Author: Rachana

Sonali’s Story: Selvan

“In 2003, I walked into the office of a senior leader at one of India’s leading Information Technology organisations in the city of Bangalore. I was a young leadership and management development facilitator aiming for a big job.

Back then, gender diversity and equality weren’t popular terms, and men weren’t being called upon to support women as they are now. Plus, I didn’t know the importance of a male ally in a male dominated world for a woman.

I found myself sitting in front of an unassuming, calm and approachable person. He sat behind a wooden desk and with team photographs and trophies lined on shelves all across a wall. He smiled reassuringly at me, and I instantly felt comfortable.

That was Selvan; head of a large training team that undertook a range of people development programs and projects for our global organisation. At the end of my interview, he walked down a set of stairs with me, asked if I wanted lunch and then led me to the nearest on-campus café. He even made a menu suggestion! Selvan then explained and wrote out directions to get to my final HR interview. This gesture of thoughtfulness and care has always stayed with me as one of his great leadership qualities.

I got selected and stayed on for six years with the organisation, and Selvan remained the head of our team and my skip level manager through that time. I can confidently say that his mentorship steered my career in a far better direction than if I had met a leader who didn’t focus on crafting a young woman’s career and providing her support and guidance through those crucial years.

Selvan shared his intention to be a mentor and sponsor right from the start. We would often meet in our pantry, and instead of nodding and moving on with his coffee, he always had a question to ask. Through these frequent and informal interactions I grew in my confidence to be myself and not try to fit in.

While he was my manager’s manager, he never talked down, patronised or brushed away a concern, instead, he was a great listener. Selvan truly had an open door policy. He engaged in a way that I knew I could walk in and talk to him. This helped me understand how things worked, which in the natural course of male dominated corporate life, rarely happens for a young woman starting out.

Selvan always pushed me to think bigger and not hesitate to share brave ideas about how I saw my career growing. I now understand the significance of those conversations much better.

Another great leadership value I saw exemplified in Selvan was his sense of fairness. He made sure I got my due credit even when I would be the most junior person in a task force to have contributed. Instead of ignoring my share, he paid close attention to the quality of my work and I always knew how I was doing and what I could do better. To have merit, initiative and competence rewarded in this manner proved crucial for my future career.

I hope this story helps someone identify if they have a male ally in their lives. Selvan has set a high bar for me ever since on how I engage with men. I’ve used his example several times as I’ve taught leadership skills across levels over the years.”

– Sonali D’silva, Founder and Principal Consultant, Equality Consulting
Adelaide, Australia

Sonali D’silva is author of Corporate Nirvana and is in the process of writing her second book ‘25 Practices of Inclusive Leaders‘. Sonali has spent two decades of her career in leadership and management development; her current work involves helping organisations build Inclusive Leaders, expand the influence of women leaders, and involve men in Gender Equality efforts.

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“I like to tell people when they work with me, they are getting a ‘two-for’. I’m a Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. My husband, Todd Saxton, also teaches at the Kelley School, as a Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship. On many projects, we are both involved – either formally or behind the scenes: we are true partners in that we share ideas and seek the other person’s input. Most people and projects then, get both of our ideas, rather than just one person’s.

Todd is an ally in many ways. I am lucky to have him. He watched the struggles his mother faced in her generation, and can spot inequality early. Metaphorically, if I’m pushing a stone up hill, he’ll push with me… or will back up when I say, ‘I need to do this myself’ and be my biggest cheerleader. We have listened to ‘Lean In’ together. But, he also holds my feet to the fire. If I am being biased against other women (hey – we are all human), he’ll call me out on it. We make each other accountable for advocating for women and minorities.

