How to Navigate Bias Traps Toward Your Ultimate Success with Gifty Enright

Navigating through the obstacles of gender bias is unfortunately a reality for many women leaders. As we discuss with our guest, Gifty Enright, overcoming the hurdles and traps of bias will put you on the path to success. But you need self-awareness, confidence, and strategic thinking. Gifty will share with us how first you need to know yourself and your self-worth and how having mentors, sponsors, and peers in your corner to provide you advice, visibility, and self-talk will help you tremendously. And lastly, how you need to embrace your authentic self and not force yourself into any male-defined expectation. Gifty will provide powerful tips, strategies, and advice that will help you break down any barrier and ensure gender bias does not limit your potential. With grit and support, you can succeed on your own terms. Stay with us. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms female corporate executives into powerhouse leaders by showing them how to shed the challenges and overwhelm along with any fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity holding them back. I'm your host, Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching, bringing you powerhouse discussions each week to share tips, advice, and sometimes tough love so you create the riches in your work and life you deserve. Gifty, how are you?

I am very, very well, thank you. And thanks for having me.

Oh, you're so welcome. Welcome to the Shedding the Bitch community. I'm looking forward to this conversation. All around navigating gender biases and what women need to do to avoid them. But before we get there, could you share with us a little bit about yourself personally outside the workplace so our audience can kind of get connected and relate to you?

Yeah, so outside the workplace, as you can see, I love books, and I personally want to be buried in a library when I die. I am one of those perpetual learners. I love information, I love knowledge, and I've always been that type of person. I'm naturally curious, and so I'm lucky enough to have lived on more than one continent. So I was actually born in Africa and now I live in the UK and done lots of traveling, which has opened my eyes and my mind to different ways of living, but I did the corporate thing for a while, and then I'm also a mother. I've got two boys. I used to have two dogs, but one died. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Yeah. So, and as you know, I wrote a book and the rest is history. This is why I'm here now.

Right. And all that reading and all that experience and travel, obviously lends itself beautifully to the work that you do. So that's why I was really excited to talk with you all about this gender biases. So let's start with— and you have the experience being in corporate and now supporting corporate professionals. So in 2023, what are, you know, what continues to be those traps of gender biases going on out there when it comes to whether someone's trying to get a job, get advanced in their job, or just exist in the workplace?

Yeah. So for women, I think we're in a bind actually, because if you speak to lots of women, particularly mothers, they would have done a first shift before they get to the workplace. Right? And the workplace, it is set up in a way that the woman always has to prove a point, but not so much for the man. And when you come to a domestic setting, again, it's set up in a way the woman has to be giving and giving and giving. And I mean, there's research that shows that 75% of unpaid work is done by women. And this is the sort of unpaid work, the caring in the community, looking after children and grandparents and stuff, the sort of things that make the world go around. And so in terms of biases that women face, it's not a level playing field. You know, they carry a very heavy domestic load and then they take it into the workplace. And then unfortunately for them, there are traps in the workplace, the gender bias traps that they fall into in the workplace as well. So you have things like performance bias, you have things like maternal bias, you have things like likability bias. That women have to go and deal with in the workplace as well. And these things were in 2023, but it hasn't changed, right? So the UN issued a piece of research probably 3 months ago now showing that 90% of the world is still biased against women in politically, economically, and education-wise. So whichever way you look at it, there is this stiff wind in the face of women is just, it gets more exacerbated in the workplace.

Right. Well, and I love those various types of biases because that's not talked a lot about. They're pretty much lumped into gender bias. But could you not necessarily repeat, but could you break down to make sure our women are really aware of all the different types of biases that are out there? Because they're just looking at it as a mother or a—

Yeah.

Or as a woman. But could you walk through those biases that you had mentioned and if there's others that we really need to be paying attention to?

