ShuDon Brown was “shaking in her boots” when she approached her supervisor regarding what would be the biggest chance yet in her career. Brown saw an open position and got excited – even though she had no idea if it was in the cards for her.
She landed the job and now has the title of continuous improvement and robotic process automation leader at IBM in Research Triangle Park.
“Don’t be afraid to speak up,” Brown said about her takeaway from the experience. “I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in right now if I hadn’t told my manager I want to take a shot at it.”
But not everyone has the support Brown had from her supervisor. Not everyone chooses to self-advocate.
Not everyone is given a shot.
Perception outpaces the pipeline when it comes to women in technology – and it’s frustrating for female technologists who have seen first-hand how the pandemic exacerbated the problem.
While more women like Brown are breaking through to the top of the leadership ranks, they remain underrepresented in the middle management tiers in the technology industry – jeopardizing the pipeline of future female leaders. A recent Women in Leadership survey from the IBM Institute for Business Value shows there are clear myths that put up barriers.
Triangle Inno had a candid conversation with three women technologists at IBM who were appalled at some of their company’s survey findings.
The survey asked whether women were as effective at supervising as men, and male managers were the outliers, with fewer than half saying their leadership believes this is true for their organizations.
When asked if women with dependent children were as dedicated to their jobs as women without children, the majority of the survey’s industry respondents said yes, that’s what their organization’s leaders believe. But that wasn’t true of male managers – only about 40 percent of whom agreed with the statement.
As a working mother, Juhi McClelland, managing partner and general manager at IBM consulting, said it “really bothered me.”
But it was what IBM’s survey referred to as “positive momentum” that was described as a “gut punch” by Janine Sneed, a general manager at IBM. The survey showed female representation on the C-Suite and executive boards had inched up 12 percent, a positive move after “years of inertia.”
“The fact that it’s perceived that there’s progress, to have 12 percent of women in the C-Suite and on boards, that’s not progress to me,” Sneed said, adding that, “if you can’t see somebody that look likes you … somebody that you admire in the C-Suite or on boards, we’re going to go backwards.”
Another point of frustration – that those surveyed thought gender parity could be achieved in 10 years through DEI initiatives – optimism that doesn’t hold up, according to the report. It shows a significant hollowing out of women in the middle-management tiers, meaning real parity could be decades away, something Brown said was “shocking.”
2023 saw the largest drop – 10 points – in the percentage of women from junior professional to senior professional, potentially exacerbating statistics on future female leaders. At the current pace, the report estimated it could be three decades before gender parity in leadership is obtained.
What to do about it
Getting more women publicly in front of clients and leading technology teams has a double effect, said McClelland. In addition to contributing to their companies, they’re representing, it allows women coming behind them to “see the diversity of roles that exist and have a seat at the table,” McClelland said.
Brown recalls the early days of her career when she looked around and realized “a lot of my mentors and the people who I go to for advice are men.” Securing a female mentor was huge, she said.
“It made me want to seek more women, seek out more women that don’t sit around me,” she said, adding that it’s “really important to know that there are people you can look to and talk to.”
That mentorship can start long before a technology career. Brown recalls how her mother was intentional, connecting her to STEM programs at an early age. She remembers her high school introduction to coding – a transformative experience. “I found out about coding and I was like, whoa, I can make stuff exist,” Brown said.
Sneed said it was her aunt who inspired her career trajectory. She recalls visiting her aunt, an IBMer in Texas, and returning to her second-grade class, saying “I want to work at IBM.”
“I wanted to be like my aunt and I did,” Sneed said.
It’s on technologists to pay it forward to the next generation – and each woman offered advice for girls when it comes to STEM.
“I think the best advice that I could ever give is to say, just try it,” Brown said. “I always say, if you don’t like it, that’s perfectly fine. … The pressure doesn’t need to be there. Just try it.”
And you don’t have to “try it” alone.
“Have a community, find a community and then seek support,” Sneed said.
Once you’ve found your niche, “don’t let people box you in or stereotype you,” McClelland said.
“Don’t let people put you in a box because you can start somewhere and end up somewhere completely different,” she said.
Advice for men
TBJ asked the technologists what advice they would give to a male CEO trying to attract more female applicants.
“One, put a diversity metric in place,” Sneed said. “No. 2, reverse mentoring.”
McClelland said to make sure male allies are involved who understand.
“Make sure it’s not just him and the women doing it by themselves,” she said, adding to include conversations around “work-life integration versus work-life balance.”
And Brown said to always be intentional.
“It’s really easy to have a woman in the C-Suite as a male CEO and say, OK it’s happened, I don’t need to think about it,” she said.