“Her success does not threaten mine” Lysa TerKeurst

When going up for promotion at another school and naively not anticipating any issues to deter my success, imagine my shock, dismay, and anger to learn that not only was I denied promotion, the charge for denying my advancement was led by a female colleague whom I considered a friend. Are you kidding me?!? And unfortunately, my example is not an isolated case. Virtually every woman I talk to, has a similar, or worse, story about having her career threatened, sidelined, or upended by another woman. As if it isn’t enough to have men questioning our capabilities and trying to hold us back to allow more opportunities for themselves, women are doing the same to other women.    

Why, as women, do we tend to undercut each other? Two plausible reasons come to mind. Fran Hauser, former corporate executive and author of The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate, notes that in the early days of women entering the workforce, quota-type thinking was the standard. When women started entering the workforce and clamoring for leadership positions, managers would promote one woman, “check the box,” and believe they had adequately addressed gender bias. Consequently, it was competitive to become the “one” woman who was picked for management. Multiple women qualified for the position, but only one slot was available for a woman. This undoubtedly created an unhealthy competitive environment for all women striving to be the chosen one. Under those conditions, if another woman won the coveted spot, every other woman lost. Needless to say, this competitive environment—designed by men—did not encourage cooperation between women but, in fact, bred a culture of competition and scarcity.

A second explanation for the motivation behind women undercutting women can also be traced back to the business culture. In the good ole days—which really weren’t all that good, especially for women—corporate roles were neatly defined. Men were managers and women—referred to as “girls”—were secretaries. That meant it was easy and convenient to assign tasks based on a role which corresponded to gender: the men ran the boardroom and the women/girls took notes and made coffee. Once a few women made it into the managerial ranks, the lines of demarcation were more difficult to discern and women managers frequently found themselves in the difficult, if not impossible, task of being caught in the middle. For example, in my office, if you were a man, you were a manager and therefore, you did not make the coffee. (FYI, this was long before the days of Keurig and Starbucks when making coffee was a time-consuming and messy task.) If you were a woman/girl, you were a secretary or clerical staff, which meant you made the coffee. Everyone drank the coffee and the system worked quite well as long as managers were all men and secretaries were all women.

At 25, fresh out of college and working on my MBA at night (the internet had not yet been invented), I became the sole woman manager in my division of a Fortune 500 company—allowing leadership to check the gender diversity box. Now I no longer fit entirely with my female co-workers who were clerical, nor did I fit with the male managers who were not eager to embrace a co-worker who was different from them. Imagine my shock, and crushing disappointment, when I saw my name on the coffee production list. Managers don’t make coffee; staff makes coffee. And as manager, I refused to make coffee. That action won me no friends with anyone. The men were livid with me because they want their coffee (for some reason, making it themselves was not an option. Go figure.). The women were angry with me because “who does she think she is? She gets promoted and she’s too good to make coffee.” I was in no-man’s land, literally. No doubt that women resented me as I tried to establish my authority as a manager. As women were trying to establish their careers in management, the popular advice at the time was to be like a man and separate yourself from lower-ranking women. All of this contributed to a competitive, resentful environment for the few women, like me, in management.

Learn to Shine Together

Another shining light in the room doesn’t diminish your light—

it makes the room brighter. Shine together.

While bad habits may have emerged from the early days of women entering the managerial ranks, it important to note that the days of the one-woman-manager are mostly gone. Women still may have not cracked the glass ceiling, but more and more women are making it to managerial ranks. Thus, suggesting that the cut-throat competition is to win the one coveted slot is no longer valid nor appropriate. Yet many of us women tend to be stuck in jealous thoughts, fueled by mindsets of competition and scarcity.

I can state Lysa TerKeurst’s quotation “her success does not threaten mine” by heart—which tells you how many times a day I say it to myself. In one particularly bad period of jealousy, I was upset when I was not selected for a coveted teaching award. Instead, a colleague, who I could not stand, won. Talk about adding insult to injury. I began ranting that she lacked teaching ability but was gifted in self-promotion and completing award applications. Clearly, I was not my best self. But her success does not threaten mine. We are all on our own path. I reminded myself, there are plenty of other teaching awards, the award will be there next year, and I did receive valuable recognition from students for my teaching. While painful to admit, not winning the teaching award that year forced me to tackle additional responsibilities which greatly enhanced my application the following year. And yes, I won.

When someone gets the job you were hoping for, it doesn’t mean you won’t get a job—you may not get that job—but there are still plenty of other jobs. You are not on the same path as your friends. Not only does her success not threaten mine, we are all on our own paths. When someone gets the award you wanted, it doesn’t mean you won’t get an award—there are plenty of awards to go around—we are all on our own path and her success does not threaten yours. There are plenty of ways for everyone to be successful. Repeat after me “her success does not threaten mine.” We can all be successful; but success will look different for everyone. And think about it, why would you want what someone else wants? Do what’s best for you—not what everyone else wants.

An added benefit of adopting a “her success does not threaten mine” attitude is that by letting go of things (awards, jobs, committees, etc.) that I was hoping for for myself, and allowing someone else the opportunity, I find that first, if I’m really, really, honest with myself, they do a better job than I would have done, and, second, a better opportunity almost always comes my way. It’s a win-win, and I like that.

My Story: When I was not named as the advisor for a student group that I would have been perfect to lead, but instead, another woman was named (and let’s be real—how could she be better than me?!?), I was furious and angry. However, upon reflection and repeating “her success does not threaten mine” more times than I can count, my attitude slowly changed. If I were completely honest, the other woman had organizational skills I lacked and was better at leading the group than I would have been. And, because I didn’t have the commitment of advising the group, another opportunity, much closer aligned to my skill set and interests became available. Her success does not threaten mine; we are all on our own path. And the path reveals itself every time, if we allow it.

Now, I try to go out of my way to support other women—whether I like them or not. If others are speaking over them in meetings, I will clear the floor, and make sure they can have their say. I try to be friendly in the hallway—because nice matters. Even in our lunch group, we have a couple of scheduled lunches to include all women—even those I don’t like—so that no one feels left out. It’s time for the “mean girls” to disappear.

One of my friends prides herself on lifting other women up. When introducing our friends to other people, she doesn’t just state their name and association. She highlights their accomplishments. This builds the friend up and helps others to know what a remarkable person they are meeting. And it means we don’t have to brag about ourselves. It is much more effective to have someone else talk about our accomplishments than us bragging about them. This woman considers her build-up introductions of other women to be her community service. She brags on other women so we don’t look arrogant or prideful. Now that’s a woman who supports other women.