Yeah, yeah. So generally, there's about 6. And so you have performance bias, where a man is literally judged on his potential and a woman is judged on her past experience, right? And so the man, it's just, ah, yeah, he can do it. So that's performance bias. Um, and then you have attribution bias where women don't often get credit for their achievements. And so that means it's a lot of their stuff kind of goes under the radar and people just don't automatically assume that they know what they're talking about, you know, because they don't normally do that chest-beating thing, right? And then there's likability bias where when a man it's aggressive. It's like, yeah, he's a leader, that's what is supposed to be expected. But when a woman is assertive, is seen as she's been aggressive, and oh my God, because women are expected to be nurturing, you know. And I always say there is no such thing as an assertive woman, there's only an aggressive woman. Because if you try to assert yourself, you see, um, as aggressive, which makes you unlikable. So that's the likability bias, where what will look good on a man will not look good on a woman, perhaps. You know, like Hillary Clinton during the, um, campaign when she was campaigning against Obama, and at one point she got emotional and it was like, oh my God, she's losing it. Whereas if Obama had got emotional, be like, oh my God, he's in touch with his feminine side. So, you know, it's just what looks good on a man doesn't look good on a woman, and it is the same quality, it just depends, you know. So that is the likability bias. You know, that women face. And then you have affinity bias, where we all gravitate towards people just like us, you know. And how many men are like women? Women do things in a different way, we behave in a different way. And so when it comes to positions of seniority and in the C-suite, 70% of them are men, right? And so if you have the affinity bias at play, where people are gravitating towards themselves, and 70% of the people are holding the stakes, What chance, you know, the only 30% of women, you know, and then you have maternal bias, that should be self-explanatory. And then finally, intersectionality, where you have more, more than one or two of these biases together, where let's say, you know, a woman trying to be assertive goes and falls pregnant as well and then comes across the maternity bias. Right. So those things. So the sex biases. Yeah.

But wow. And I think that's awesome because again, I think women are kind of lumping themselves and their own issues into one overall thing. And if they could break it down to really understand those 6 differences, they can start peeling away at some of them one at a time or just a little bit versus seeing it as a very overwhelming, huge hurdle to overcome. So speaking of— so you also talk about the female talent pipeline. What is the impact of all these biases to the ability for a company to really build up their talent pipeline with women who also are proven to bring some very unique and some very valuable characteristics, traits, and qualities to the workplace?

Yes, so in terms of pipeline, at the start, so when women get into the workplace, at the entry level, the differences between male and female is only about— so you get in the split, you get 48% female, 52% male, so it's only like 4% between them, if my maths is holding up, right? But by the time you get to the C-suite, suddenly it becomes a gaping— men 70%, women 30%. It's like, what happened? Do you know? And in between, what happens is, first, this is, you know, the bit that's called the broken rung, as in just as most women are about to step into management. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, depending on where you're standing, it kind of coincides with our biology because that's when people will be considering getting and having families. And, and when you look at the work you have to do, when I previously mentioned about the odds stacked against us in terms of the caring burden falling on women, then a lot of women hold themselves back, do you know, because they're like, do I really want to take that step into management? There'll be more pressure, I have children at home, blah blah blah. So they tend to stagnate where they don't want to step up for that extra pressure, or some go off and have children and don't come back because it's just too complicated to do the balance. You know, the whole work-life balance thing. And so you lose them in their droves at that point. So that's what is called the broken run. And then those that persevere in the end, some of them pay a huge price for persevering with their health in terms of burnout and stuff like that. Or some, even though they want kids, choose or don't because it's like it's a high price to pay. So all along, things are happening. They've been making huge sacrifices. And then by the time they get to the C-suite, then we're left with only 30%, as it were. So that is a pipeline as in how it works out. And the tragedy of that, of the women falling out and us being left with 70% of men at the top, is women think in a different way from men, right? So what you don't get at the top is diversity of thought. And I always say New Zealand was held up as the country that really during COVID had excellent management. And who was at the helm? It was a woman. Just saying. So, we think differently from the men, and when you lose out on that diversity of thought, you're losing out on productivity as well, because there's research that shows that if you have more diverse group, you get performance is better, productivity is increased as well. So, you miss out on that. And obviously, the less women we have at the top, those at the bottom don't have enough mentorship, because there are not enough people. They don't see enough of themselves at the top. So again, we miss out on that. And then there's the economy, the small matter of contribution towards the economy, right? Because if they're falling out, have a broken run, right, out of the workplace, we have less people contributing as well. So there's so many different factors. So it's not good for the economy, it's not good for productivity, it's not good for people themselves in terms of their own confidence. Managing the pipeline and keeping the women engaged is good all around and is something that needs to be encouraged and supported.

Some of these choices and some of these issues with the female talent pipeline are being generated by the women. They're making certain decisions about whether or not they can do everything, so to speak. But some are still blatantly being created, some of these biases. By men. And so what are men responsible for in the workplace when it comes to creating these biases and this lack of opportunity for women?

