Why does everyone else get promoted but me?

Hi Chris!

I’m very good at my job, but somehow my career’s stalled. No matter how hard I try, I’m never selected for more senior roles. Have I hit some sort of glass ceiling?

Stalled

Hi Stalled!

There are many ‘glass ceilings’ in life, and the one that you’ve probably encountered originates in the different speech styles used by men and women.

Male conversations are full of put-downs and all about getting the upper hand. Women’s centre around connection, consensus and support. Men keep their thoughts to themselves, while women like talking them through. Women suggest politely while men demand.

Men and women learn these styles as children. Girls want to be liked and learn not to boast or be bossy. Boys expect higher-status boys to push them around and learn how to emphasise their successes and hide their mistakes. Which translates well into the world of work, where promotion often depends on how you’re perceived rather than what you’ve actually achieved.

That’s why it’s hard for women to get into the top jobs. Because women’s conversational styles affect how they’re judged on the job.

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So when you say, ‘Please could you...’ your male boss thinks you can’t exercise authority. He thinks you lack confidence when you say ‘sorry’ because he hears that as a literal apology, when really you’re just being polite. When you ask questions, he thinks that you lack knowledge. While men carefully structure their queries to ensure they don’t look badly informed.

Men go for what they want and assume that women do too. But more often women try to balance each other’s needs. Women often say ‘we’ because ‘I’ sounds too boastful. Whereas men will say ‘we’ about work done by their group even when they weren’t personally involved!

Not everyone follows these patterns, and there’s nothing wrong with the female approach. In fact, polite men often run into the same problem as women.

So the solution isn’t to adopt one style or the other. It’s to understand how they work and choose the one that works best in each situation.

All the best,

Chris