One role Todd plays very well is anticipating and raising issues on my behalf if needed. The research shows that if a woman or minority engages in gender/ethnicity balancing, they are penalized. But, men gain respect when they advocate. If I raise a statistic or gap about women’s representation, for example, it may land with certain stakeholders as, ‘There goes Kim again.’ But Todd recognizes the situations in which his voice could hold more influence, and proactively addresses issues head-on. He will say things like, ‘What are we doing to support the women?’ Or, ‘we all know that these performance metrics may be gender biased…’

When I’m happy and successful, Todd is too. Said differently, he doesn’t sacrifice himself to help me. He helps me when doing so is something that brings him happiness and in his best interests. That way, he never resents the help he’s given. Our ‘two-for’ partnership shows how gender equality can greatly amplify the impact we make in our careers.”

– Kim, Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
Indianapolis, IN

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“I had a great boss, Shawn, when I worked as a Technical Consultant in Market Research at Eli Lilly. Shawn did two things very well: he knew how to navigate the company culture to build influence, and he showed his advocacy through a behavior I call signaling.

Shawn hired me to create change by developing the technical expertise in marketing and market research for the organization. If you value a person, you want to make them successful; at Eli Lilly, they highly valued pedigree. When Shawn introduced me, he used my full name and credentials, leading with “This is Kim Saxton, she has a BS from MIT and her MBA/PhD in marketing and statistics from IU.” In doing so, he was setting me up for success immediately among the senior team and other staff.

He would also display a powerful behavior, signaling. When I was to serve as his delegate at a meeting, he’d go in with his coffee cup, say hi to those already there, and then leave as the meeting began. Everyone then knew that I was his delegate. Then as any initiative was getting started, he would introduce me and let me run the meeting or presentation. One initiative, he set up 33 presentations that I managed on his behalf. The intentionality he showed certainly reinforced his commitment to me, and to his overall role as an advocate.

Shawn and I had a great working relationship. This was in the pre-laptop days. As a technical consultant within Lilly, I was working with 10 different brand teams and on several organization-wide initiatives. We had a big presentation on one initiative to the top management team – the top 13 executives at Lilly. Shawn came in over the weekend to help me prep the final presentation. But, he was color-blind. So, as we were changing graphics on the slides, he would ask me which color – which row and column? When I finally took a vacation and came back, he noted, ‘Holy moly. I had to get on your computer to find a file. I was shocked. I had no idea how much you’d been working! I’m glad that so many teams are asking for your help. Thank you for just taking it all in stride.’

It seemed like a win-win-win situation. He helped me be successful, he made the organization better, and he demonstrated how to be a great male ally.”

– Kim, Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
Indianapolis, IN

Read this story and others at The Corner of the Court Project

“Finding male allies and mentors is a challenge for women. However, once you do strike gold and find them, it is key to remain engaged with them in the long term, throughout your career.

I’ve been lucky enough over the course of my own career to find many male mentors and allies. And, I love working with them as well on projects that have a larger impact and outcomes.

One recent example of this long-term engagement happened when I lucked out and struck up a mentor in my former business school dean, Dr. David Borst. Although I graduated several years ago now from Concordia University Wisconsin, he recently also retired as dean. We had the opportunity to chat and figure out how to collaborate on a bigger project, now that he had more time to dedicate to something broader reaching.

As someone who had additionally set up a women’s mentoring program in his hometown of Milwaukee, WI (he calls it an ‘advisory board’), we decided it would be important to collaborate on a book project that describes how to set up a mentoring program for women – through the lens of a male perspective (his) and mine as a woman.

The S(He) Says Guide to Mentoring was born in the spring of 2017. It is a his and hers perspective on setting up women’s mentoring programs.

Once the book was launched, I attended his women’s advisory board and we shared our story of the book and the collaboration. He held a fire side chat and book launch in Milwaukee later that evening, where we chatted from a his and hers perspective about the value of mentoring women, male allies and collaboration.

We also had each other on our respective radio show/podcast to discuss the collaboration. Dr. Borst’s radio show is on the air in Milwaukee, where I appeared as a guest about the book, and I had him as a guest on a podcast that I co-host about career development, The Pharmacy Podcast.