Right. So, and it's interesting in terms of these biases, it's created by both men and women. So it's not just, you know, the men. For the men, what's happening is it's just the status quo. When it comes to society and the workplace is set up for men, right? And so they don't have to do anything, they're just being themselves, right? So if you like, it's the system that needs to be changed, is the culture that needs to be changed, because it's wearing the women out. And it's not because the men have set out to be bad, they're just being men and they're rolling out of bed and they're in the meeting and they're like, what I do? I didn't do anything wrong, I just came to work, right? The fact that he's oblivious to the fact that his colleague has done a whole shift before coming to work and whatever, and at some point she might get a call from the school to say your child has been sick and then she has to go again, and he'd be sitting there rolling his eyes thinking, what have we got here, a part-timer, right? Now that is the training, the education that they need to understand in terms of the challenges that the women face. So there is, um, an awareness issue for the men, and there is a training issue for the men, but it's not because they go out of their way to— do you know what I mean? To be biased. It's unconscious.

Unconscious.

Yes. They're just being themselves. They're just rolling. That's said. Um, again, as we said, to show that, you know, normally, um, women are interrupted 3 times more than men when they're speaking. And in terms of the interruption, women interrupt women, right? Just so it is— we're all biased, full stop. Except the bias that we're talking about in terms of the workplace when it comes to women it's just not working for us. And then the way society set things up is not working for us. And then people are also not aware of these traps that we go and then go and fall into. And so if we have a top-down approach where you have those 70% at the top in the C-suite of men educated on these issues that affect their colleagues and their peers, and they stop interrupting the women 3 times when they speak. These sort of behaviors cascade down, and then everybody then adopts that culture, and then we start supporting the women up.

Right, but it has to come from the top down. Yes. What are you seeing, other than women interrupting women, what are you seeing that even women are creating against other women to where, you know, we have that lack of talent where we really need it and where we would really benefit from it.

So I'm sure you've heard the saying, or definitely when I was in the corporate thing, it's like people will say, I don't like working for female managers, you know, and women say that they prefer to work for men. And I can understand that because, you know, if you're working for a man, it's an easier life. He doesn't have to prove anything. You know, the performance bias is at stake, right? Whereas the woman is constantly having to prove herself and prove it. So it can be quite exhausting working for a woman. And also, because she's there fighting this battle daily, if she's not sure of herself, right, and she's tired, she's burnt out and all that, then the staff underneath her, they're paying the price, do you see? And so I can understand why other women will not like working for a woman, because, you know, it's not easy. But this is where the support comes in, you know, as in we all have to have our shoulder to the wheel and support each other. Because if you have a woman boss and maybe, maybe she's having a bad day, you know, if it was a man having a bad day, how would you view it?

Yes.

Rather than it's because she's a woman. Do you know what I mean? So those are the sort of things we can do to support each other. And also, there is personal responsibility here. Women have to— this is where we get into the burnout space, and I get it, and I understand why women get burnt out more than men. And there's again research, McKinsey, I'm leaning issue-based research. Even in 2023, the figures still haven't shifted. Women are getting burnt out more than men in the workplace. And whilst we're there and this is happening, women need to understand the odds are not stacked in our favor. So we have a duty of care to ourselves, right, to live in balance. Yes, because once we live in balance, then we have that— I don't know— the clarity of thought to be able then to manage the challenges that we face in the workplace.

And you really feel that there is a way to get balance versus like a blend of just what it is that you want and what it is that you're capable of achieving. I tend to get exhausted thinking that I have to find balance between, you know, my work and my personal life as opposed to just finding the way, especially as an entrepreneur. There's some additional pressures, you know, more an entrepreneur versus someone who's taking home a paycheck every 2 weeks guaranteed. But do you find ways and work with your clients in finding balance versus just a blending or an improvement to how they're handling both their work and their personal life?

Yes. So, and I think balance is misunderstood. You are going to have a stressful week and an off-balance week, and that's okay. You know, so you're not going to be balanced all the time, right? But what you have to have is balance as the goal, and you know when you're off balance. So when you have that very stressful project is going live, all hands to the pump, we're working through the night— so long as that is not your default, so long as that is not the norm, and you come back to the center. So you have to have you know, this is the way I roll, and every now and then I'm going to be yanked out, but that's okay. I will come back as soon as, you know, and I have protocols in place to pull me back, you know. Or when I'm going through a stressful period, I have protocols in place to support me through that period, and as soon as I can, I come back to the center. That is what balance is about. You're going to be balanced and serene all the time. No, it doesn't work that way.

