In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about balancing work with career management. Many women tend to struggle with prioritizing their own career growth because they’re too focused on the needs of the business. This week, I talk with Marja Wagenaar, a leadership specialist, former member of parliament in the Netherlands and author of “The Leadership Book for Women”. Here we discuss the ways in which we hold ourselves back by doing silent work without recognition, hesitating to raise our hands for new opportunities and focusing too heavily on being a “good girl”. We also explore her 50/50 method, which is designed to break these habits so that you can more confidently and effectively advance your career.
About My Guest
Marja Wagenaar PhD is a leadership expert. With her company Leadershipint. she helps leaders and their organizations to advance their strength worldwide. She developed the 50/50 method: a successful approach for female leaders and all those women who aspire to become a leader.
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Website: https://www.leadershipint.com/
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome Marja. It's such a pleasure to meet you. I'm excited for our conversation today. And I would love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself.
Marja Wagenaar
Welcome, many thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here in on your, on your podcast. I'm Marja Wagenaar. I'm from the Netherlands in Europe. And I work as a leadership coach and a leadership consultant. But before that, I have come a long way. During my studies, I also already worked as a staff member to a member of Parliament in the Netherlands, started writing books about politics. As I became a member of parliament, myself in the Netherlands in what was it? Do I know? Yes, 1997. So the last ah, long time ago, I love to work in politics. But after politics, I decided on a completely different career. I didn't want to do anything anymore in the public sphere. Because if you want to change something in the public sphere, you need to be in politics. So I went to the private sector and started out as consultant, as a strategy consultant, and as a very classical one. And the more I did work as a strategy consultant, I became interested in the how in the people part, because you can have great concepts and great strategies, and but it's all about what but the how is what makes it happen. So I started to focus on the how in my consultancy, and then also I started to do some coaching. And then I learned while doing that code in my coaching practice, that men and women to take a very different approach to their work and to their jobs. And then I decided, well, I need to have a method for debts to make it feasible for women if they approached their job in a different manner, what they could accomplish. And that's how it all started.
Kim Meninger
That is fascinating. I would love to possibly hear more about your political career in a moment, too. But I also want to start where you just finished? What was it that you saw that made you think we need to be more clear, or we need to give women more support around career management? What were some of the themes that you've noticed, or potentially challenges that you were seeing women struggle with?
Marja Wagenaar
Well, I'm so women being hesitant about taking next step, I saw women being not so self-confident as men were. And there was also a lot of research, by the way to back that when it comes to getting a new job. Men think, Oh, if I can do 60%, I'm going to do the job. And women think, oh, we need to be able to do 100%. Otherwise, they won't even apply to a new job. So that's what I found in women who wanted to, to move higher up the corporate ladder, but they had a lot of hesitancies. They met them also in the surroundings. It doesn't help if people saying, Oh, I don't know if you can do that, if you already have doubts yourself. So I started looking for a method to work with women, to stimulate them and to overcome this, this hesitancy.
Kim Meninger
And I think that's such a great point because I think part of it is socialization, I think, you know, boys at young ages are taught to be more aggressive. And, and to not, they're not necessarily as bound by the rules. As girls, our girls are taught to be obedient, we are taught to behave we are taught to, you know, follow, follow the rules. And we've like rules we like knowing what are the what's the structure that we're operating within. And I think that is a big challenge that I see is that we get into the workplace school works really well for that school offers a lot of structure that makes us feel safe and makes it feel predictable. Then we get into the workplace. And we try to apply those same principles and then we see the men around us in acting in ways that feel like they're going around the system. And that feels unfair as opposed to recognizing that is the new system.