I also had Dr. Borst come to Indianapolis, my hometown, where I serve as president for a nonprofit association, The Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, Indiana Chapter. Dr. Borst moderated a panel of all men — we called them “Manbassadors” — to discuss why and how to mentor women in healthcare and life sciences.

In the end, on this project, my mentor became my peer in many respects (although I certainly still consider him a mentor). And more than a dozen years after b school for me, I have the pleasure and honor of remaining connected to Dr. Borst.

No woman is an island, and we need to continue to engage and foster long term, collaborative partnerships with our mentors and allies. I appreciate his time and talent, and most of all the opportunity to share an idea with and through him to a wider audience.”

– Erin, Author, The “S(He) Says Guide to Mentoring”
Indianapolis, IN

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Erin Albert, MBA, PharmD, JD is an author, entrepreneur, pharmacist, lawyer and podcaster. She has authored over 20 books, which can be found at her website, www.erinalbert.com.

Dr. Borst also has a website, www.borstthebrand.com.

“One kind of ally is a sponsor. I speak a lot about how sponsors are critical to help push your career forward. I’m the Founder of #GoSponsorHer, a campaign for leaders to play an active and intentional role in the success of high-potential women. I’ve personally been inspired and supported by many strong sponsors — both men and women — I’ve had in my career at McKinsey and at integrate.ai.

Today I want to focus less on my sponsors and more on a different kind of ally in my life, in fact the most important ally in my life who supports every step of the work I do – my fiancée, Mike. We had the benefit of starting our relationship together, on equal footing, at university. We were both highly ambitious students, majoring in business and supporting each other through interviews. He went into investment banking, I went into consulting; first as interns and then full-time.

Early in our relationship we experienced the extremes of one partner having significant demands at work. We first went through it as Mike worked his job in investment banking; though the hours I put in at my consulting firm were high they were not as crazy as his so I did more of ‘the lift’ in our personal lives — making sure our lives together ran smoothly in every other element besides career.

Then we experienced a shift: Mike made a career change that gave him more time and flexibility and I got promoted at McKinsey making me busier than ever. Accordingly, Mike started taking on the role of doing more of the lift at home. It has just always worked that way with us; we are very clear on where we both are in a given week, month or year in terms of demands on our time and energy in order to make the rest of our lives work. We take turns.

We’re both good at knowing what the other needs, whether it’s a pep talk, and/or sympathy. Hopefully that is what a good sponsor or mentor also does for you: they know when you need a kick in the pants, or, a little bit of sympathy… I think a relationship should do the same… though we humans tend to be less good at doing that for people we love: we tend to over-index toward sympathy or tough love.

Mike and I together maintain two killer careers, a network of family and friends and a house. All of those things contribute to a huge pie. Sharing the pie 50/50 is tricky given that the proportions are always shifting and someone always ends up needing to do more of the grunt work at any given time. Mike and I are explicit about those shifts and explicit about who is taking the lead on the Homefront at any given time. It’s been amazing to have a partner who is, quite frankly, willing to do that, because you look at the research and it always says that no matter who has the successful career, the woman is doing more at home. If we are going to make real change, we have to allow men to change too — they needn’t carry the traditional pressures being the sole partner with a career.

If we are going to level the playing field, our efforts in the corporate environment must extend to home life. I am so grateful to have found a partner like Mike who cares just as much about supporting my career and my passions as I do his.”

– Megan Anderson, Business Development Director, integrate.ai
Toronto, Canada

Megan Anderson is the co-founder of #GoSponsorHer. a social campaign to accelerate the sponsorship of high-potential women in Canada and beyond. She created the project out of a deep desire to empower the next generation of Female CEOs and break the glass ceiling for good. #GoSponsorHer has enlisted an expansive network of both male and female allies who are sponsoring women at their organizations. If your your or organization would like to participate, please check out www.gosponsorher.com!