In her previous career life, Jennifer Willey navigated challenging and ever-evolving industries as a television news anchor and reporter for ABC and CBS, followed by more than 20 years in sales, strategy, and marketing leadership roles for companies such as Yahoo, AOL, and WebMD. Now the founder of Wet Cement and an advocate for women's economic and professional empowerment, Willey applies her experiences and insights to help women and leaders around the world understand the professional challenges women face and how to manage them, especially at the unique intersectionality of gender and disability in leadership. Our interview delved into commonalities, solutions, and the importance of strategic networking, shedding light on the need for inclusivity in leadership development.

Challenges Across Industries: Self-Advocacy and Networking

Through her service on various advisory boards and initiatives focused on women's empowerment, Willey has identified some common challenges that persist across industries. These include confidence, self-advocacy, assertiveness, and strategic networking. From her work with women around the globe, Willey has seen that strategic networking is an especially critical need to advance one’s career. Unfortunately, women often struggle with networking due to a fear of appearing insincere or opportunistic.

As noted in previous posts in this subseries, many of these challenges are understandable given the research on how women are judged more negatively when behaving in similar ways to men when trying to advance their careers.

And, yet, cultivating mentors, peer mentors, protegees, and sponsors is critical to advancing in their careers.

Willey says she’s seen differences in how women and men access mentorship. For example, during a recent program, she observed:

“I asked anybody who had a mentor to stand up—about a third of the audience stood up. Then I asked them to stay standing if they had two or more mentors. At that point, everyone sat down, with the exception of five men. When I asked who had three or more, three men were standing. It was a very stark realization—men understand and believe that there are people who will need to advocate for them and help them advance in their careers. When I speak with women about this, they are hesitant to cultivate new and growing mentorship and sponsorship relationships over their career, which could help them advance.”

Her hypothesis is that women are socialized to build long-standing, personal relationships, rather than professional, strategic, career-building relationships. Recent research supports this idea.

Intersectionality of Gender and Disability

In the latter part of the interview, the discussion pivoted to Willey's unique perspective as the founder of one of the few women-owned businesses in the United States that is also a disability-owned business. Willey, who is hearing impaired, sheds light on the challenges individuals with disabilities face in leadership, emphasizing the intersectionality of gender and disability.

Living with a disability adds an extra layer of complexity to navigating bias and stereotype threats. Willey recounts a recent experience at a conference where her hearing impairment became a significant barrier. At the evening reception, loud music in the background made it difficult for someone who is hearing impaired. She struggled to hear any of the conversations but didn’t want to leave or miss out on this valuable networking opportunity.

In addition, with very few tables for thousands of people, most attendees were required to stand. As a petite woman who was trying to engage in conversation with a group of tall men, she could not stretch her neck up enough to hear much of the conversation and could not make out the words among the loud background noise. She recalled,

“I’m 5’2” and I was trying to stand among these men who were a foot taller than me. It was that moment when I realized ‘I want to be here, I want to be present. I want to be building relationships. I know how important that is. But I can't do this. I literally, physically can't do this here.’”

This was clearly not an ideal inclusive space. Both physical and hearing differences highlighted the need for increased awareness and accessibility in professional settings.

In contrast, she recalls a workshop where organizers were thoughtful about accommodating various communication needs:

“In this workshop, they were really sensitive to not just hearing impairment but also being able to understand the accents of people from different countries. Even though it was a smaller setting of about 100 people, they still had me, as the speaker, wired with a microphone. And then they insisted on having audience members use the microphone if they wanted to speak so that everyone in the room could hear them. There are always people in every session who will say, ‘Oh, it's okay, I have a loud voice.’ But for those of us who read lips, if you are located in the back of the room, for example, you can't read their lips from back there. So, by just asking people to slow down, wait three seconds for the microphone to come around, or to step up to the front and say your question or have the person with the microphone repeat the question, it helps.”

Willey emphasizes the importance of understanding the spectrum of disabilities since each individual experiences unique challenges.

Recommendations for Inclusive Leadership Development

Willey provided the following practical recommendations for fostering inclusive workplace cultures, leadership development, and career advancement opportunities:

Promote strategic networking: Emphasize the value of diverse relationships, including mentors, peer mentors, protegees, and sponsors, to build a comprehensive support network.
Bridge the mentorship gap: Encourage women to actively seek mentorship, and provide mentorship opportunities for both men and women.
Enhance accessibility: Prioritize accessibility in professional settings and promote measures like microphones during meetings for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Embrace intersectionality: Recognize the unique challenges faced by individuals at the intersection of gender and disability and the compounding effect of dealing with biases and issues with both aspects.
Ask: To be an effective ally, avoid making assumptions and ask before offering help.
Maintain video visibility: During virtual meetings, ask folks to stay on video if possible (barring extenuating circumstances), as it aids people with hearing impairments who are lip-reading. She noted, “Unless you are really sick, or you have a sick child that's right near you, or you're having some mental health struggles that day, put your camera on because of somebody like me who might have an invisible hearing impairment and may need to read lips. If you have Zoom fatigue, research indicates that shutting your self-view is what reduces it, not shutting your camera off.”

By addressing these key points, organizations can take significant strides toward creating a more equitable and supportive environment for women in leadership, irrespective of their abilities or disabilities. Willey's insights serve as a valuable guide for transforming leadership development and building a more inclusive future.

This post is part of my subseries on how organizations can transform leadership development for women, as described through the eyes of experts and women’s lived experiences via interviews.

Mira Brancu is co-author of the Millennials’ Guide to Workplace Politics, which includes tips like those above and more.