battle each day.  Option three then is our best bet for getting ahead.  Once we're 'in' power, we can then work to change the systems that kept us down.

The challenge with balancing on that tight-rope successfully is that it is hard.  There are no guide-lines or guide-ropes to help us to remain on our precarious perch.  What works for one woman may not work equally well for another because each of us is unique.  Our physical structure, size, voice and personality all influence how others will see us and therefore shape the behaviours and approaches we need to maintain to allow us to Lean In without the Push Back.  

However, there are some key strategies that all women can adopt that will help as they step out on that tight-rope and begin to navigate their way across.

• Don't confuse Assertiveness with Aggression.  While both may serve to clearly state your position, aggressive behaviour violates the rights/interests/position of others, while assertiveness does not.  Aggressiveness is stereotypically accepted as more of a masculine trait and will therefore tip you off that tightrope while assertiveness helps you to assume that leadership role without alienating others along the way.
• Adopt Gender Neutral management and leadership basics such as Collaboration.  Although many may think of Collaborative behaviour as more feminine in style, don't mistake it for a bid to make everyone your friend.  Collaborative behaviour is inclusive, it seeks to involve others, but it doesn't preclude you from making the final decision.  Collaboration is not Consensus.  You can be both collaborative and decisive.
• Don't Uptalk.  If you want to be seen as a Leader you must sound like a Leader.  Therefore, when giving voice to your thoughts and recommendations you must be able to share them in a straight-forward manner.  Injecting an upward inflection into your voice while delivering your thoughts simply serves to make you sound hesitant and unsure.  You'll sound 'nicer' but you won't sound like the leader you desire.  
• Network with like-minded women.  Learn from the experiences of others, swap strategies, pick up new tips and techniques to try for yourself.  Others are going through the same struggles as you - don't feel that you need to face them on your own!  
• Remind people why you're here and what you bring to the table.  Women can get caught up in making friends and making nice and forget that they need to be constantly positioning themselves. Sitting back and allowing your work to speak for you is not enough to give you the visibility that you need to get ahead.  You need not take on the braggart role, but you do need to learn how to brag. There is a continuum of bragging behaviour at your disposal.  Too far on the left tips you off the tightrope onto the feminine side of behaviour while too far on the right skews you too far to the masculine side.  Adopting a few more self promotional strategies. that are comfortable for you. will help you to stay a little more balanced and help you to gain greater visibility.  

Leaning In is all about getting ahead while the Push-back of others is all about keeping you down.  Learning to navigate the tight-rope between masculine and feminine behaviours is all about getting you ahead without activating anyone's stereotypes.  Leaning In without Push-back from others helps keep you from giving up and pushing back from the table.  After all, you have to be able to stay at the table to one day run the table.
  

Tips for Detecting Liars

We are surrounded by lies all day.  Most are relatively harmless little white lies, what I would refer to as

social lies.

• I love what you've done with your hair
• No, you don't look fat in those jeans
• Mom, these pancakes are delicious

These are the small little lies that we tell others to make them feel comfortable and, let's face it, to keep the peace.  And, lest you're feeling guilty about the frequency of these lies, research shows that social liars are more popular than those who feel compelled to tell the truth - even when we know that they are lying to us about those jeans!

However, malicious lies are different.  These are the lies that are told to mislead or deceive someone else, for personal gain.  This could be the sales clerk who doesn't let you know about the limitations of a product so they make their sales quota.  This could be a company that doesn't reveal all of the known harmful effects of a product, or perhaps a co-worker that deliberately misleads the boss about your contributions so that they have a better shot at a promotion.  

Although we would prefer to believe that others wouldn't lie to us, deception is a fact of life.  It is intrinsic in nature.  Predators camouflage themselves to be able to sneak up on prey or to hide successfully from a predator, birds fake injuries to lead predators away from their babies... and so on.  We learn to lie at an early age.  It has been determined that children as young as 6 months old with 'fake cry' to get attention, or pretend to laugh because of the response of adults around them.  By the time we are adults, lying is a skill we have perfected through practice from infancy.  

How are we then expected to be able to detect lies in others?

Although we are not ever going to be able to detect 100% of all the lies coming our way, there are a few tips you can use to improve your ability to spot a liar.  Bear in mind that you will want to see a 'cluster' of these behaviours in order to raise your 'lie detection antennae' and question more closely what someone is saying... 

• Nose Touching.  When you lie, chemicals are released that cause the tissue inside the nose to swell, causing the nerve endings in the nose to tingle.  People will often reach up to rub the nose to relieve the itch.  This is often referred to as the Pinocchio effect!
• Eye Contact.  Despite the popular belief that liars generally have difficulty maintaining eye contact, the opposite is actually closer to the truth.  Habitual liars actually tend to engage in greater eye contact and will tend to lock eyes with you.
• Mouth Cover.  There may be an unconscious attempt to 'hide' the words that someone is saying, by raising the hand to the mouth, serving almost as a clock or barrier.  (cough, shh, rubbing the upper lip)
• Blink Rate.  Surprisingly, people who are telling a lie will often involuntarily blink more than they do when they are telling the truth.  Clinton's blink rate increased significantly when he declared to the world "I did not have sex with that woman".
• Signs of Discomfort.  Lying may be uncomfortable for us, leading us to 'leak' it through various physiological signs such as:  jiggling feet, fidgeting, drumming fingers, rubbing the neck, rolling eyes.  It's important to note though that these are also simply cues of nervousness.  If you put someone on the hot-seat, guilty or not, they will display these cues to some extant regardless.
• Stalling Clusters.  A group of behaviours that, although they seem purposeful on the surface, are designed to buy the person some time to think through their response (taking off glasses to clean them before responding for example)
• Parrot Statements.  When someone continues to repeat back your question, they are typically stalling for more time to compose their response.  Note that this behaviour alone does not mean someone is lying, sometimes we use it simply to have a little more time to process our true response.
• Distancing Statements.  Even liars don't like to think of themselves as liars, so they often engage in behaviours to avoid having to. In this case they will avoid using 'I' references or first names, to distance themselves from the situation in question.    

Use any of the above behaviours to help you to question someone's truthfulness.  There is no one behaviour that is a definitive sign of deception on its own, you want to look for clusters and groupings of behaviours and consider them in light of the situation.  Generally speaking, use them to highlight for you potential lies, and follow up with more detailed exploration to determine the truth.  

(if learning to become more proficient in detecting liars is of interest, check out Janine Driver's book, which is an interesting and invaluable resource)