Marja Wagenaar
Well, I think in there's a spot on the thing you're mentioning, I start my book, the first chapter of my book is called Stop Being a Good Girl. We where we try to be the good girl and follow the rules. And in my own experience of the politics, I became a vice president for us in the utilities company. I did a lot of new stuff, I sold water companies. I've never been in a water company, and all of a sudden, I had to sell them. But okay, I managed it. But then they the yearly figures of the company, were not that good. So they says, All everybody needs to scrap 15% from their annual budgets. I thought, Okay, I'm just setting up a new department. This is not coming in coming at the right moment for me, but if it has to be it has to be. So I went to the finance department with a proposal for this 15% budget cuts. Yeah, he looked at me a little bit amazed and said, Oh, wow, that's great. We're going to do that. The days after my fellow vice presidents, they started marching into my office. Not very nice, because they said, What the hell are you doing? We have this announcement for budget cuts all the time. But we don't do them. And if you start with it, it's then we should we also have to cut our budget with 15 percents. Correct. See, that's the problem. They didn't say crazy, we will. But that's probably what they saw. So I lost basically, that's where I learned to love. I lost 50% of my budget. And I'm not my male colleagues, I only have male colleagues. So that level, they didn't. So that's where I thought, Okay, I'm never going to be a good girl again. Then I started my own business consultancy business, I have a great clients, a huge company, huge multinational, and I working all over the world. And they sent me everywhere to do research. But then I had to make my presentation to the boards. And on the night before death, I showed it to a fellow consultant, also a woman. And she said to me, now, this sounds a bit radical. And I thought, okay, let's tone it down a little bit, because I want to keep these clients. I don't want to have clients like this. So I tucked it down a little bit. But luckily, I had organized a dry run with some young people young talents who were working in this company. And I thought they would love my presentation because at least young people are into change. And they were all a little bit new to and they thought, well, not that and two shares, just stick and I thought, oh, okay, there's something wrong with this. So I went back to, to my PowerPoint, I changed everything back to my initial version, I showed that PowerPoint to the board. And up until this is about 20 years ago, and still one of these board members is still one of my clients, they loved it. And that was also a thing where I think, okay, you have to say what you want to say, be straightforward, and keep it simple. And don't be a good girl.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. I love that. I think that is so important. And I wonder, there's, in the same way that we are good girls, much of the time, there's also a fear of getting in trouble. And I think that a lot of and maybe that's tied to perfectionism, or maybe it's fear of doing something that's going to lose your job. But one of the things that I noticed is that men are more comfortable pushing back. And so when you're talking about that example that you shared of No, they asked for this all the time, we just don't do it. But that feels like what if I don't do it? What's going to happen? What are the consequences to that? And, and so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how do we manage the anxiety of worrying that we're breaking the rules or that we're doing something wrong.
Marja Wagenaar
Yeah, well, this basically, now we're getting to the core, I think, we have to manage that anxiety and we have to take care of ourselves. Men are much better at taking care of themselves in the workplace, and what women do, they take care of the organization, but they don't take care of themselves. And now I'm getting back to my book because my leadership book for women is based on what I devised was the 50/50 method. And the 50/50 method is a method to break these habits. It basically states take, define 50% of your time and your energy, energy is very important, for your work towards the organization. And devote the other 50 percent to enhance and to further your own career goals. And when I tell that to women for the first time, they overlook a mess, and now we can do that. And they're very much afraid that they will become like the men, we all know who default 80 or 90% of their time to, you know, furthering their own position. And not thinking about the organization or the coworkers are anything at all. But if you devote 50% of your time to your own career work calls, your company has a much better employee on boards, because you're very much more motivated. And you can do a lot more. For example, if you think, oh, I want to learn about public relations, or I want to learn about finance, because I want to do this a little bit more in my career, they can get you financial assignments, so they can, you know, let you do lots of more assignments, which is very interesting to them. So this 50/50 thing, so I'm going to ask you a question back, if I may, you know, for persons like you or me who have our own company, I sometimes tends to be filed much time and energy to my clients. And then I'm not working on marketing on sales on the future of my company, or writing books, let's say about my own securing my own future. And so I'm going to ask you how 50/50 are you?
Kim Meninger
You know, that has been something I've never thought about it in these terms. But that has been something I have done very well, throughout my business ownership because I think I felt early on the pressure that if I didn't do that I wasn't gonna have a thriving business. So I would say that I can certainly do better, I am not perfect by any means. But I have definitely made sure to carve out time to take care of myself my growth, my business growth. And otherwise, I like you said before, from the motivational perspective, then I don't have any energy left to do anything else.
