Call 5 Summary: Expedition for Women Philanthropists

Our fifth call and two forces are coming together

• Having really unpicked Essence and Elements individually and collectively, Explorers are now applying the insights to the practical work of leading in philanthropy.
• Explorers know each other now, they see how strong the group is, they want to test their ideas on each other, they want to know each others thinking and they are forming relationships, partnerships and friendships beyond the expedition.

This month we worked through real life scenarios proposed by Explorers. We also started talking about Energy, the final E of the 4Es. 

With the end of the expedition in sight Explorers are each working on their own individual lists of what they will – from now on –  ‘stop, start and continue doing’ when they lead as philanthropists. I have seen some of the early drafts of these lists and I have nothing but admiration for Explorers who are determined to listen, reflect, change and keep driving forward.

What follows are some of the insights that emanated on two issues the Explorer’s scenarios raised.

HOW TO LEAD ON A BOARD

Explorer’s stories were grim, one explorer even told us that the chair of one board she was on had come at her with his fist ready to punch her on two occasions. What stood out when they recounted their experience of – it seems almost inevitably – being a minority on a male dominated board was:

• There was a huge amount of swimming upstream to be done.
• They felt very much alone.
• They were regularly shut down and dumbed down.
• They felt the experience was deeply emotionally draining. 
• Many explorers had experienced horrible situations. The few who hadn’t were horrified by the accounts.
• Even years on Explorers remained shaken by the experience.

The leadership insights Explorers gained from these board discussions were:

• know where you don’t want to be, what you can give. If you decide to go/stay on a board make sure you can be yourself.
• Your role as a board member is to make sure that the objective is the north star and eyes are firmly on it. You will need to stand up and make – sometimes even fight for – your points, so that the people whose opinions you actually value say ‘good on you girl’.
• Do your due diligence before accepting, be more careful. Of course you join a board because of the purpose and values but also look at the mindset. Watch out for boards who think ‘we own this, we know best’. Dont be too gung ho, hold back and check the full fit. 
• Don’t fall for flattery, check if they really want you or if they only really want your label/money/connections. Ask yourself “do they want the real me’. Check the fit carefully, ask yourself for example ‘if I am a disruptor do they actually only want a fundraiser or cheer leader’ or ‘If I am a changemaker is the board open to change’. Also be wary of committees that are just for rubber stamping.
• Trust your instinct, if you sense you are the wrong person for this it’s likely you are right. Be cautious about the sentiment ‘it will be good for me’
• Recognise that you may not expect the misogyny that you meet so your antennae at the start might not be working well.
• Don’t stay just because you believe in the organisation or admire it if there is actually no room for impact. Your wish to do good and to serve can make you blind. Better to quit if it is taking over your life. Hard is OK but if there is no joy, don’t stay and loose yourself. There are other places to go. 
• If you walk away, protect yourself, turn to friends and family. Remember that you are likely to have been groomed as a woman to believe that it’s all your fault. Don’t hold on to stuff that serves no purpose. Remember how powerful it is when you share your board story with women who listen and tell you how proud they are of you for standing up.
• Finally to quote two explorers ‘it feels so good when you feel like you are home, where the objectives and values fit and you are with people who want to drive change.’ And ‘it is better to have a disastrous end than an endless disaster’

HOW TO LEAD PERFORMANCE 

The leadership insights Explorers gained from their discussions about performance were:

• Know yourself and which combine extreme you are prone to. One extreme: you seek perfection and bury yourself in the detail. The other extreme: you blindly trust another person’s analysis (sometimes you have been manipulated to do so) and avoid going into detail. Explorers concluded that the solution is to put in structure – for example regular calls where you look at the KPIs you want to look at (not what others want you to review) and create a dashboard that gives you what you need. Then occasionally do a deep dive on an issue. If you are still micromanaging after this is in place, it may be because the team isn’t good enough and you need to think how you will put the right people in place.
• Work hard on combining empathy and boundaries. Explorers questioned whether this is even harder in philanthropy. They discussed the importance of writing things down and developing a code of conduct. They do this partly collectively as a team but also you as the person who is leading need to include your points. With a code in place people will know how to show up for each other. Examples of issues for the code might cover: (1) what availability means (2) preparation expected prior to meetings (3 ) appropriate responses on email (4) acceptable physical contact. The aim is not to impose one way of doing things, but to provide a base for the conversation which needs to be had when things – inevitably – go off course This approach is all the more important in philanthropy because philanthropy often sits at the intersection between sectors that have very different codes.
• Face up to issues when for example a team member who is very brilliant individually – and may even be a volunteer – isn’t delivering for the team. Clearly you will have started by trying to grow the individual, allowing space for her to improve. But if this doesn’t work then it’s time to tell them – with respect – that she is in the wrong place. If the problem is about integrity or trust it is doubly difficult and even harder if it unconscious incompetence. If you must make the strong decision that the person must go then you need to be ready to defend your decision and assume that some people around you will try to paint the decision as women being unsupportive of other women. Bring all your motherness to the conversation. After all motherness is not just sweet and soft, it’s also very clear boundaries and clear compartmentalising.

The Explorers have now gone off to explore the final E of Energy. More next month.

About the Author

Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading. In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.

Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world. Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan. Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and seven grandchildren.