Ask CEO Heather Barnabe what she hopes has changed in the work-world by the time her young daughter has grown up, and she sighs.
"A lot of things," she says.
"I would just love — and I don't even know if it's realistic, to be honest, but I would just love — to get to a point where decisions around motherhood are removed from our economic wealth."
As much as the head of FORA: Network for Change, a charity that is all about fostering young women's leadership development, has accomplished, she acknowledges motherhood still presents challenges for women in business.
"The reality that still faces women regularly is what does it mean economically for me to choose to have a child right now? And I think that's really sad. Just because I know, in going through motherhood and seeing how complicated and complex it is, that should be the last thing that makes our decision: 'Does it mean I won't become a manager at work for another four years,' or whatever it is," she said.
Barnabe also added that she would also love for her daughter to enter a world where women in decision-making positions are the norm.
"We haven't had a democratically elected [female] prime minister; we haven't had a lot of power at the corporate level with women. And even when it comes to things like parliamentarians, I think we're at something like 30 or 35% — that's not a ton," she said.
"Canada loves to sort of think of ourselves as a very gender-equal society. But in reality, the World Economic Forum puts out a global gender index, and we actually ranked 24th in the world."
She noted that Canadian women have reached parity in education and health, but there are two markers where Canadian women are way down the list.
"One is political engagement, and the other is economic advancement and opportunity. And that economic piece is really why we still need to focus on getting women in business, making sure that they're financially independent, able to influence decision-making [at] high levels. And you know, a lot of studies confirm that when women are in those decision-making spaces, they are able to apply a gender lens to things that makes it a better society for other women.”
Barnabe's own mother raised her daughter and three sons while working as a nurse.
"It was interesting watching the judgments she faced and how steadfast she was in her belief that women make better mothers when they have a career," Barnabe recalled.
But the barriers to leadership kept her mom from the career heights she could have reached.
"I watched her excel in her career: she was a nurse who became a manager who then started managing hospitals. And it was because she was a true natural leader who had tons of skills and the charisma to do the work. And I always feel like if she had been born 50 years later, she'd be the CEO of a hospital, because she had that type of skill," Barnabe said.
"And that's what happens when we still live in a patriarchal society, we're not getting the best of the best — she was the best of the best and she never had those opportunities. So when I look at my daughter, I think I want [her] to have those opportunities. I want that to be the norm."
In her work with young women, Barnabe tells those who want to have children to consider carefully who they partner with.
"It might not even be a very feminist response, but it's an honest one. It really matters who you choose as a partner. I mean, at the end of the day, there is truly only so many hours in your day and so really, having a partner who understands providing as much of an equitable load as they can is really critical."
She said she does see some positive movement in the workforce to accommodate family life in workplaces.
“I think a lot of that shift is happening because of the very good work around raising awareness on mental health and that our work affects our mental health,” she said.
“People are starting to realize, actually, it's poor leadership to not recognize the ‘personal,’ of your staff and what they're experiencing. That's just poor leadership. So, I think that now that that's changing — shifting slowly — you're seeing a lot more, where HR is less about making sure just the company organization doing well, and is actually going, ‘We have to make sure that staff are doing well, too, because those things are so interconnected.’”
Keys to success
Barnabe says for young women, there are three keys to success she passes on: confidence, networks and skills.
While the focus has often been on hard skills that people can bring to the job, the other characteristics may play a bigger role in the end, she said.
"I think that what I've learned in a career where... I've had a salary job for about 18 years now, is that the people who are most successful are not necessarily the ones with the most technical skills; they tend to be the ones with confidence, who were resilient during work situations, who are able to work well with others and navigate challenging situations," she said, adding this is something she wishes she had known when she was a younger woman starting her career.
"What I wish I had known was the value of that confidence, the value of a really good network…to reach out to when your job's tough to help you understand how to navigate things, to help you learn."
Technical skills will get built over time, she added.
"But you really have to be mindful about those essential skills because the leaders that you see around you are not the people who were best at writing something specific or anything like that. [But instead are] people who really understood how to work well with other people, and how to bring out the best in other people."
Mentorship
Mentorship is key for women in business, Barnabe said.
In her organization's work creating future leaders, Barnabe said FORA runs all of their programs with a coaching and mentoring component.
But this doesn't mean just older women passing on knowledge to younger folks. It is a two-way street.
"We really have moved past even the notion around mentoring being top-down to really what we call sponsorship," she said.
The more experienced women will be willing to open up their own networks for young women, to help them find things that have been relegated to, typically, old boys clubs, for example, and in the process, the senior businesswoman will learn from her younger counterpart, Barnabe said.
"Their approach to things is very refreshing, quite different, very interesting," she recalled hearing from veterans of the business world.
"It's really mutually beneficial.”
But what is success?
Barnabe said that success is whatever each individual woman wants it to be for them.
"I think that for me, once upon a time, I used to really think about ambition as the title that you can achieve. And now I'm much more about telling young women that being truly ambitious is being very honest with yourself about what success feels like for you. And it's not a title. It's not something that's so easily put down as an accomplishment," she said.
"I always tell young women, do not let the imposter syndrome get in your way. If you feel that you can achieve something, head down and get to it. And then really build out that network of like-minded, smart people who you can turn to, and who inspire you to keep pushing through and to get there.... I think young women have exceptional leadership skills. And I want lots of them to think of themselves as leaders, again, irrespective of what your title is."
Find out more about FORA at www.foranetwork.org.
