What Would You Do?

Here’s the scenario. Think about a job application, for a new position at a new company or for a different position at your existing company. A job posting typically lists the criteria the manager is looking for in the job candidates. Typical postings will want the applicant to have certain degrees, experience, time in grade, certifications, etc., etc., etc. Suppose you are reading the job posting. The job sounds exciting—something you’ve always wanted, or in a location where you’ve always wanted to live, or someone or some company you’ve always dreamed about working for. In other words, you’d like to get this job. You have some of the criteria mentioned in the job posting but not all. Would you apply? Or in more general terms, what percentage of the job posting criteria does the average applicant need to have before they will apply for the position? Spoiler Alert: This is trick question, and the results aren’t pretty. And for the record, if I didn’t meet most of the criteria, I wouldn’t apply.

In an oft-cited, now-infamous study, Hewlett Packard asked its employees that same question. The results were stunning to me, but not surprising to human resources managers who are accustomed to receiving job applications. Their research showed that if men met 60% of the desired criteria, they would apply for the position. Whoa! Wait a minute and let me get this straight. Men, who have only a little more than half of the desired criteria—60%—have the audacity to apply for a position where they lacked almost half of the qualifications. Seriously?!? And to be fair. Good for them. I don’t want to squash their ambition.

But the results for women take my breath away. As you might have guessed, the results for women were equally dramatic, but discouraging. What percentage, on average, do women feel they need to have before applying for a position? 100%. That’s right. 100%. We must be perfect. And that’s before we even apply for the job. How much more pressure for perfection do we demand of ourselves once we get the position? (Hint: see the section on perfectionism.)

What’s the Big Deal?

If you don’t ask, the answer is always no

What’s the big deal? Why does this statistic bother me so much? How do you spell “lose”? That’s right. If this statistic is correct—and based on my experience and observation, I have no reason to doubt it—when women don’t take a risk and apply, we all lose. When we hold ourselves back from taking a risk and applying—or fail to “lean in” as Sheryll Sandburg eloquently notes²—organizations lose, and women lose.

Let’s be magnanimous and think about the impact of this research on the well-being of the company first. How would you feel if you were a manager and an individual with 60% of the suggested attributes applied for the job, but someone with 80% of the criteria doesn’t apply because she isn’t perfectly 100% qualified? If I were the manager, I’d be frustrated. In the words of an old AT&T commercial, 80% is better than 60%. The company loses when we hold ourselves back because we feel unqualified if we’re not perfect.

But the real reason this statistic bothers me so much is what it says about us: we pull ourselves out of the game before we even start. Because of our fear of failure, rather than risk rejection, we don’t even apply. And if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

Confessions from the Queen of Failure

Let me show you how this misguided quest for perfection and fear of failure and rejection has played out in my life and the lives of my women students. Several years ago, I found myself in a tenure track position at a reputable university. For those of you not familiar with academia, tenure is the gold standard; the prize that we are taught to strive for from the beginning of our first doctoral seminar. Tenure is the apex of an academic career in terms of stability, respect, and salary. And as you might guess, tenure is not easy to come by, and part of the academic hazing process is scaring the heck out of untenured faculty. Believe me, my colleagues, at a former institution, did a good job of that. In fact, I was so afraid that I would not get tenure, I went to the head of my department and suggested that I would like to step down from my tenure track position and instead teach part-time for the university. Whoa! Wait a minute! Are you kidding me?!? Let’s get this straight. I was so afraid that I might not get tenure, that I was ready to pull myself out of the opportunity, rather than risk the possibility of failure or rejection. BTW, the thought I might be successful and earn tenure never crossed my mind. I was so afraid of being rejected and failing, I decided to pull myself out of contention rather than take the chance that someone else would tell me no. Talk about fear of failure; I was its poster child.

Fortunately for me, my story has a happy ending. The chair of my department—a kind and wise man—sat me down and reminded me of my accomplishments. I had the teaching evaluations, the publications, and the service needed to earn tenure. And he was right. I was tenured at that school and the rest is history.

But relaying my experiences to my women students made it clear that I was not alone in my fear of failure or rejection and the limitations I put on myself to avoid that possibility. One by one, students shared similar stories about how they held themselves back from pursuing opportunities—internships, jobs, promotions, organizational offices, and on and on—because they were afraid of rejection or failure. One of my favorite examples came from a former girls’ high school basketball player. Raised as a Hoosier, I have watched enough basketball to know that when men shoot the ball and miss, they keep right on shooting—whether they have an open shot or not. Drives me, and the coach, crazy. This student, a woman, did the exact opposite. When she missed a shot, she was so distraught, she called for the coach to take her out of the game. Rather than take a chance on missing the basket again—failure—she literally pulled herself out of the game. While these are my examples, I’m sure you have similar scenarios that have played out in dorm rooms, apartments, homes, and even penthouse suites. How many jobs (they wouldn’t want me), teams (I’m not good enough), leadership positions (it’s a popularity contest and I’m not popular), elections (I wouldn’t get elected), have you not applied for? Fear is paralyzing and fear of failure is no different. Fear of failure is paralyzing. It prevents us from taking risks and pursuing opportunities. If you don’t shoot the basketball, you’ll never score, and if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

Let me be clear. This is not a book about how to get what you want. There are plenty of “name it and claim it,” books and this is not one of them. This is a book that teaches you how to ask for what you want. In the words of that wise sage, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want.” But you will never get it if you don’t ask, and as we all know from cold calling in sales, the more you ask, the more you increase your chances of success. The key is in the asking.

