later, my job was eliminated. No explanation. No warning.
My mind was reeling. I had never been out of a job before. I had worked countless hours each week, at a job I loved, with a team I loved, producing great results for the organization. Why now? I had so many questions.
After a year filled with a lot of prayer and soul searching, it all became clear, but I'll share that lesson with you later.
Over the course of my one-year noncompete, I continued to mentor men and women in the workplace – most of whom were high performers. Mentoring others from outside the workplace for the first time in my career gave me new insight and a fresh perspective. I found myself responding to their challenges by sharing similar experiences of navigating the pitfalls of corporate life and noticed that women and men have the same challenges. Each conflict we discussed involved a high performer and an overly aggressive manager, typically a higher-level executive or a peer on a quest for more power.
When I was immersed in the workplace, I would have encouraged my mentees to “Lean In” to their challenges and then provide solutions based on the wisdom found on those pages and in other books that advise top performers to simply play within the sandbox they are given. With the clarity of an outside perspective, my mentoring shifted to questioning why those who are targeted and undermined stay at companies that mistreat them. I wanted to empower my mentees to create change and to stand up for themselves, but they couldn't. These bullies were powerful and sat in some of the highest positions in their organizations. Perhaps it took so much time to notice this bullying behavior at the highest levels of the corporate world because, regardless of your level in the workplace, it's the norm – an accepted cultural behavior regarded as part of the “game.” From the outside, it simply mirrors a fifth grader bullying a first grader on an elementary school playground.
Helping my mentees “Lean In” to conflict with a superior most likely meant “Leaning In” to a 3:00 p.m. meeting with HR on a Friday. They lacked the influence to change the rules. I noticed that high performers, particularly high-potential leaders and women in general, appeared to be targeted 100% of the time. Women tended to have less insight into why their superiors were targeting them, which required more conversation around why they were marginalized, overlooked, bullied, or abused. Each woman had a hard time processing the reality that, in most cases, it wasn't their fault. The men, to their credit, had a much more innate sense of how to move forward, mostly by hitting the issue head-on. Unfortunately, that approach backfired for women.
After experiencing several of the same conversations, a recurring problem emerged. Despite a desire to hire highly qualified men and women, most organizations are not designed to promote, support, or identify high performers – especially among women. Dropping talented women into corporate environments, traditionally dominated by men, without a plan for high-performance, mixed-gender teams, has resulted in defensiveness and conflict, often derailing the most competent women and mitigating their value. Men have been held back and derailed by this conflict in the workplace as well, but, fortunately, are more likely to have the capacity to endure it. Women are often blindsided by such conflicts and end up blaming themselves. This unmanaged conflict has allowed the wrong leaders to find opportunity in the chaos, mastering the art of politics and maneuvering their way into once-coveted leadership positions. These “old world” leaders are now in higher positions, seeking to defend their turf and overpower any perceived competitors, failing to effectively lead the transformation as a result.
During one pivotal mentoring session, an up-and-coming female leader shared how she had been derailed by a senior manager one level above her. She felt that it was common knowledge within the organization that the senior manager had risen to the executive ranks because she knew how to navigate and eliminate her competition. This executive bullied and discredited anyone in her path. I had unfortunately crossed paths with this executive as well, and ultimately survived, but not without earning a few battle scars to prove it. I survived out of sheer grit and tenacity, never willing to give up.
I had just finished this mentoring conversation when our daughter, Lauren, came home from high school and shared how she had heard of a girl being bullied. The girl targeted by the bullies was a good person who had done nothing to provoke the incident, and my daughter had reached out to her in support. Lauren was captain of the cheer team, a role that could be used for good in these types of situations, and she didn't disappoint. It wasn't the first time she would help someone being bullied, and I suspect it won't be the last. I was so proud of this young woman and the leader she had become, and then my mind drifted to imagining her in the workplace. How was she, and all of her smart, talented friends, going to survive? The workplace is full of bullies. How would she effectively stand up to a bully in the workplace who could eliminate her position or undermine her career? She was showing signs of being a great leader, but would she encounter the same dysfunction I did? The high performers I continue to mentor, and the over 1,000 men and women I've mentored or instructed over the years, all experienced similar barriers that kept them from performing at their best.
The workplace is not ready for my daughter, her generation, or even this current generation of top performers. Something needed to change. As one of my mentors once told me, the answer lies in the root cause. So I set out on a journey to help my daughter, her friends, the high performers I had mentored, and those I have never met. Here is the irony in what I found:
Today's companies are in a war for talent, seeking to hire women and high performers who provide exponential performance impact in today's hypercompetitive global marketplace. Unfortunately, most executives and HR departments don't realize that many of the talented individuals who can maximize high performance in organizations – women, top performers, and inspiring leaders – are under siege in corporate America. The statistics for workplace bullying alone are staggering, with their direct or indirect impact extending to nearly 75% of the workplace. Turnover among female employees at some companies is as high as 27%, more than double the rate of 11% among men, even though record numbers of women are graduating from college and entering the workforce.1 To date, the solution offered to tormented and derailed high performers and women is little more than encouragement to stay in a corporate game that is often rigged by the design of toxic leaders who aim to eliminate or sabotage the high performers who threaten their turf. The result? Companies are failing the very employees they are responsible to lead, losing the war for talent, compromising their bottom line, and degrading their brands.
A majority of companies today have failed to identify the reason for this war for talent in their organization and are weaker because of it. The root cause? The unidentified war on talent is inhibiting companies who want to win the war for talent. There is a better way.
| War for Talent | Internal Challenge for Companies |
| Competing to recruit the top talent available. | Retaining top talent despite internal bullying, derailing by managers, and leadership that lacks accountability. |
| A shift to high performance seeks the right kind of talent and makes a company attractive to potential hires on the job market. | A shift to high performance helps retain top talent by empowering and promoting the best leaders and employees. |
If today's boards and C-suite leaders know that adding more women to the workplace, placing great leaders in key positions, and developing and promoting high performers are the three keys to designing a high-performance workplace, why are they allowing the undermining of these groups? After analyzing over 30 years of mentoring sessions with women and men, women in leadership programs that spanned the globe, and my own quest to become a high-performing leader, I found something both concerning and sobering: today's companies are not designed for high performance. In fact, they suppress and eliminate the true high performers and the most effective gender-balanced teams
