International Women’s Day: A nod to the trailblazers reaching for the sky
From the Office of the President, Melissa Farrell
"Happy International Women’s Day to all of the trailblazer and aspiring women leaders out there.
There’s arguably no one that deserves more credit and acknowledgement for their contribution to St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton than the Sisters who founded the organization and the many Sister successors who helped shape it into what it is today.
As a female leader in health care, I am inspired by their courage and story every single day. When I have doubts about my own capacity to deliver, I think of their courage and tenacity. Women not only established this corporation but set it up to thrive. I feel such a strong kinship to these women and what they were able to accomplish.
Despite this history, their legacy remains an outlier in the context of women in leadership. Even though women make up nearly half of the Canadian labour force, only one-fifth of all leadership roles are held by women. These stats are even more discouraging when you consider that less than 20 per cent of Board members of both public and private organizations are female.
I don’t think anyone has a complete answer for why the glass ceiling still remains. One reason that is commonly understood is how young women feel when it comes to balance. By far, the question I get asked the most by aspiring leaders is how I can juggle having a young family and a demanding career.
My parents have always told me that I could be and do anything I wanted. The world was my oyster, the sky had no limits. Oh, the possibilities! As a tween, I really thought I would be the Prime Minister.
It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized there were explicit and implicit societal limitations or qualifiers to my dreams. Mostly, the doubts centred around family obligations but also assertiveness. How can I possibly think of taking that role when I want to have kids, how will having kids change how people perceive my commitment, am I assertive enough, do I have what it takes to be that kind of leader? These questions weren’t questions I was just asking myself but questions others had about me and still have about women pursuing both family and leadership.
These doubts and this feedback modified how I spoke to people about my dreams and aspirations as they evolved and matured. Could I really tell someone that I wanted to run a hospital someday? They’ll think I’m silly. Can I even do that, what will happen to that dream once I have kids?
The trailblazer women who changed the course of my career all gave me a clear message that I want to give to women struggling to answer these questions themselves. You CAN do it. You CAN be the boss. You CAN lead others. You ARE capable of pursuing your dreams. The advice that I have received that has been most helpful is to modify your expectations about having it all. If you want the kids and the career, you need to be willing to give up some time with the kids. And you’ll need to put some limits on how much of your time you’re willing to give to work. It’s about quality time, not always quantity. You can’t have both in absolute terms.
And I recognize that I have benefited from societal privileges – I’ve had access to education, I was raised in a family where I experienced love and encouragement and I’m white. Not every woman has had my experience and many have faced greater struggles.
I also have a partner who has been by my side the whole time and shares in the family responsibilities together. If it wasn’t for him, bringing my career aspirations to fruition likely would have been so much harder. Today, with women and their partners sharing more of the family responsibilities, so many of the doubts and questions that I expressed above are felt and experienced by men now too, and I’m hearing them as I mentor our male aspiring leaders. Balancing family and career isn’t easy for anyone and it’s becoming a great equalizer. There remains quite a lot of stigma towards men who want to be equal partners. The solution requires all of us, regardless of gender, to work together to change this paradigm.
The big secret that women in leadership need to share more is that no one has it perfectly figured out, but that shouldn’t stop women from stepping forward into leadership roles. We see a demographic shift coming, with the baby boomer generation retiring (in Canada they are retiring at a rate of close to 10,000 a day), that will change the landscape of every industry going forward. This means that I’m not just paying lip service to supporting our young aspiring leaders (regardless of gender) – we are going to need you!
Which brings me back to where I started this blog, with a note to the trailblazers, to the women who came before me and to everyone regardless of gender that will come after. Let’s push ourselves to make a difference, to be the change. And may we see a future where the sky is truly the limit for everyone."
-Melissa