A few years ago, a savvy employer called to ask if I could coach an “insensitive” male employee on leading more inclusively in the #MeToo era. The manager who called said his employee needed major remedial work before he could speak in a way that demonstrated sensitivity to, let alone support for, women in the workplace. “Oh don’t worry,” I told him, “I speak man.”

Like most other middle-aged professional women in modern America, I have learned how to navigate workplaces designed for men by men[1]—where men speak a male-centered language they don’t even know exists. But I have been able to “fit in” within that world because, while I am a hard-core feminist, I am also a realist. I no longer expect a gender revolution to occur overnight (unlike in my college days), and I don’t boil everything that happens in the workplace down to gender politics (at least not out loud). I also possess traits stereotypically identified with masculinity (confidence, drive, leadership) and was fortunate enough to be raised by one of the world’s finest men. The result has been my feeling at home among, and truly liking, men. At the same time, I don’t let the men in my life off the hook. I expect them to always treat women well, and to fight—or at least question—the patriarchy. Perhaps for all these reasons, coaching men on how to be champions for women has arisen as a calling for me.

One of the first things I do when I coach men is ask them to consider whether or not the water they are swimming in is gender neutral, and to consider what life might be like in a female-friendly professional world. A case in point was a coaching session I held several years ago with a man facing sexual discrimination charges at work. This young man was raised by a professional single mother and professed to having the utmost respect for women. I believed him. Yet he was also baffled by the complaints against him for situations wherein he thought he was simply treating a woman “as one of the guys.” Although his company was composed of 80% male-identified professionals, he found it hard to understand how his work environment could possibly be sexist. He was confounded by the fact that his female colleagues called out the ways they were critiqued at work as discriminatory. To his mind, this process of critique was no different from how men’s performance was analyzed—and therefore, it had to be equitable. He then described what sounded to me as an extremely confrontational rather than collaborative manner of offering feedback. I, in turn, asked him to consider whether it was possible that the company’s archetype for critiquing projects/performance was essentially male-created and male-aligned? If that were the case, I suggested, then treating women like one of the men would not actually be equitable. In fact, it would serve to reinforce anti-female bias in the workplace.

When he struggled to understand what I meant, I gave him an example of my law school training, wherein the Socratic method of teaching was employed. I queried whether expecting women to feel fairly treated, let alone at home, with such a patriarchal method of learning was equitable. It was a learning moment for him: he began to grasp the depth of what he did not know about the female experience. I suggested he read Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg to begin educating himself about ways women and men often proceed through the world a bit differently.

These learning moments, which make the coaching work I do so deeply satisfying, are of course simply lessons that I myself had to learn—otherwise, they wouldn’t carry the same weight. For example, while always keenly aware of my privilege and the inherent bias all humans possess, I had a reawakening about the depth of my own White denial after reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. Afterward, I vowed to do a better job of owning up to my own racism and other biases as the imperative first step in contributing to social justice work. Likewise, after reading Jennifer Brown’s How to Be an Inclusive Leader, a simple but profound guidebook on becoming part of the social justice solution, I realized the many areas where I was still falling short in contributing to the change I wanted to see in the world. I know first-hand that it is possible for people get to a tipping point where the old way of working ceases to resonate and the impetus for change begins.

It is this awareness of my own imperfections—my capacity both for mistakes and for learning—that allows me to “speak man.” This mode of discourse examines mistakes men make when relating to the female experience, without shaming or judging them for what they do not know. At the same time, it asks men to bravely examine their own assumptions and to educate themselves. Men’s failure to understand the female experience isn’t a moral failing. It is simply a natural result of living within a patriarchal society. At root, however, society is made of individuals who possess an infinite capacity to change. Inviting men to consider what needs changing in them—through the process of their own insight—is a way to trigger institutional transformation.

Coaching thus has the power to create the twin vehicles of deep growth: self-realization and impetus for change. By seeing our own limiting beliefs and how they unfairly impact others, we in turn allow ourselves to be liberated from ways of viewing the world that no longer serve us. By learning how to change ourselves, we learn how to change everything.

[1] This piece covers cisgender men, specifically. Trans male experiences in the workplace are often very different.

Author: Diana Maier, Founding Partner

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