Don't we wish? Don't we wish it would work that way? So what do you recommend? What can women be doing? Even if you look at it as from an early age, you know what they could be doing as they are, they're starting their career or depending upon the type of clients you have, maybe they are already seasoned. And they're trying to work through and navigate these biases. What do you recommend and advise them to do in order to navigate all the traps that are out there?

Yes, so you have to know and understand your values and what's important to you. You have to know your center so that when you get yanked out of it, you know where you come to. A lot of people don't know their home. They don't know their center. They haven't said, what's important to me? So let's say you've decided you're going to have kids and stuff like that. Kids don't raise themselves, right? There's a whole emotional and physical and da da da da to that, and you need to understand that your life is going to— from that point that you walk out of the maternity unit, your life is going to be turned upside down and it's going to change, and you'll never recognize it for another 20 years or so, right? And so When that happens, you need to— what is important to me? What are my values? Is it having a happy family, right? Or is it having an affluent family? You know, they're very different, like, value set. And so understanding that, if you like, that is your North Star. Because once you know that, then in the workplace you know where, where you're going to orientate yourself to all the time. And so always you're navigating back to your core, to what those values are, because if you don't know that, you just go chasing different things. You'll be trying to work 24 hours to please the boss and maybe ignore those kids, and which will lead to instability at home, which will then derail you even more, right? You know, And so it is understanding because also for women, particularly knowing where the boundaries are, and you cannot know your boundaries if you don't know your values, right? You need clarity on the values to know where to put your boundaries. And so I was coaching a client the other day and I'm like, you know, choose your pain point. It's either leaving early with everybody staring at you at the back of your head, it's like, you are part-time and you're leaving early. Or coming in late with everybody giving you the daggers like, you're the part-timer, what would you do? You know, choose. But either way, there will be daggers if, you know, your children need you to leave early or come in, whatever it is. And it is when you know your values, when you know your core, then you can cope with whatever daggers it is that are coming at you.

I think that's beautiful because so many people, let alone women, struggle with. Someone's always gonna hate on me, or someone's always gonna be judging me, or— and that happens in life as a whole. I love what you say about know your values. You're gonna know your boundaries, and you're not going to allow those things to sabotage you because you're centered in your values. I love that. Absolutely love that. So share with us, you wrote a book. Called Octopus on a Treadmill. And I can only— I'm visual, so I can only imagine women, health, success, happiness. Share with us a little bit about that.

So, I mean, I wrote the book for me. That was my gift to all women out there because I was that woman in burnout trying to please everybody, not knowing my boundaries and just literally going in every direction until I burnt myself out, made myself ill. And so this is about my journey back. From all that madness, right? And what I did, you know, to pull myself back to the center. And so I give my strategies as to how you can bring yourself back to the center. So that's what the book's about. And I mean, I work holistically, so I'm looking at the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual rather than just saying this is just one thing. But no, You need to be holistic if you want to have that balance that we're talking about. Right.

Because you had mentioned before, you have to really assess and really be aware, self-awareness of all aspects of what's going on in your life in order for you to really pinpoint strategies or fixes to those things. Right.

And even when you become aware, you say, you know, your values, right? And you think, yeah, the boundaries, there's the skill set of communication, which is crucial to be able to communicate what it is you want, because you can know the boundaries all you want. If you're not communicating, nobody knows, and they're still violating your boundaries, and you're sitting there feeling like a victim. So it's having those communication and negotiating skills to be able to say, this is not okay. And those things are backed by self-esteem. Because if you don't have the self-esteem, right, you're not able to go to your boss and say, okay, hang on, you want me to do, I know, 18 hours, but I can only do 12, you know, and negotiate from that point on.

Yes. Yeah. Love that. Love that. And this applies to pretty much everything that we've been discussing as far as really ensuring first, you know yourself, but then you need to make sure your team, your boss, even then you have to have conversations with your family, your friends, of the expectation they should have of you because of the well-known centered values that you've just defined for yourself.

And that communication with the family is so important because women just want to give and give and give, right, until they're completely depleted. When you're giving from a depleted place, That is not giving, really. The people you're giving from a depleted place to, you're doing them a disservice. It comes from a place of resentment because you're depleted. They feel it. It's tainted. It's just not the way to go.

I love that. That is awesome. And it's said with such conviction. No, you're absolutely right. And women deserve to have their voice heard, for others to appreciate it, and to have a, in your words, a balanced work and life and experience. I love it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Gifty. Is there any one last tip or piece of advice for our audience where once they're done this conversation, listening to this, they can go out and really kind of see a shift? In their world?

