Embracing My Inner Self-Aggrandizing Jerk

Over the weekend Jon Prial at Balanced Bits drew my attention to a terrific report by NPR’s On The Media, tweeting “Knew it was MamaBee fodder as soon as I heard it.”  The piece was nominally about women in media and communications, but actually spoke to the challenge of female advancement in nearly any industry.

OTM chose Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program as their pundit on the topic, acknowledging the irony of not choosing a woman.  Shirky recently wrote a rant on why outstanding women in technology are less competitive than their mediocre male peers.  As he tells On The Media:

Within the Interactive Telecommunications Program, where I teach, you would not walk into that environment and think: oh my goodness, the men are so much more talented than the women. But when those students get out to the world, I see a sorting out that happens along gender lines. And I think at least part of it is that women are not being aggressive enough about saying: I can do that, my work is good, I’m applying for that grant, I’m asking for this recommendation, I’m raising my hand.  I’m taking a risk in public.

Full disclosure: I love both On The Media and Clay Shirky, so Jon couldn’t have been more right that this is up my alley.  But the report also struck a personal note.  Even in my company, where many of the senior executives are female, the men take more public risks and are more confident about promoting their own work.  The women tend to get bogged down in policies, protocols and hierarchies, while the men do first and ask later.  It usually pays off for them.  And they trumpet their success.

Of course some would argue that women’s more prudent and diplomatic behavior is of greater benefit to companies and systems.  For example, much has been made of the idea that if women had been running Wall Street, last year’s big crisis might not have happened.  But I have to agree with Shirky when he points out that the idea that women are inherently different managers and communicators adopts some of the worst female stereotypes.  As he says:

…all of that kind of nurturing, social junk imagines that the best role we can imagine for women in the workplace is as kind of middle-management mommies…They don’t get to found the company. They don’t get to run the company.  Maybe someday they can be senior vice-president of marketing, but mostly they’re there in this kind of middle layer of management to keep things running.

Shirky acknowledges in the On The Media report that he didn’t carefully consider the penalties women disproportionately face when they are self-promotional, and there is research to suggest women don’t benefit as much as men do when they negotiate salary.  But I wonder if part of the reason we aren’t able to secure the same kinds of compensation as men is that we aren’t promoting our skills and accomplishments as heartily.  Furthermore, since we’re less likely to take risks, we don’t fail as much, but our wins are also more modest.

The rub for me as I write this post is that I recognize this behavior in myself.  I’m friends with everyone at the office.  I’ve received accolades for my diplomacy and tact.  But my projects have not moved forward as aggressively as I would have liked, in part because I’ve been overly collegial.  I strive for buy-in from everyone, which slows down my process and only improves the quality of the work about half the time.  Because of this blog, I have a better handle on technology and communications than many of my colleagues, and yet I don’t promote my expertise in this area.  I ask permission too often.

So starting today I’m embracing my inner “self-aggrandizing jerk.”  I’m speaking loudly about the millions of dollars I’ve raised over the past couple of years.  I’m offering my expertise in social media and blogging.  I’m not prefacing reasonable questions with the phrase “this may be a silly question, but…”  I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Related links:

• Ophelia Benson at Butterflies & Wheels points out that the “voice of expertise” and “self-aggrandizing jerk” have come to sound remarkably alike, to the detriment of many actual experts.  She also mentions the catch-22 of women and work: either you hang back and lose out on big opportunities, or you squawk loudly and come off, as Brooke Gladstone at OTM puts it, like a bi-atch.  Brooke rightly says “it’s a pain in the – butt.”  The Mama Bee would not have been so kind.  (That is why she is not an NPR host.)
• Another interesting point from Heartless Doll: we ask women to cross supposed gender lines all the time, suggesting as Shirky does that women adopt a more “male” attitude.  We never ask men to act more like women.  To which I respond that I don’t think self-promotion is a male or female trait.  Regardless of gender, presidents and CEOs need to be able to aggressively promote themselves and their business.
• Tom Coates offers a very thoughtful response to Clay Shirky on his blog PlasticBag.org.
• The On The Media piece starts by referencing this recent blog post by NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepherd about the need to include more female voices on public radio.