"You’re too aggressive."

Now that’s some shocking feedback to receive as a young woman working in investment banking.

Here’s a famously competitive industry, laser focused on revenue and results, a work hard-play hard environment. An industry where newcomers are notified “there’s no crying on the trading floor”, that they’ll be thrown into the deep end and will sink or swim. A place where conflicts between team members are commonplace. A place where phones get broken when their owner, in a fit of rage, smashes down the receiver. A place where you need to have thick skin. 

The place exudes aggressiveness. And don’t get me wrong - I didn’t have much of a problem with it! As a high-level athlete my whole life, competition and work hard-play hard suited my personality just fine. However, while surrounded by this environment, I picked up on its energy and made the assumption that doing so was necessary for my longevity and success. That’s why this feedback was so confusing. However, my prospect of promotion was hindered by this perception, and so I accepted it and made the relevant changes. 

As I enter the world of coaching and start to broaden my knowledge about topics of relevance to my clients, I came across some interesting research. Take for example the work of Laurie Rudman (Rutgers University, Department of Psychology) that talks about the double bind women face. Without being too academic, this is the gist.

Women who exhibit agentic personality traits like dominance, assertiveness and confidence violate social expectations of how women should act. They therefore face negative repercussions including barriers to hiring, promotions, and leadership opportunities due to being viewed as too aggressive or unfeminine.

At the same time, women who exhibit socially expected traits like warmth, nurturing and cooperation, are penalized as they are perceived as being too weak or unassertive. 

What we have here folks is a no-win situation, and a lightbulb moment for one agentic woman.

So what is one to do? Unfortunately the research only suggests solutions at the organisational level for tackling double binds, rather than at the individual level. So without any research to back us up, here’s my take. 

Be yourself.

You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, so what’s the use pretending to be something other than who you are? If you’re true to yourself, you can get the benefits that authenticity brings and you can feel proud of yourself for living in alignment with your values. Then you can deal with the injustice. You can take a deep breath, cry, scream, punch a punching bag, whatever you need to do to deal with the extreme frustration. You can pick yourself up, tap into your resilience, and keep going as you wait for the world to change. Your keeping going will help the world to change. You can think about that and grin, satisfied, knowing that you’re making things easier for the next generation of women.