IWD Series #1 - Women in Leadership
1 March 2024
by Professor Adeline Johns-Putra
Head, School of Arts and Social Sciences
What are key qualities that have defined your leadership style or career journey?
Managing and mentoring others is the most challenging part of my leadership role, both because it is hard to get right and because it is so important. I try to hold on to two qualities: kindness and fairness. These may seem to go hand in hand, but, really, it’s quite tricky trying to have these in equal measure. Helping someone at the moment requires compassion and kindness, but to be truly fair (not just to that person in the long term but to everyone in the team that you are trying to lead), you might have to be “unkind” (or come across as unkind) at times. That is, sometimes you have to say no to one person in order to be fair to others, or you have to encourage someone in a direction that will make them uncomfortable but will help them go further in the end. There is more to being truly kind than simply being nice.
What has been the most significant barrier in your career?
The largest barrier in my career has been a lack of built-in methods of reward, which can be a problem in academic management. I’ve been fortunate to have had some supportive superiors but, quite often, have taken on roles of significant responsibility with support and promised reward from one manager, only to have a new manager come in and refuse to recognise the scale of responsibility and effort. At least twice in my career, this has prompted me to leave an organisation. This experience has made me determined to ensure that I always pair responsibility with reward; if I delegate a large task to someone, I try to put in place the mechanisms to support and reward them at the same time.
How can women empower other women?
Again, I think it’s about kindness with fairness. The first requires an understanding of and sympathy with other women for the particular barriers that we might face because of structural gender bias; the second requires vigilance to challenge and remove these when possible. For example, it is one thing to recognise and to help a female colleague who has been burdened with the kinds of caring responsibilities that women are often burdened with; it is another to find the levers you need to put in place family-friendly hours for the core business, appropriate accommodations for women returning from maternity leave, or childcare facilities at work. It is important for women in power to try to effect both kinds of change, the micro and macro.
What is your message to the next generation?
The most important advice I ever received from my mother was, “Just do your best.” This is what I tell myself when preparing for a big presentation, a job interview, or a make-or-break meeting. You won’t always win. You won’t always get what you want. You might make mistakes. You will sometimes fail; we all do. But if you’ve tried your best, prepared as well as you can, and given all you’ve got, then you can be proud of yourself, pick yourself back up, and stand tall. And then, when you’re ready and when the opportunity arises, try again.