Marja Wagenaar
No, that's right. If you move out all your time to the organization you're working for, you don't have any energy left, you don't have very important any energy left to make your work, your success is physical. You don't have energy left to network to work on your next assignment or your next job, your next career move or anything, you don't have any time or energy left, and a lot of females feel frustrated, because then they think, Oh, my company neglects me, I do such a lot of good, silent work at no ceases, and they feel and they are still you know, looking for recognition in a fairly silent village. And you know, when you're in your first job, and when you're 25 and 26, and very talented, you will be noticed anyway, that's from your second job, you'll have to make sure yourself that you'll become noticed. Otherwise, everybody moves over your head and moves along. And you're in a standstill.
Kim Meninger
Yes, you’re so right. And I want to go back to what you were saying earlier, too, about the mutual benefit. Because I think sometimes this feels selfishly motivated. And what I always try to say to women is there's it's not selfish to want to grow your career, you're telling your employer, I want to make an even bigger impact than I'm making. I want to invest in the success of this organization by doing more. And, you know, that's not a given in today's workplace where are the people leave very quickly if they don't feel like their needs are being met, right? And so to feel like you when you're talking about to is, even though there's a certain amount of self-promotion that's going on in these conversations, you're taking a more active role in the business through the kinds of activities that you're describing, which means that you can make more informed decisions. It means you have a greater perspective on the needs of the business or different ways in which different teams interact. And that's not just going to benefit you
Marja Wagenaar
know, it's a huge benefit for the business. Because business, especially nowadays with bit, GNC who is moving on very quickly, if they think, Oh, this is not what I want, let's try somewhere else. And there, it's very hard for companies to get talent and to keep talent, it's very important that you make your wishes known and think, Okay, I'm coming to the refinance, or I want to do, let's say, my first presentation to the boards, can I take you there because you have to make yourself known and but companies nowadays love it. And if you're in a company who doesn't love it, well, then you've been in the wrong place already for a very long time. And then you might ask yourself, is it time to move on because companies need the most companies nowadays, they love people who want to develop their talents. Because these talents, especially nowadays, with AI, and everything going on, companies need talents. So if you say, for example, okay, I have one clients, and she just sent down one furcation, with fives, she works in the software company, but very traditional one. And I'm a leadership coach. And she sat down with, with it a stack of books about AI. And now she's the AI expert for company. And her company lost that because they didn't invest well, not at all in AI, which they have to as a software company, she is now one of the people and she can write about is a company time, she is not on the boards, often the AI recognization and everything. So it works both ways. And the company even when she doesn't have time, then write the articles for Il se, at least if we can use your name, it would be so great. So yes, you'll have to raise your hands. That's also my experience, wherever I have been if you don't raise your hands, people won't notice.
Kim Meninger
Yes, you're absolutely right. And I wonder if you have thoughts for people listening who may have not gotten here yet, but want to make the shift because one of the things I think about too is reinventing yourself in the same organization can be challenging if people are accustomed to a certain version of you that maybe is a little bit less assertive, less, shall we say? And so it might feel scary to suddenly start putting in place some of the kinds of things that we're talking about, Do you have tips on maybe a first step or a way to think about doing this for the first time?
Marja Wagenaar
Well, doing it for the first time is not the hardest thing, I think it's keeping it up. It's the hearts of you know, execution, the first step is sometimes salon off, and then my clients, sometimes they go back to their old habits, but it's really what helps is that you need to get out of your comfort zone. People sometimes women especially feels very comfortable within their own comfort zone. And they say, Yeah, but that's just who I am. And then you have to ask yourself the question, but Is that who you want to be? Is that where you are? And who do you want to be in five years time? What kind of person at work do you want to be? What kind of professional? Do you want to be in five years time? And then I always do a kind of exercise where I say, Okay, what's your old comfort zone mentioned four things. And let's move to the new comfort zone. And so between the old comfort zone and the new comfort zone is unfortunately, the most uncomfortable one. So except that your will become uncomfortable. I think that helps a lot. I call that a gray growth area. Because in the great growth area, you'll have a lot of ups and you'll think okay now are mastering it. But it will also be a lot of doubts. And if you move up slowly, but surely there will be less up and less downs. It will be less hectic. And you'll get into the new comfort zone. But get out of your comfort zone and don't think oh but that's where I am that's my character, or that's how I was raised or anything because then you remove them you remain in your old comfort zone and nothing will change.
