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This content discusses various challenges women face in the professional world and strategies to overcome them. Topics include the importance of recognizing and changing habits that keep women stuck, claiming achievements, ensuring efforts are noticed, and understanding the limitations of expertise. It also emphasizes the necessity of leveraging relationships, taking risks, combating perfectionism, and avoiding the pitfalls of people-pleasing. The content highlights the need to be purposeful and intentional about career choices and behaviors and to avoid stagnation by continually striving for advancement.
How does it apply to you?
This article can be applied to real-world scenarios by software developers or any professionals in the tech industry. By recognizing and changing certain behaviors, developers can ensure their professional growth and advancement in their careers.
12 Habits to Overcome
1. Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements
Women working in software development often downplay their successes and point out others' contributions instead of their own. This habit can limit their visibility and impact in the tech industry.
Actions to Overcome:
- Highlight your contributions during team meetings.
- Document your achievements and share them during performance reviews.
- Share your successful projects on professional networking sites like LinkedIn.
2. Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Hard Work
Women developers often assume that their hard work, such as staying late to meet a project deadline, will be noticed without them having to advocate for themselves. This is rarely the case in fast-paced tech environments.
Actions to Overcome:
- Regularly communicate your work progress to your team lead or manager.
- Seek feedback on your work.
- Request recognition or reward for significant contributions.
3. Overvaluing Expertise
In the field of software development, it's easy to fall into the trap of overvaluing expertise. You might feel the need to master every programming language or technology, often spending nights and weekends trying to self-learn. While the desire to improve is commendable, this can lead to burnout and an isolationist approach to problem-solving, which may hinder collaboration and growth.
Actions to Overcome:
- Accept that it's impossible to know everything in the rapidly evolving field of software development. Aim to be a continuous learner, not a lone expert.
- Don't hesitate to ask questions or seek help from colleagues. This promotes a collaborative work environment and accelerates learning.
- Embrace the concept of "just-in-time learning," where you learn a new technology or tool when a project requires it, rather than trying to learn everything in advance.
4. Building Rather than Leveraging Relationships
Women in tech tend to focus on building strong relationships with their colleagues but may not use those relationships to advance their careers.
Actions to Overcome:
- Network within your organization to learn about new opportunities.
- Seek mentorship from senior colleagues or leaders within your organization.
- Offer your expertise to colleagues, positioning yourself as a resource.
5. Failing to Enlist Allies from Day One
Women developers may hesitate to ask for help from others, but enlisting allies early on can help them gain momentum in their careers.
Actions to Overcome:
- Seek out a mentor or ally as soon as you join a new project or team.
- Offer your support to colleagues to build reciprocal relationships.
- Collaborate with other teams to broaden your network.
6. Putting Your Job Before Your Career
Women developers who focus too much on their current coding tasks may miss out on opportunities to build skills and reputation outside of their immediate role. Ensure most of your time is focused on projects where you want to grow as opposed to what you are doing today.
Actions to Overcome:
- Take on varied projects that allow you to learn new technologies.
- Attend professional development events or workshops.
- Network with professionals outside your immediate team to learn about broader industry trends.
7. The Perfection Trap
Women in software development often feel pressure to write perfect code or design flawless software, leading to overwork and missed opportunities.
Actions to Overcome:
- Adopt an agile mindset, understanding that software development is iterative.
- Prioritize tasks based on their impact and deadlines.
- Seek feedback to improve your work instead of striving for unattainable perfection.
8. The Disease to Please
Women developers often prioritize the needs of the team or project over their own, leading to burnout and underappreciation.
Actions to Overcome:
- Learn to say no to tasks beyond your capacity.
- Advocate for your own needs, such as work-life balance or professional development.
- Practice assertive communication to express your opinions and needs clearly.
9. Minimizing
Women in tech may undervalue their contributions, such as solving a critical bug or improving system efficiency, making it harder for others to see their value.
Actions to Overcome:
- Regularly update your team about your work progress.
- Celebrate your successes, no matter how small.
- Acknowledge your critical role in the team and project success.
