By Sarah McComb
I had a conversation with a friend today. She was being sidelined on a major project and relegated to a more tactical role which is not in her job description, scope of work or skill set. A gentleman from her team was taking over the strategic work; the work that my friend was meant to manage and highly qualified to do so. Frustrating? Yes. Common place? Unfortunately, also yes.
What struck me about our conversation though was how many times she repeated a single word: grateful. She kept reassuring me (and perhaps even moreso, herself) that she is grateful for her job and does not want her boss to think otherwise.
It baffled me that my friend—a kickass person who I look up to and routinely impresses me with her professional experience, brilliance, hard work ethic and skill—was not comfortable raising concerns about her role being relegated for fear of being thought of as ungrateful. This has caused me to think a lot about the question: what role does gratitude play in women’s professional lives and how are we limiting ourselves by it?
In its purest form, gratitude is not something to criticize. In fact, it’s something that has probably served as a powerful life force for many of us during these past, difficult 12 months. Whether we are grateful for our health, the roofs over our heads, the food on our plates, and yes, even for our jobs during turbulent economic times, gratitude can be our guardian angel during the darkest of times. Gratitude also serves as a balance to ego. It is consistently linked with greater happiness, job satisfaction and lower stress.
However, we need to be wary of this double-edged sword. If misapplied, gratitude can be used against us, by us. Gratitude can cause complacency and stagnation and can lead to making compromises that can negatively affect career development. Just like that, gratitude can morph from becoming a positive strength to a justification for inaction. It can become a crutch for the fear of rocking the boat or voicing complaints. Gratefulness should not lead to accepting a bad situation just because “it could be worse”. Do not accept bad behavior in the name of being thankful for what you have. Put it this way, would a man do that?
As women, we are conditioned to feel grateful for the opportunities we achieve, especially in male-dominated fields. Our age-old enemy, Imposter Syndrome, has a lot to do with this. We often doubt our worth, reach levels of uncertainty in our work, and can feel like frauds, all while simultaneously being cheerleaders for our colleagues, friends and family. All of this despite the mounds of evidence that 1) we do know what we are doing, 2) everyone around us is making it up as they go along just as much as we have, and most importantly, 3) god dammit, we have earned this!
Living in a pandemic world where women are being disproportionately impacted and losing jobs at higher rates, only compounds this. In December 2020, 140,000 jobs were lost and 100% of them were held by women. Throughout 2020, women lost 1 million more jobs than men. The ground we had made up in the name of parity over the last 5 years has essentially been wiped out. This fear of losing your livelihood is real no matter where in the corporate ladder you sit.
From practically birth, women are ingrained with the belief that being “nice” and “likeable” should be prioritized. We look around, at the few of us who are in the room, and are expected to just be happy or—word of the day, grateful—with just being there. In 2021, unless you live under a rock and missed the last 50+ years of female empowerment, no one says that part out loud – but that sentiment persists and needs to stop. And ladies, this is one area where we don’t need allies to clear a path. No one gets to control our “gratefulness” except us. While arguments can be made (real or in your head) about being “tokens” or being hired to “fulfill a D&I requirement,” the vast majority of us are actually hired because we know what we are doing and we are good at it. We bring unique skills to the table. Our presence directly and demonstrably affects the profits and processes of a company in an upward trajectory. We are needed.
So ladies, I leave you with this: yes, be grateful. Practice gratitude in a way that allows you to accept those around you, improve your self-esteem, and release stress from things you cannot control. But do not allow this idea of being thankful for the job you have stymie your progress, prevent you from demanding your fair share, or hold yourself and those around you accountable. Gratitude should not cause you to forget how hard you have worked to get where you are. This wasn’t just given to you. You deserve your success.