In September 2020, 1615 women from the media industry signed a statement of support stating that they have been subjected to sexual harassment at work. In this post, a timely contribution to the ongoing debate on sexism, Jan Bartram poses a series of questions for the future of the media industry and other industries with similar cultures.
Because if you want to tackle the problem of sexism in the workplace, you need to look at structures, cultures and, not least, the personalities of the leaders. This post was originally published in Finans. Read it here.
If there is one industry where it has been difficult to take HR (Human Resource Management[1]) and leadership seriously as a discipline on par with one's own profession, it is in the editorial environments of the media industry. I can say this after having worked in the media industry for about 10 years in leading positions within HR. Overall, I have worked in this field for more than 25 years in both private and public organizations.
In the editorial environments of the media industry, the most skilled professionals were promoted to management, not necessarily those who had the potential to build a following. It came second, if it was even considered at all.
Buzz-words and platitudes
Leadership development was seen as a necessary evil and a frivolous thing filled with buzz-words and platitudes - just for a game of bullshit bingo, rather than being curious about the meaning of the words to improve as a leader.
In other words, leadership wasn't really taken seriously. It was a culture that preferred to be inspired by the leadership style(!) of previous leaders rather than absorbing the latest leadership theories.
Whether the above has led to 1615 women in the media industry manifesting that leadership in its most substantial form has failed is not clear, but the suspicion lurks. Regardless, it is good that this imbalance between people in the workplace is being highlighted so that action can be taken.
This also applies outside the media industry, where the issues raised are probably just the tip of the iceberg. The symptoms of poor management culture are also reflected in a survey[2] from the US. Approximately 2/3 of the respondents said that they would rather get rid of their boss than get a raise. In fact, they thought it would make them significantly happier, and half of them also thought they would perform better if they didn't have to deal with their boss.
Dark sides of the personality
The big question, however, is: What do we do about it? The problem runs deep. It's partly about the systems (structures, hierarchies and cultures) and partly about the actors (in the systems), where the personality of the leaders plays a significant role.
The "People Test System" has just released a report based on a statistical study of approximately 16,000 employees and managers. The report paints a clear picture that the higher up in the management hierarchy, the more pronounced the dark personality traits become.
Everyone has good and not-so-good qualities, but in leaders, it seems that there are some specific dark qualities that may explain some of the disharmony that has fed the sexism and oppression in media editorial environments, legitimizing a sick culture where sex is sometimes traded for promotions or special privileges without anyone doing anything about it.
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The face on the face of power
The "People Test System" has used research to analyze three traits that relate to the dark core of the leader's personality: Selfishness, Cynicism and Self-righteousness. This means that leaders tend to think mostly about themselves and act for their own benefit - even if it's at the expense of others. This is supported by Dacher Keltner, one of the world's leading researchers in social psychology and author of the book "The power paradox". He argues that as you gain more and more power, you become more self-focused, less empathetic and more amoral.
It's the face of power at its worst. It can create a sense of invincibility in the manager and a "take-it-or-leave-it" approach to the resources available, taking from the till or the women.
The paradox is that the dark personality traits also contain qualities that create success in the job, such as being able to cut through, having charisma and tolerating being unpopular. These traits are therefore also highly useful. They just need to be exercised in a controlled manner, which in my experience happens to the majority of managers in Denmark.
In addition to the media industry, the retail, hospitality and creative industries are where the problems are most apparent. And the reason why this is where the moral compass tilts is because these industries have more casual employees, hierarchical organizational structures and a focus on management as a profession to be trained and practiced is a city in Russia.
In the aforementioned industries, it's often up to the individual leader to find their own path and, for lack of a better term, it's the previous leaders who set the example and thus support the existing cultures of oppression and mismanagement.
Patriarchal organizational cultures
But our social system has also historically favored the structural power of men: legally, socially, mentally and economically, which has helped create the patriarchal organizational cultures that continue to dominate the workplace. Norms such as competition (society), growth, career, achievement, performance, execution and survival of the fittest prevail when it comes to asserting oneself and getting ahead of others.
The core of the problem is therefore an explosive cocktail of culture, structure and personalities that requires a breakdown of some fundamental assumptions about what kind of leadership we want and what values should characterize the way we interact with each other.
Questions for the future of the media industry
If we are to tackle the problem of sexism in the workplace, we need to look at the criteria used to recruit and promote managers.
- For example, is there a sensible balance between the professional and more compassionate dimensions of leadership?
- Are we creating space for women to want to lead?
- Do we get too caught up in the charismatic (seductive) nature of leaders when hiring, so that it becomes more about form than content?
- What new benchmarks will define future leadership talent?
- Do we have a culture with sound leadership values that are lived in practice and where it's acceptable to speak up if the values are not followed?
- Do we use structured leadership feedback so that the positive and negative aspects of leadership are highlighted and continuously processed?
- Are we honestly good enough to face the consequences of poor leadership?
A good place to start is by observing the communication in your company. How do people talk to each other and who talks to whom in what situations? This tells you something about the relational patterns and power balances between people and is a mirror of the culture.
The first sign of change in culture and relationships is therefore that the language changes and we start talking to each other in a new way - one that reflects respect for the individual, where it makes sense to say yes, but also respects a NO. If that were the case, 1615 women probably wouldn't have felt the need to manifest themselves in a statement of support.
Literature
- Christian Nyvang Qvick (2019) Distributed leadership: Solve leadership tasks in an aligned way in interaction with employees
- Mads Leth Felsager Jakobsen, Anne Mette Kjeldsen and Thomas Pallesen (2016) Distributed leadership in public service organizations, Politica
- Caroline Howard Grøn, Anne Mette Kjeldsen and Christian Nyvang Qvick (2019) Researchers: Involving employees in management tasks has many pitfalls
- Christian Nyvang Qvick (2020) Distributed leadership: A hidden resource in public organizations?