10. Too Much
Women developers who take on too many tasks, from coding to testing to debugging, may spread themselves too thin, reducing their productivity and well-being.
Actions to Overcome:
- Learn to delegate tasks to other team members.
- Use project management tools to manage and prioritize your tasks.
- Take regular breaks to maintain your mental health and productivity.
11. Ruminating
Women in software development may dwell on setbacks, such as a failed code or a missed deadline, undermining their confidence and productivity.
Actions to Overcome:
- Learn from mistakes and move on, understanding that setbacks are part of the learning process.
- Seek support from colleagues or mentors when dealing with setbacks.
- Practice mindfulness to stay focused on current tasks and goals.
12. Letting Your Radar Distract You
Women developers may get caught up in monitoring the environment for potential problems, making it hard for them to focus on their own tasks and priorities.
Actions to Overcome:
- Stay focused on your tasks and goals, trusting your team to handle their responsibilities.
- Use tools like issue trackers to manage potential problems systematically.
- Delegate monitoring tasks to ensure that it's not solely your responsibility.
Developer Checklist
Professional Growth
Mental Health and Productivity
Summary
Failing to Notice the Habits that Keep You Stuck
Women often value success differently than men, emphasizing factors like quality of life at work, the impact of their contributions, and relationships with co-workers and clients. However, this perspective can sometimes make them blind to behaviors and habits that hinder their professional growth. Changing these behaviors involves recognizing them as habits, becoming aware of them, and trying out new responses to see if they bring different results. Changing specific behaviors could lead to outcomes that increase the likelihood of achieving one's goals. The aim is to be purposeful and intentional about choices while addressing behaviors that keep one stuck.
The Importance of Claiming Achievements
Women often struggle with claiming their achievements, instead preferring their efforts to speak for themselves. This reluctance to bring attention and visibility to their successes can adversely affect their career progression. Speaking up about achievements is not a sign of being self-centered but an indication of readiness to rise. Making achievements visible is crucial and marketing oneself effectively is a key part of every job.
Expecting Others to Notice and Reward Efforts
Many women expect others to notice their contributions and reward their efforts, which can lead to their hard work being overlooked. This expectation can decrease job satisfaction and lead to feelings of being unappreciated. To prevent this, it's important to take responsibility for ensuring work gets noticed. This can be done by developing a clear career vision and preparing to take advantage of opportunities to share this vision with others.
The Misconception of Overvaluing Expertise
The assumption that expertise is the surest route to success is not accurate. Women often strive to become experts in their field, but this doesn't necessarily accelerate their career progression. Top jobs often require managers to lead people who have the expertise, but they do not have to provide any expertise themselves. Therefore, mastering every detail of a job with the aim of becoming an expert may not be the most effective strategy for career advancement.
Expertise and Its Limitations
Becoming an expert is a valuable strategy for job security, however, it might not necessarily lead to promotions or higher positions. This is especially true for women, who often overvalue expertise due to difficulties in gaining recognition for their achievements. Mastery of a current role often leads to stagnation rather than advancement.
Leveraging Relationships and Enlisting Allies
Building relationships and enlisting allies are crucial career skills that many women don't utilize effectively. While women are typically exceptional relationship builders, they often hesitate to leverage these relationships for their career advancement. However, some women successfully build beneficial connections for themselves and their organizations. The key is to be intentional in building relationships that can be leveraged in the future. The ability to exchange benefits and form alliances is essential for career success.
Contrasting Approaches to New Positions
Women in new positions often focus on mastering the details of their roles before reaching out to others. In contrast, men in new positions prioritize building connections from day one, which often leads to more support, visibility, and better positioning. Building alliances is crucial for career progression.
Stagnation and the Need for Risk-Taking
Many talented and hardworking women reach a certain level in their career and then remain stagnant. This may be due to a focus on perfecting their current role at the expense of taking steps to advance their career. Staying in the same job for a long time can negatively impact self-worth and long-term satisfaction. The ability to take risks is essential for career advancement.