Kim Meninger
Yes. It's such an important point. And that is something that I think is really important for us to recognize because There's a lot a lot of rationalization that goes on, on, on in our heads to keep us feeling safe and comfortable. And so when you said earlier, that's just not who I am. I think that's an easy message to listen to and think I'm being true to myself. But your question, follow-up question is so important to say, is that what you want to be because I often think about the difference between there's a difference between doing something scary and doing something that's out of integrity.
Marja Wagenaar
So, yes, sure. And doing something scary is important. Because we all if we do something new, we need to feel a little bit of tension. Otherwise, it's not something new. And there is another thing where it will help you getting into a new comfort zone, and that is doing new things. And do it consciously. Because if you Well, I always tell my clients, you know, keep a journal and keep track of all the new things you're doing in a week. And then a month at this can be very small things, tiny things. But it can also be huge things. For example, today, I'm being for the first time in my life on an American podcasts. Of course, that's a new thing. And I have to be to think, okay, Talk slowly. And everything and think about if you need to find a word because English is not my mother language. Take time to think, of course, we all need to do things that are a little bit scary. But if you keep a journal of new things, and do that in a very conscious way, then your self-confidence will grow a lot. Because basically, our self-confidence comes from doing and accomplishing new things. And sometimes you just have to jump into the deep ends and be sure that you'll serve sure face of course, we all will. And sometimes she'll stay under the water for three or four seconds. That's not an issue you want Brown. Yeah. To come up again, don't worry, but do it. That's why I also I hate the word authentic. You know, we have this law firm about being an authentic leader and everything. And it's okay being authentic, if it means yes, it's not a show you're uprooting on you mean what you say. And you mean what you do. And there's really your concept, your conscious is behind it, and you put everything you have in IPs. But being authentic as a way of keeping you from changing is not good. That's if you want to move on in life in your professional life. That's it goes as well for your personal life that then you have to feel uncomfortable every now and then embrace it.
Kim Meninger
That is a great point that I have my own challenges with authenticity, but I hadn't thought about it in quite that way. And I think that captures exactly what we're talking about, which is authenticity can be a trap. Because Oh no, this I'm just being my authentic self right now. That becomes an excuse for not doing the things that we're talking about which can help you to, to grow. And as you said, you're not growing if you're comfortable.
Marja Wagenaar
No, it's an excuse for standstill. And so stop, stop with the excuse, the excuses, stop with them and start feeling a little bit uncomfortable. And it will be scary in the beginning or first I did a lot of scary things in my lifetime. But still. And I still do every now and then. But it helps quite a lot. Also, if you're scared of doing new things in your professional life, it helps to do new things in your personal life. For example, take on a sport you haven't been doing or say okay, I'm going to run for five miles this summer. I've never done that before. That's also a great new thing. So you, you know you can do new things.
Kim Meninger
Yes, I think a lot. Yeah.
Marja Wagenaar
It helps me quite a lot. I went I'm almost 64 now. And I went waterskiing for the first time in my life two years ago. A person who was 11 years old, and we both managed and it was great. And sometimes when I have to do something scary I look at the picture thing. Yes, if you can come, come on a water ski at the age of stand on operate on a water ski at the age of 62. You can do this or you can do that. Of course you'll manage it. Yeah.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and you've managed already because you just said something that you've done a lot of scary things in our lives. We've all done scary things, we just forget about them when we're faced with a new scary thing. And I think it's important to remind ourselves, we've survived every other scary thing that we have navigated, and at different points in our lives, things that come naturally to us were one scary, right?