True, there are external factors—prejudice, misogyny, inequity, injustice, and others—that impact whether or not we are treated fairly and get what we want. I can’t control the government, society, culture, or even my family for that matter. (And heaven knows, and my husband will attest, for years I tried to control my husband and all it did was make us both miserable.) Many or most external factors are out of my direct control. What I can control, however, are my thoughts, words, and actions. And I can either choose to be a victim, declare a pity party (more on that later), shrivel up, and disappear, or I can choose to continue moving forward with resilience and confidence. Clearly, I choose the latter. This book focuses on changes we can choose to make that I would argue will eventually have a ripple effect in the world. If you want to change the world, start by changing yourself.

You seldom regret what you do; you regret what you didn’t do.

As the self-appointed Queen of Fear, masquerading as college professor, I started asking my women students why they were so afraid of taking risks and pursuing opportunities. Their answers did not surprise me. They were afraid of rejection, afraid they might be told no, afraid of disappointing others, afraid of what people would think—in short, afraid of failure and rejection. What did surprise me was that the student answers were identical to the fears I heard voiced by professional women as part of the executive education workshops I teach. Women in high-ranking corporate leadership positions, with years of management experience, expressed the same fears that were paralyzing my women college students. Clearly, I am not alone in my struggle with fear of failure and the fear doesn’t diminish with age, or experience, or college degrees. Intentional action is needed.

Why Don’t We Apply? (What Are We Afraid Of?)

There are several reasons why we may hesitate to take a risk and apply for something like a new position or job. The Cinderella Complex, or an unconscious desire to be taken care of by someone else, may explain some of our hesitation. When I worked in corporate America, I thought that if I was a good girl and did my job, someone would notice me and promote me: like Cinderella, who was recognized by the prince and then rewarded by a move to the castle. Hence, I bought into the false belief that if I was a good girl, remained quiet, didn’t call attention to myself, and didn’t cause trouble, I would get promoted. Like magic. That works great in fairy tales; not so much in real life. Quoting a Taylor Swift song, “Did all the extra credit then got graded on a curve.” Darn.

Another justification to avoid taking a risk and trying something new is that we might be turned down. We might be told no. Now I’m not wild about being told no and I don’t like being rejected. But when spelled out in black and white print, it sounds lame to be afraid of a two-letter word: no. And yet, rejection stings deep. So rather than risk rejection, I’ll pass on applying. Expanding that rejection even further, my mind goes into overdrive and wonders what will people think of me if they find out I applied and was rejected? Or will people think I am arrogant and prideful by having the audacity to apply for a job while not meeting all 100% of the desired attributes?

All of these self-defeating thoughts swirling around our heads can be summed up in three words: fear of failure. In fact, I would maintain we are so afraid of failing, that we engage in self-limiting behaviors to avoid the possibility that we might fail. Never mind the equally reasonable possibility that we might succeed. No, we focus on the worst: failure. To be fair, the focus on loss rather than gain is standard human-kind decision-making, as documented by Kahneman and Tversky. But we women take it a step farther and because we are so afraid of failing, we hold ourselves back from pursuing opportunities that would be advantageous. And face it, there’s enough people who want to hold us back; there is no need for us to hold ourselves back.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized into four parts. In Part One, we identify self-limiting behaviors that we unconsciously use to avoid the possibility of failure. Perfectionism, people-pleasing, control, isolation, busyness, and failure are all behaviors we erroneously believe we can use to avoid failure. Strategies and practices to eliminate these self-limiting behaviors are highlighted. The antidote to fear of failure is resilience: the ability to bounce back quickly after failure. If you know you can recover from a failure and that a mistake isn’t the end of the road, the prospect of failing loses its sting and you’re willing to take more risks. Part Two proposes eight resilience strategies for you to practice and use to build confidence that you can move forward in spite of a mishap. Competence, in any field, needs to be communicated—to yourself and to others. Part Three highlights small adjustments in our body language, writing, and speaking that can have a big impact on our confidence and how others perceive us. Finally, Part Four talks about how we can support other women and what we all gain from supporting each other.

I am excited to be on this journey with you. But before we start working on positive behaviors—resilience and confidence—we need to take a hard look at how we hold ourselves back by engaging in self-limiting behaviors to avoid the possibility that we might fail. And if it makes you feel better, I’ve used all of these self-limiting behaviors at various stages of my life. You are not alone. Let’s get started.