Australian women are better at talking themselves up at work than women from Sweden and New Zealand but they’re not as confident as women in the UK, China and the US.
However, when compared to men, women all over the globe lag behind when it comes to their ability to promote themselves to those that matter.
That’s the view of visiting American behavioural scientist Shannon Goodson who has been studying “for 30 years” the link between career success and a person’s ability to promote themselves at work.
Ms Goodson says the reluctance of women to talk about their abilities and successes has led to pay disparity between men and women doing the same job and made it more difficult for women to access career advancement opportunities and thus higher pay rises.
This year, Ms Goodson studied data gathered from 16,700 professional men and 11,745 professional women living in 34 countries. The survey group were asked a series of questions about networking, self promotion and how they position themselves for career advancement.
Ms Goodson found that while most men take to “visibility management” naturally and even feel comfortable taking credit for the work of others, women are generally hesitant about drawing attention to their contributions at work.
These “fears” differ from country to country. For example, women in Australia and the US suffer from “stage fright” or speaking up in front of others. American women feel more intimidated by people with social power than Aussies. However, Australian women fear being seen as “pushy” if they promote their abilities at work while American women generally do not.
Australian women also have to contend with the “tall poppy syndrome” - the supposed hostility people attract when they rise above the pack. Ms Goodson says the practice appears to be unique to Australia and a real fear blocker for local women.
UK women had the least number of fears when it came to self promotion and networking.
Ms Shannon, who is also the president and CEO of Behavioral Sciences Press, has drawn on the research to produce her newly released book, The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance. She points out that her survey group included sales and non sales professionals as well as women in senior executive roles.
Asked about the often heard complaint from women that their hard work should speak for itself, Ms Goodson says “that’s their fear talking”.
“Good work is important, but good work alone does not, as the saying goes, ‘speak for itself’. You have to give it a voice,” she says.
Women should also not waste time “complaining, whining and wishing things were different” and put that energy into identifying and then facing down their fears.
Tips on how to promote yourself at work
“First up, women need to look at themselves and be aware that the problem exists. Then they need to work out their particular fear, a fear of being seen as pushy or stage fright, so they can find the right action to take,” she says.
Women also need to “practice, practice, practice” talking about their successes and abilities.
In her book, Ms Goodson has identified eight common fears women hold and provided matching counter measures. One of these is “thought zapping”.
“It may sound simplistic but it does work. Often we women constantly have a dialogue going in our heads. When we are thinking about taking a risk we hear all the things that could go wrong to talk ourselves out of doing something.
“Thought zapping is a cognitive behaviour technique. You take a simple rubber band and put it around your wrist and ping it every time you use a negative thought that stops you from taking a risk. You then replace it with a thought that is more reasonable.”
Ms Goodson advises to keep repeating the exercise until the encouraging thoughts become your default rather than the negative thoughts.
“Women also need to get better at introducing themselves to people [outside their organisation] and better at making sure those in senior positions know who they are and know what they do well.
“This needs to be a practice, something done on a daily basis. It is what I call ‘visibility management’.
“Part of leadership is to be able to network and reach out to people across the corporate environment so women have to get better at doing this.”
Employers can also play a role. First they need to identify their female talent and then explore ways to develop their confidence.
“While employers cannot do the work for women, they can provide the opportunities and the training to help these women overcome their fears.
“The reward for employers is to recognise the very intelligent and talented women who are currently invisible in their organisations so that they can groom them to be better leaders,” Ms Goodson said.
Kate Southam is Editor of CareerOne.com.au