Marja Wagenaar
That definitely, and these sometimes forgets to celebrate. Because if you celebrate if you've done a new thing, the new thing and the fact that you are getting used to doing new things time and time again, it gets settled into your subconscious, so it becomes easier and easier. So celebrate your wins, celebrate your successes, celebrate them with your team, and celebrate the small ones celebrate it you huge once when I started my company, I love cooking, and I love having a lot of people for dinner over at my kitchen table and everything. So I collect tableware. And I wanted to have a beautiful but very expensive silverware. And for every new client I learned when I started my business, I bought a spoon or a knife or anything. And I know how to use beautiful collection of silverware, one that celebrates.
Kim Meninger
I love that. That's such a great idea. You're right. We don't spend enough time celebrating we're so quick to pay attention to the mistakes or what's not happening. And then we don't pay attention to all the good things that are going on.
Marja Wagenaar
Yeah, no, we have to envy over exaggerate our mistakes. You know, when I was sitting with a client last week, and I asked her, she is well, she's trying to look for a new job. She is very accomplished and working as a high level in Europe heading a huge organization. But she Tao went out there and had conversations with five headhunters. And in one of the conversations she didn't feel so well. I said, What's that whole conversation mill? She had five conversations that week, and asked how did the other conversations go all Damien's very well show she started taking up our coaching time with telling me about 10% That didn't go well, instead of telling me about it 90, not 19 90% that went very well. So focus on that, and move up from there. And forget about the 10 percents, and then we tend to be to stay in debt part of our brain and then ruminate around and everything. And I always say to women, well, you'll have, you'll have a wonderful brain use your whole brain and not only your short-term memory parts, where you start ruminating about your mistakes, and then you go on and on and, and you'll be you'll become hypersensitive about them. Instead of moving on to the long-term things and issues. You have this whole brain in your head start using them.
Kim Meninger
That's a really good point too. I think about it as a, as somebody who has been prone to rumination, what I have found helpful is to not blindly go down that path. But if something's bothering me, if I'm replaying something to ask, okay, what am I what did I learn from this? And what went well, like you're saying, right, because it's guarantee that it is not the entire, the entire situation went badly. And again, if there is a part that I feel like I could have done better, or I could have done differently, then that's something to think about from like a learning perspective as opposed to a shame perspective and say, Okay, so the next time I find myself in this situation, what will I do differently?
Marja Wagenaar
Yeah, but that's also a thing with women, we tend to focus on oh, I need to learn, but unlearning is also very important. We also when we want to move on, we need to unlearn. And part of you know, working with this 50/50 methods spends 50% of your time working for your company or organization and the 40 or the 15% 50% to your own personal career goals, is also about learning and about unlearning. So, don't do it in your spare time or at night in your bed. If you want to ruminate, do or do it during your boss time and think of it as learning our learning issue and move on. At night or early in the morning, when you wake up early and all the adrenaline comes up and you think, oh my now I have to get into another day and yesterday, this went wrong. No, do it during the day.
Kim Meninger
I have to catch myself because I will wake up at two o'clock in the morning and start worrying about it. And then I remind us, there's nothing I can do about it right now go back to sleep, you can eat and everything feels more tolerable in the light of day.
Marja Wagenaar
Definitely, it definitely does. So don't. It's also a thing, you're now then we were in we also have to stimulate to stimulate each other much more in that respect. Because when one of us has to do, for example, a presentation to the supervisory board or to the board or anything. They have to go there. And we say Oh, wow. Well, I hope it goes well. You can also Oh, you'll be doing great. Good luck. Be a little bit more stimulating. [Yes.] You got it, girl. You got it.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that's a that's a great tip for all of us to think about as we're supporting each other.
Marja Wagenaar
Yes, we have to stop this worrying this worrying culture, which we sometimes have together as women. And of course, there's a lot to worry about in this world. And there's a lot to worry about in our lives. And we women, we feel fairly responsible for everything. But we can't fix a lot of things. So let's focus on the things we can fix. And start with yourself. And start with, you know, yeah, adding this 50%. And having carving out is 50% of your time and energy for your own goals.
