Being A Woman In Business

Life as a woman in business

My late grandmother was very smart and had plenty of entrepreneurial talent yet she never got to use it. Sometimes, as a woman in business, I feel like I’m living my life for us both, a life she never got a chance to experience. 

It hasn’t been long since it became widely socially acceptable for women to have fulfilling careers and, in particular, to build their own companies. This is why women in business deserve to be celebrated. Chiefly those of us who work in male dominated industries.

I arrived in the UK in 2006 to study at University College London, and even though I’d never thought of myself as a business owner before, I pretty quickly found myself networking with startup founders. I remember chatting with bearded geeks over pizza and beer about product-market fit even though I had no idea what it meant at the time. I got good at gate-crashing meet-ups, launch parties, and conferences I had no ticket to attend. 

Up until I started to grow my latest company GrantTree, I have pretty much always worked with men. At one point in my career, I worked out of a hardware reseller’s HQ in Ascot, I can’t possibly imagine a more male-dominated space! And those were men whose feminine sides or qualities weren’t particularly well developed. By osmosis, I ended up focusing on masculine traits of my character: drive, action, ambition, focus, courage, and confidence.

There came a time though when I went overboard with my masculine characteristics. I was sharp to the point of being brutal. I was confident to the point of being arrogant. I embarrassed all the boys with my dirty jokes. Once I recognised this, I created a burlesque act around this exaggerated aspect of me - a woman who has forsaken her feminine side and followed her masculine traits to the point of ridicule. A woman who has created a persona or a mask that serves her career goals, who is brutal, unforgiving, and unkind. But underneath it all she is secretly longing to surrender.

It’s important to say that wholesome or mature masculine leadership has nothing to do with the above. A lot of women and men follow the “wounded masculine” aspect of them though which can, and often is, harmful to them and the rest of the world. This can include ambition and competitiveness beyond what is healthy or striving for success at all costs, without caring for the bigger picture, for society and the planet.

A wholesome leader, female or male, has managed to integrate both feminine and masculine leadership characteristics and acts from whichever part serves them at the moment. Some believe that the feminine aspect (or yin as opposed to yang), characterised  by stillness, flow, intuition, kindness, unconditional love is seldom useful in the business context. This couldn’t be more wrong. A leader who is deeply rooted in values such as tenderness or kindness, and when faced with demanding situations can act from a place of receptivity and allowing, is immensely powerful. The leadership energy of the feminine can be particularly transformative when faced with conflict or crisis where the ability to surrender and lean in is crucial.

Not all dynamic and ambitious women in business have a desire to start their own company. Many are keen to find workplaces that champion and celebrate them. A lot of founders have asked me how to attract more entrepreneurially minded women to their teams. To begin with, it’s important to create a culture which actively supports women. From the way job specs are put together, to the way women are performance assessed and promoted, there are numerous ways to make your processes more inclusive, not just in the gender context but from a variety of perspectives. 

In my upcoming book, “Laid Bare: what the business leader learnt from the stripper”, I describe how my experience of a showgirl added to my leadership and therefore how to consciously use sexual energy in the world of business. Sexuality and the professional world are often seen as mutually exclusive. When we realise sexual energy is synonymous with creative power - and life force in general - this picture starts to change. Inhabiting our bodies, and being in touch with our desires, equips us with more power to take on our professional goals and thrive in business. From my experience, women tend to be more present in their bodies and can bring this embodied energy into the professional environment.

Being a woman in business in today’s world can still be challenging, particularly in industries where we are surrounded by men (or, rather, other genders). This is why it’s important to create appropriate support structures so more women, including transgendered and all those who identify as women, feel welcome to build their professional futures in the world in business, whether they choose to start their own company or join another. 

Luckily, as an Eastern European girl in the tech space in the UK, I understood early on that it can be a strength to be different and saw it as an advantage. A lot of my female colleagues in the tech industry have taken a similar approach. It can be expected though that many will feel intimidated unless they are championed and actively supported by their managers and their peers.

Women often promote new approaches to doing business and often bring a more embodied energy into companies they join. Because of this, they should be celebrated. What is more, it is widely known that diverse teams perform better. At my company GrantTree over 60% are women and many of them occupy senior positions which we consider to be an achievement. I would encourage every business owner to be more conscious than ever about creating more opportunities for women to enter their organisations and build fulfilling careers within them.