The “girl boss” is dead. We’re done urging women to work harder, push harder, and “lean in” harder just for equal treatment. While this shift is too long in coming, the increasingly popular alternative of “lazy girl jobs” isn’t the solution either. Our culture has created a false dichotomy between the hyper-driven career woman and the uninterested passion-chaser, and women are hurting because of it.
It’s time to fundamentally rethink how we approach women in the professional world. At its root, this isn’t about men versus women or careers versus passions. It’s about strengths, diversity, and personal growth. It’s about individuals.
As leaders, we have a central role in the trajectory of our workplaces, from overall economic and business growth to each individual employee’s development. In fact, I would argue that the success of the former is contingent on the experience of the latter. We must invest in our employees and cultivate an environment where all can thrive, especially those who have historically been stifled and left behind.
Leaders across all industries need to ask a simple question: How can we grow? As employees, team members, leaders, and a society. Rather than trying to outdo each other or simply giving up on a meaningful career, we must work together to create stronger teams with greater opportunities for all.
Being a Good Mentor—or Sponsor
Often, budding professionals are told to look for mentors who can speak from shared experience—as women, as people of color, as the outlier in our workplace. These people are indispensable, but allies and sponsors are also integral to leadership development, especially for women. They can use their position of power to advocate on an employee’s behalf.
Opinions frequently hold more weight when they come from those who are already regarded as the most credible. A good sponsor recognizes this and uses their influence to speak for those who aren’t always heard.
Sponsorship, allyship, and mentorship help open doors for employees that would otherwise be shut. These leaders are pivotal in individual career trajectories and help add seats to make the table more inclusive.
I understand the importance of good models and sponsors firsthand. I owe much of my success to colleagues who took the time to give me advice and space to grow—leaders who cared enough to push me outside of my comfort zone and create a fail-safe environment that gave me the confidence to become a leader in my own right. Many of them were men who saw potential in me and pushed for me to have opportunities I may not have had access to as a young career woman.
Giving Employees Room to Grow
One of the greatest things these sponsors did was let me fail. Failure is a key part of personal and professional growth. Give your team the freedom to push themselves, try something new, and mess it up. Women can feel especially heavy pressure to always perform at a high level, but letting that pressure prevent us from trying can actually stunt growth. Encourage your staff to let go of that burden and speak with conviction rather than fear of being wrong. If we want growth, we need to build the confidence to fail.
Additionally, we must model this behavior in our own actions and foster spaces where our team members are constantly growing stronger. Don’t be afraid to call it out when you see someone being indirect or softening their language unnecessarily.
A team member once approached me about a presentation that inadvertently failed to recognize her team’s contributions. “So sorry to bother you,” she told me. “Shouldn’t be thinking about it.” But she should have been, as I told her. Leaders should always encourage our teams to speak their mind and not feel the need to apologize. Even more fundamentally, our own careers are testaments to what’s possible when leaders help us reach our potential.
Finding Strength in Differences
We don’t grow stronger by becoming the same but by combining our diverse gifts. Instead of trying to fit into a tired narrative, focus on identifying and growing unique skill sets. Women should know their value and act accordingly, not because the gendered narrative tells them to “lean in” but because they understand the assets they bring to any team.
As the death of the “girl boss” reminds us, successful professionals and good leaders come in all varieties and from all backgrounds. Rather than promoting or trying to fit into specific molds, women should focus on developing and valuing their specific skill set. Every individual—and every company—will be stronger if we shift our focus to cultivating and celebrating team members’ unique strengths. Together, we can raise up the next generation of leaders—a generation that embraces diversity and growth.
Rohshann Pilla is the President of Aquent Talent, a leader in talent and recruiting for marketing, creative, and design. She leads an all-female team in developing innovative talent delivery solutions for Fortune 100 clients that help propel the business forward.