Insights from Julianna Walsh about the power of vulnerability in leadership
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The imperative of gender balance in leadership with Julianna Walsh
Oksana Lavri Future work expert 30. May 2024 4 min read
Table of contents
How do you view the importance of gender balance and diversity, especially within leadership positions?
What unique challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the next generation of leaders?
How have you built and sustained your confidence in a leadership role within the business?
Considering your recent experiences, what is one significant insight you’ve gained recently that you might not have believed before?
Gender equity seems to hold value in businesses. What advice do you give other business owners to maintain this principle within their companies?
Meet Julianna Walsh , Founder of LeadHerself, organizational psychologist, and coach. In this interview, Julianna shares her thoughts on the importance of gender balance and diversity in leadership positions, highlighting how diverse leadership strengthens organizations and communities. She discusses the unique challenges and opportunities for the next generation of leaders, how to build confidence in leadership roles, and the importance of vulnerability for effective leadership. Julianna also advises business owners on promoting gender equality in their companies, emphasizing the significant benefits of diversity and the need for accountability and proactive measures. Find more insights below!
Q: How do you view the importance of gender balance and diversity, especially within leadership positions?
Diverse leadership is an absolute imperative. Marian Wright Edelman put it wisely, “ You can’t be what you can’t see .” Having more historically underrepresented individuals in visible positions breaks the mold.
I’m a firm believer that our leaders need to be representative of the people being led. They need to make decisions for the many and that can’t be done effectively when they only understand the experience of the few.
More diversity at the top means stronger leadership, companies, countries, and communities.
We leave a lot of potential untapped when we limit our leadership landscape.
There’s evidence that women score higher on many key competencies and tend to be transformational leaders.
However, women and non-binary individuals often don’t get a fair shot at that top spot partly because the norm is to still “think manager, think male,” even when we’re conscious of this tendency. We’re gradually making progress in this area, and one day, when our leadership is as wonderfully diverse as our humanity, kids will think manager, think me.
Q: What unique challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the next generation of leaders?
There’s a misconception that men and women are already treated equally or that we’ve overcorrected and crossed into so-called reverse discrimination.
It makes identifying and speaking up against injustice more difficult, but according to the latest global gender gap report, we’re still a century away from true gender parity. While most offenses today aren’t blatant acts of discrimination, a thousand biased cuts still sting and harm progress.
The opportunity here is to use the virtual connectedness and visibility of the next generation to highlight issues, support one another, and push for accountability.
Another challenge is that many younger employees leave when they don’t feel valued and supported by an employer.
While that may often be the right decision for them, those individuals are also the ones who can change that culture, but to do that, they need to stick around and work to get to the top.
I get the sense that the next generation will be more outspoken about equality and less likely to tolerate mistreatment.
The opportunity, and my hope, is that they use that courage to change the game and not let themselves be sidelined.
Q: How have you built and sustained your confidence in a leadership role within the business?
This has been a bumpy journey full of growing pains and stretch marks, but I’d say I’ve built confidence in my leadership skills by building resilience and trusting myself. I looked to others for validation for too long and realized that I knew how to be a good leader.
Many women do excellent work, waiting to be tapped on the shoulder and rewarded. But that recognition often needs to come from within and then be used to fuel our self-advocacy.
For me, that meant realizing what I have to offer and acknowledging that I don’t have to know everything. I started noticing an element of ineffective leadership in others, which was acting like they knew everything. Great leaders don’t have all the answers, but they enable you to find them yourself. Having that intellectual humility opens the door to curiosity and learning as much as possible without guilt and empowering others to do the same.
Q: Considering your recent experiences, what is one significant insight you’ve gained recently that you might not have believed before?
Vulnerability makes you more effective, and it feels great. When I say vulnerability, I’m referring to that feeling of exposure to risk and uncertainty. In theory, I feel like I would have always agreed with this statement, or at least the first part of it, but it’s another thing to really dive into it headfirst.
You really do have to make mistakes to move forward.
I think earlier in my career, I was mainly trying to avoid failure, but I had no idea I was doing this, and it was holding me back. When you’re playing to avoid losing, you’re not winning.
On the other hand, I know I never would’ve believed the second part of my insight — how good it feels to embrace vulnerability. Fear is why we avoid feeling vulnerable, but stepping up to face that fear is liberating. It frees you to own your career and become a leader.
You can’t reach your full potential without accepting a certain amount of risk and uncertainty.
Q: Gender equity seems to hold value in businesses. What advice do you give other business owners to maintain this principle within their companies?
The data backs this one up. Hopefully, it will strike a chord with many business leaders who simply want to run an ethical and values-driven company.
For those who want to see evidence for ROI or impact on the bottom line, the numbers speak for themselves regarding innovation, client satisfaction, employee engagement, profitability, and the quality of talent invited in and retained when you embrace diversity.
I think it was Peter Drucker who said, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” While I don’t always agree with this statement, diversity is one place where measurement really helps illuminate where the opportunity lies.
One significant hurdle for companies is that the first step towards gender equity often requires acknowledging a problem. In today’s climate, companies with disappointing diversity metrics can face backlash, even when those numbers are shared as part of an initiative to improve.
To business owners who are concerned about this, I would say that taking accountability and seizing the opportunity is a wiser move with more to gain. Those who don’t take this step risk being left behind.
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