So in terms of, for people, if they want to shift where they are, right? And I will say this, and I say this to women until I'm blue in the face: you need to know that you are enough. You need to know that you are enough. And getting to that place where you know that you're enough takes work. And So you need to go out there and grab whatever help you can get— mentors, coaches, counsel, whatever— grab it, because that's when you start building yourself up, right, to get to the point where you know your worth, and then you can communicate that worth and start negotiating.

So expanding on that, so say someone says, yes, I want to kind of know, you know, my worth, and I want to understand everything that we've talked about, and I'm going to go and seek a mentor, a coach like what should they be sharing with that individual to really ensure that they get from that relationship what they need, as opposed to it just becoming another talking head type of moment?

Yeah. So they need to be clear on the outcome they want. I said for me, because I specialize in working mothers, and when they come to me, they want to have their career and their family, right? They don't want to have anything to give. And I always say to the women, have it all. Nobody ever says to a man that he can't have it all, so why can't we? So I always say to them, have it all. But to have it all, you need special skills to enable you to have it all. And so you need to know what outcome do I want. So for my women, it's very clear. I want my family, and I still want to keep climbing the ladder. I want to continue with the business. Okay, how can we make this happen? So be clear in your outcome. So they come to me in burnout because they've tried to have it all and the wheels have come off, right? And so that's the symptom we're looking at— the wheels have come off. And so show me the way to have it all and keep the wheels on.

Yeah.

And with that, you're clear on where to go. Yeah.

And they can kind of take a breath and be confident to know that the mentor coach will know the questions to ask to help you get there. If you're unclear of what it is that you ultimately want, someone like yourself can ask the right questions to help you get there. So you're not on an island by yourself and you should take advantage of someone like Gifty to kind of help guide you there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was working with a woman last week where there's a decision she had to make and she'd been like, oh my God, oh my God. And so we sat down and said, okay, what do you want? Blah, blah, blah. Decision made. She goes, oh my God, it's taking me so long backwards and forwards agonizing. But you know, what are your values? What do you want out of this?

Right.

And Once you have that as your north star, it's very easy then to make that decision because if that decision is conflicting with your values, you're not going to be happy anyway.

Agreed. Absolutely agree. Gifty, this has been fabulous. Thank you so much. And I want everyone listening or watching, please go to giftyenright.com and check out everything Gifty does as well as be able to reach out to her if you need the support to find your north star. At the same time, you can Follow her on Facebook at Gifty Enright and get her book. It's on Amazon. Get her book, Octopus on a Treadmill: Women, Health, Success, Happiness. I so appreciate it, Gifty. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

What a powerhouse of a conversation with Gifty Enright of Business Scope Consultancy. I absolutely love this whole conversation around gender bias, but more so What are the traps and how can you overcome them? So what did you take away from the conversation? I'd love to know if you want to go out to LinkedIn @Bernadette Boas. I'd love to know your comments or your questions. So at any point, DM me or just share your comments or questions on any of the posts that you see out there from myself or my team. But the things that really jumped out at me that Gifty talked about were the various types of biases, not just overall gender bias, but also breaking down the various types of biases like performance, maternity, likability, affinity. She goes into each one of them to really ensure you understand what those are and how to avoid them. Then she talked about balance. I even kind of challenged it by saying, "Is there really such a thing as balance?" She went on to explain her take. Take on just how women can achieve balance in their work and in their life. And then the next one was really ensuring that you'll find balance by really knowing your center. And she went into talking about values and boundaries. And I absolutely love that because we can all use balance in our life, can't— couldn't we? And then lastly, as an extension to the conversation around balance is she really talked about the critical nature of the communication that is needed from you to those that are impacting your world around what your values are, what your boundaries are, what your expectations are. So then that way there's no miscommunication or unmet expectation, more clear Gifty stated, the more clear you can be around your values, your boundaries, your wants and needs, the more effective and more successful you'll be at accomplishing what it is that you want. But what a powerful conversation, and I thoroughly appreciated Gifty sharing so much of it with all of you. So be sure to check Gifty out at giftyenright.com. And at the same time, like I said, Follow us on LinkedIn @BernadetteBoas and leave your comments or your questions for Gifty or myself. And let's be sure that all of you are overcoming any traps, any hurdles, any obstacles keeping you from achieving whatever goal you have for yourself at work or in life. And I am so grateful that you were here with us this week, and I will look forward to having you right back here for another episode of Shedding the Corporate bitch. Bye.