Why Workplaces Make It Easy For Women To Succeed

Disrupt Self-Doubt With Facts, Not Feelings

Career setbacks are inevitable, but research shows that failing early in your career can be a catalyst for long-term success. A 2019 study published in Nature Communications found that encountering obstacles early in a career can lead individuals to improve their performance and develop resilience, which increases career success.

Failures are learning opportunities, and the more we can use these experiences to develop, the more likely we will be to overcome obstacles in the future. The challenge is that women often face greater penalties for mistakes than men. Due to gender stereotypes, women are more likely to have their competence questioned. Research, including studies on workplace bias, shows that women are often held to higher performance standards and face greater scrutiny for mistakes than men. To overcome this, women need to exceed expectations and avoid failure at all costs.

Elizabeth Day, a bestselling author of How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong and host of the hit podcast How to Fail, has redefined how we approach failure – from viewing it as a setback to a learning opportunity.

While failure is essential for personal growth, Day’s work highlights gender differences in how failure is perceived and processed.

"If you are a woman or a marginalized person in any way, you are still born into a world that isn’t made in your image, and you are probably more likely to feel if you encounter a failure that it’s a mark on your character rather than an external factor that you can easily overcome on your path to success."

Here, Day shares three ways we can make it safe for women to fail and for men to admit their failures at work.

Disrupt Self-Doubt With Facts, Not Feelings

Given that women have less freedom to fail, Day says they are more likely to internalize their mistakes, viewing these experiences as evidence that they are not good enough.

"That’s not to say that no men do, but we (women) are much more likely to see it (mistakes) as our failures," she says.
As men still dominate workplaces, particularly in leadership positions, it can make women question themselves or feel like they don’t belong from the get-go. To overcome these feelings of self-doubt, Day says it is essential to interrupt negative thought patterns.

When self-doubt creeps in, Day suggests challenging these thoughts with facts. Instead of spiraling into ‘I’m a failure,’ ask yourself: ‘What’s my objective evidence?’ If there isn’t any, replace the thought with something constructive.

When you approach your negative thoughts with curiosity and objectivity, Day says it forces you to reflect on what thoughts are true and what thoughts may be holding you back.

Treat Failure As Data

To learn from failure, Day says it is critical to view our experiences as data.

"The next time you encounter failure and you feel the personal sting of it, you can also tell yourself, yes, but it’s also going to teach me something really helpful about what to do differently next time," she says.

The more we can learn from our failures, the more we realize that they are just part of the learning process. To help employees with this, Day says companies should consider having regular failure meetings to review and learn from setbacks.

"I know some companies have a meeting that is specifically devoted to the things that went wrong. And that can be on a quarterly basis, or it can be on a weekly basis, but it has to come from the top."

Day believes that companies should make it safe for employees to share their experiences of failure at work and home, as this will encourage employees to bring their whole selves to work.

Don’t Deny Your Failures Instead, Talk About Them

All too often, we feel the need to deny our failures because Day says we are scared of what these failures might reveal about us.

But dismissing our failures prevents us from learning from them. Based on her numerous interviews, Day says that men are more likely to deny their failures than women, which makes it harder for men to learn from these experiences.

"Either men had been taught that they were always going to succeed or because they were men, they didn’t feel able to admit to failure because of the social conditioning (that wrongly might’ve taught them) that to admit to failure was weakness and somehow un-masculine," she says.

Men overwhelmingly dominate leadership positions, and when they deny failure, that makes it harder for anyone else to talk about it.

"I think men being able to show their vulnerability is such an act of generosity for the rest of us because it means that they no longer categorize vulnerability as weakness. They see it as a necessary part of being human and a necessary point of connection. And once a man can do that, it encourages other people in the workplace to do that."

By acknowledging failure, men make it safe for women to do the same, which creates an opportunity for everyone to learn from these shared experiences and improve.

Conclusion

To make it safe for women to fail and for men to admit their failures at work, we need to disrupt self-doubt with facts, not feelings, treat failure as data, and don’t deny our failures instead, talk about them. By following these three strategies, we can create a culture where failure is viewed as an opportunity for growth and learning, rather than a threat to our ego or reputation.

FAQs

Q: What is the key to learning from failure?
A: View our experiences as data and challenge negative thought patterns with facts.

Q: How can we make it safe for women to fail and for men to admit their failures at work?
A: Disrupt self-doubt with facts, not feelings; treat failure as data; and don’t deny our failures instead, talk about them.

Q: What is the impact of denying failure on our learning and growth?
A: Denying failure prevents us from learning from it and growing from the experience.