Perfectionism and its Drawbacks
Striving for perfection can lead to anxiety and a negative mindset. High achieving women often take failures personally and become upset over mistakes instead of moving on. Perfectionist tendencies are often rooted in gender expectations from childhood and reinforced in the workplace. Learning to prioritize, delegate, and take calculated risks can help combat these tendencies and foster a less stressful environment.
Desire to Please and Its Impact on Popularity
The desire to please others can often lead to women falling into a trap of trying to be universally liked. This can have a negative impact on their career progression as it may limit their ability to make tough decisions or assert themselves when necessary.
The Pitfalls of People-Pleasing
The urge to constantly please others can compromise decision-making ability and career progress. It can diminish leadership qualities and give away power. Overcoming this tendency requires clear priorities, the courage to stand ground, and disregarding irrelevant expectations. Chronic people-pleasers often struggle with delegation, motivated by a desire to be helpful and avoid burdening others. This need to please can make one an unreliable advocate or ally, as they can be easily manipulated.
The Habit of Minimizing
Minimizing is a habit that can hinder career progression. It involves accepting others' existence by making oneself smaller, both physically and verbally. Physical minimizing, like drawing in arms and legs or hunkering down, reduces the ability to project power and authority. Verbal minimizing includes routinely apologizing, using diminutive language, and using verbal disclaimers and discounters. These actions show uncertainty about one's right to occupy space, which can be perceived as hesitancy or failure to engage fully.
Excessive Behaviors and Ruminating on Past Mistakes
Suppressing emotions in professional situations, especially around high-performing men, is common among women. Some 'too much' behaviors include displaying strong emotions like anxiety, frustration, resentment, or fear; overcommunication; and overdisclosure. Ruminating on past mistakes, regrets, and negative experiences is another habit that can hold women back. The most effective ways to stop rumination are distraction and interruption.
The Strength and Distraction of Noticing Many Things
One of women's strengths is their ability to notice many things at once. However, this can also be a distraction. Neuroscientists have recorded women's capacity to process a lot of information at once using functional MRIs. These scans show that different regions of women's brains light up when they process information.
Gender Differences in Processing Information
Men and women process information differently. Men's brain activity tends to focus on one region, absorbing information sequentially, similar to a laser. Women's attention operates like a radar, scanning the environment, picking up clues, and paying attention to context. This difference in attention processing is often misunderstood in organizations, which traditionally view laser-like attention as leadership behavior.
Implications of Radar Attention
Radar attention can be beneficial at work as it is extremely attuned to the details of relationships and the feelings of others. This enables effective motivation, negotiation, and communication with skill and sensitivity, promoting collaboration and teamwork. However, it also has its downsides, such as the difficulty in filtering out distractions, affecting presence and performance. This type of attention can also lead to self-doubt and overthinking due to heightened awareness of others' reactions.
Behavioral Changes for Progress
Identifying and working on one behavior at a time can contribute to progress. Small, repeated changes are more likely to yield long-term results than attempting a complete change all at once. Separating a problem behavior into specific habits can make it manageable. Enlisting a friend, colleague, or boss in change efforts can help make new habits stick and deepen relationships at work.
Advantages and Challenges for Women in Changing Behaviors
Women have some advantages when it comes to changing behaviors, such as being less burdened by ego and more open to advice and correction. However, they are also less forgiving of their own mistakes, often judging themselves harshly for minor blunders. Self-forgiveness is an important tool for women to overcome this tendency.
Strategies for Behavioral Changes
Strategies for behavioral changes include enlisting the help of a friend to correct a habit, such as unnecessary apologizing. Another helpful strategy is to create a 'to-don't' list, which includes activities that consume time, keep one stuck, or offer little reward. This list helps bring intentionality to what one wants to say no to.
FAQs
What habits can keep women stuck in their professional growth? Behaviors that women are often blind to can hinder their professional growth. These may include failing to claim achievements, expecting others to notice and reward their efforts, overvaluing expertise, and not leveraging relationships for career advancement.