Kim Meninger
This is so fantastic. Mario, I really love that approach. I think it's very simple and sustainable. I know it's going to be hard for people who haven't been doing or thinking about this yet. But I think that you know, just based on everything we've talked about, it is important not just to our own growth, but to our organizations, to our teams. And if we can come at it from the mindset of everybody wins. When we take this approach, hopefully that gives people more courage to go out and do it.
Marja Wagenaar
Yeah, it's win-win for everybody. And if you're a bit further with this matter, then you can take the next step, the first step is most of the time is short-term issue. But, and that's very important, the first step to take but then you have to move on and work on your long-term career goals. Where do you want to be in five years time? It's also very, very interesting. If you've met people you have known yet, don't start introducing yourself as you are now, let's say okay, let's say in a group of Famer, who are we going to be in five years time, and you have a much better and much more stimulating conversation with each other?
Kim Meninger
Hmmm, that's a great tip, too. I think that helps. I always like to think about how do we bring these kinds of conversations are these this type of learning to our group not to try to change in a vacuum, but to do it collaboratively because then we all get to benefit from each other, and we give permission to each other?
Marja Wagenaar
Yeah, we do even in a group and we have to stimulate each other, we have to help each other stimulate each other and lift each other off. It also means when you're moving on that you have to be willing to leave people behind you. Because when you want to move ahead, it's as a woman, it's still sometimes a bit of a lonely position. And the art people who want to keep you in your old spots, so they start pulling your dam, whether it's friends, colleagues, families because the higher up you come in the pyramids, the less pierce you have. So the more lonely you become, the more lonely at least your position is you’re your, your will be in, the higher the higher up you come on the corporate ladder, and you have to remove yourself which is sometimes hard from people who are pulling you down and surround yourself with people also female friends who are lifting you up. I found in a lot of my female coaching clients that they are very lonely Men, they have a lot of peers who work at the same level. And women don't have that many girlfriends who work at the same level, or earn the same amount of money or have the same huge responsibilities in their job. So it becomes lonely for them. And you are the only one who can break that loneliness by moving on.
Kim Meninger
I think that's a good reminder because it is lonely at the top.
Marja Wagenaar
It is. So you will need to surround yourself with peers, people who know how it is there, and then you can learn from each other. But if you keep if you keep surrounding yourself with people who are pulling you down all the time, you'll say, Oh, now you're talking about work. Again, work is not important. Because they're jealous, or you don't have anybody to talk, to talk about to you don't have anybody to talk with. It's about your work. And then you can love me. So keep start surrounding yourself with the right people. And also helps a lot if you want to move forward. And if you want to grow in your leadership roles.
Kim Meninger
Yes, you're absolutely…
Marja Wagenaar
As a female leader. Yeah. And then you can, yourself can start lifting people up. Young people, young women, start helping them.
Kim Meninger
These are such great insights, Marja. I could talk to you all day. But I would love to ask you Where can people find you if they want to read your book if they want to learn more about your work? What's the best place for them to go?
Marja Wagenaar
Well, people can find me on my website. I, my name Marja Wagenaar. It’s very hard to pronounce in English, but my website is leadershipint.com So, it's leadership with INT for international behind the leadershipint.com There you can find me. And my book has a very simple title. It's called The Leadership Book for Women. Just the leadership book for women and you can find it on Amazon. Well, yeah, that's an easy one. Yeah.
Kim Meninger
Perfect. So I will make sure those links are in the show notes for anyone who is interested and thank you again, Marya for being here. It has been such a pleasure having this conversation with you.
Marja Wagenaar
Well, thanks for having me, Kim. And yes, I hope Yeah, your listeners, our listeners today. We've at least done something to try to lift them up because, and if we have added just a little bit today that would have been played and then go on, lift yourself up.
Kim Meninger
I have no doubt we have. Thank you.