Jane Horan was quoted in the article ‘Why women need to take ownership of their reputations at work‘ by Catherine Fox on the Australian Financial Review.
According to last week’s Essential Report, 49 per cent of men think there is a lot or some discrimination against women in the workforce, compared to 62 per cent of women.
And many women are blindsided by politics at work, according to former Walt Disney and Kraft executive Jane Horan, who now runs consultancy firm The Horan Group. She is under no illusion that women need to pay more attention to their reputation and relationships in their jobs, no matter how uncomfortable this makes them feel.
Speaking at the Sustaining Women in Business conference in Melbourne last week, Horan explained that she often found women who avoid building up their internal reputation run the risk of falling off the radar when it comes to promotions. She’s also seen quite a few women who haven’t read the politics of a meeting accurately and had their reputations badly damaged.
But Horan is also aware that there’s no even playing field at most businesses, and women can face negative attitudes or double standards for building up their careers in the same way as men.
You do have to work out how to manage perceptions and even map out the five key relationships you need to have, she said.
The word politics was originally defined as “building coalitions for the good of the state”, she reminded the 180-strong audience.
Some of the reluctance women feel about workplace politics is deeply ingrained from their education, Horan says. Keep your head down and work hard and you will be rewarded, is still a strong message sent to many young women.
They often get a rude awakening when they hit the workplace and find it operates very differently, as Horan explains in her book, I Wish I’d Known That Earlier in My Career.