Why is it important for women to claim their achievements? Women often struggle with claiming their achievements, which can adversely affect their career progression. Making achievements visible is crucial and marketing oneself effectively is a key part of every job.
How can expecting others to notice and reward efforts affect women's career progression? Many women expect others to notice their contributions and reward their efforts, which can lead to their hard work being overlooked. This can decrease job satisfaction and lead to feelings of being unappreciated.
Why is the assumption that expertise leads to success not accurate? Women often strive to become experts in their field, but this doesn't necessarily accelerate their career progression. Top jobs often require managers to lead people who have the expertise, but they do not have to provide any expertise themselves.
What is the importance of building relationships and enlisting allies in career advancement? Building relationships and enlisting allies are crucial career skills. Being intentional in building relationships that can be leveraged in the future and the ability to exchange benefits and form alliances is essential for career success.
How can focusing on mastering the details of their roles affect women in new positions? Women in new positions often focus on mastering the details of their roles before reaching out to others. This approach can limit their support, visibility, and positioning compared to those who prioritize building connections from day one.
How can stagnation affect women's career progression? Many talented and hardworking women reach a certain level in their career and then remain stagnant. This may be due to a focus on perfecting their current role at the expense of taking steps to advance their career. Staying in the same job for a long time can negatively impact self-worth and long-term satisfaction.
What are the drawbacks of perfectionism? Striving for perfection can lead to anxiety and a negative mindset. High-achieving women often take failures personally and become upset over mistakes instead of moving on. Learning to prioritize, delegate, and take calculated risks can help combat these tendencies and foster a less stressful environment.
How can the desire to please others impact women's career progression? The desire to please others can often lead to women falling into a trap of trying to be universally liked. This can limit their ability to make tough decisions or assert themselves when necessary.
What are the pitfalls of people-pleasing? The urge to constantly please others can compromise decision-making ability and career progress. It can diminish leadership qualities and give away power. Overcoming this tendency requires clear priorities, the courage to stand ground, and disregarding irrelevant expectations.
What is the habit of minimizing? Minimizing is a habit that can hinder career progression. It involves accepting others' existence by making oneself smaller, both physically and verbally. Physical minimizing, like drawing in arms and legs or hunkering down, reduces the ability to project power and authority. Verbal minimizing includes routinely apologizing, using diminutive language, and using verbal disclaimers and discounters.
What are some excessive behaviors and how do they affect professional situations? Some 'too much' behaviors include displaying strong emotions like anxiety, frustration, resentment, or fear; overcommunication; and overdisclosure. Ruminating on past mistakes, regrets, and negative experiences is another habit that can hold women back. The most effective ways to stop rumination are distraction and interruption.
How does the ability to notice many things at once affect women? One of women's strengths is their ability to notice many things at once. However, this can also be a distraction. Neuroscientists have recorded women's capacity to process a lot of information at once using functional MRIs.
How do men and women process information differently? Men's brain activity tends to focus on one region, absorbing information sequentially, similar to a laser. Women's attention operates like a radar, scanning the environment, picking up clues, and paying attention to context.
What are the implications of radar attention? Radar attention can be beneficial at work as it is extremely attuned to the details of relationships and the feelings of others. This enables effective motivation, negotiation, and communication with skill and sensitivity, promoting collaboration and teamwork. However, it also has its downsides, such as the difficulty in filtering out distractions, affecting presence and performance.
What are some behavioral changes that can contribute to progress? Identifying and working on one behavior at a time can contribute to progress. Small, repeated changes are more likely to yield long-term results than attempting a complete change all at once. Separating a problem behavior into specific habits can make it manageable.
What are the advantages and challenges for women in changing behaviors? Women have some advantages when it comes to changing behaviors, such as being less burdened by ego and more open to advice and correction. However, they are also less forgiving of their own mistakes, often judging themselves harshly for minor blunders.
What are some strategies for behavioral changes? Strategies for behavioral changes include enlisting the help of a friend to correct a habit, such as unnecessary apologizing. Another helpful strategy is to create a 'to-don't' list, which includes activities that consume time, keep one stuck, or offer little reward.
