Do Male Leaders understand Equity?TLDR: No.

Male Leaders are Oblivious to Equity

LinkedIn is filled with well meaning posts by men who call themselves leaders with “well here’s how I made it” or “how I became CEO by 30 with 4 kids” or “6 tips shared by successful CEOs” or “how I became an A-list actor and get out of the house in just 10 minutes”.

Yes, I am paraphrasing but each of these examples are real. You might even guess who the actor is - I think he said this in a Sunday Times interview. Or in some other big important paper.

Now ten, even five years ago, these were seen as inspirational tips. Something we can all do and aspire to. What is Bill Gates secret to becoming a multimillionaire? Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos? Well we all know they came from money. Most of us don’t. If we had their start, we could be running an Amazon too.

So let’s get back to these talented CEOs and leaders so keen to share their productivity tips with us. They suggest that if we did exactly what they do, we can be CEOs too.

Except for one thing. 

It’s not that easy for women. It’s even harder for people who are not of the power dominant race. What if you were disabled or LGBTQ+? What if you came from a working class background and just didn’t have the educational or socio-economic opportunities someone with wealth or connections might have?

Sure, many of you reading this live in countries where there is equality - except if you’re a woman in the USA with no national gender equality laws. Many of you work in organisations which have equality policies and forbid any form of discrimination. On paper at least. 

Equality laws and policies work well when everyone starts from the same starting line. 

But we don’t.

This morning, very early I might add - not because I was following a Bill Gates productivity tip, but because we have a heatwave here in Britain and I couldn’t sleep - I read a post by a LinkedIn connection. He was sharing his success tips. How he woke up at 5am and was at the office by 6am. In my groggy state I wondered, does he not worry about his hair or make up? How close does he live to the office? No traffic, access to fabulous public transport? 

Then he mentioned he worked through lunch. Does that include lunch meetings? How are other colleagues with this? Do they just go along with it because, hey, would you dare question the boss?

Wellbeing at work is a focus now and it’s important that employees are able to find spaces and time to relax in the middle of a hectic workday. For me at least, I would disappear if stressed, to the nearest coffee place 5 minutes walk away. That I know is a privilege. Not everyone can afford a nice latte outdoors. Not everyone can step out of the office without a middle manager barking, where is she?!

I was a leader, so I could do that.

Those who can step out for a latte at 3pm without question, have privilege.

And this is where the kicker is, he would be home by 4.30 so he could spend time with his kids. Oh yes, he has kids. Who looked after them so he could be in the office by 6am? Who sent them to school? 

Gender Equity

Last year I judged the UN WEP Awards (United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles) for Malaysian organisations and individuals. One of the things I looked for was, how friendly were the organisations to real women’s lives? Did these companies acknowledge that women juggled work and families in a patriarchal system and society that judges women heavily?

I really wasn’t interested in how many women sat on the board or the mentoring programmes available to get women up there.

I wanted to know, does your workplace work for ALL women? 

I also applied gender neutral lens. Were fathers able to spend time with their families? Could they too take their kids to school, pick them up, attend school concerts, sports days and meetings? 

In another life, when I was still in Malaysia, I met Meera Samanther who was then the president of Malaysia’s Association of Women’s Lawyers (AWL). They did a survey among members of the Malaysian Bar to assess gender equity and sexual harassment. In doing the survey, she spoke to quite a few well known male lawyers - managing partners of law firms, experts in their legal field. She asked them, while you’re working and being so successful, what is your wife’s career like?

What do you think?

For many married couples, there is a choice. Whose career takes priority and who focuses on the kids? Quite a few countries have seen a sharp drop in women leaving the workforce in their 30s. In the legal profession too, women leave firms and work in-house where the hours are kinder to working moms. That’s what I did.

I’ve spoken to companies that have “back to work” initiatives, to help working mothers who return after taking 5, 10 years off. Don’t see that for dads. Yes, some dads take time off but it’s rare. 

Gender norms under challenge

Is it any wonder that young people now are challenging gender norms? Men want to bring up kids. Women not wanting kids and instead live life just for themselves. Which is why I don’t understand why some feminists like JK Rowling get upset about the existence of male carers because apparently men are dangerous to children. Why should only women care for children and the infirm? Men can be wonderful carers - society has drummed into them that they can’t, it’s a woman’s role. Who made that decision??

But let’s get back to Equity. 

Male leaders can succeed because they have an incredible support system, yet somehow forget to acknowledge this in their “productivity hacks”. A guy (I forget his name) who bragged about being CEO by 30 with 4 kids in a long Twitter thread and how he got there, forgot to mention the role his wife played so he could succeed. 

You can imagine the flak he got, mainly from women. About a day later, he apologised and mentioned his wife. She didn’t have a name. She was just “my wife”. MY wife. 

This “forgetfulness” could perhaps have its source in Adam Smith. Katrine Marçal wrote Who Cooked Adam’s Smith Dinner pointing out that the father of modern economics did not include women’s labour in the house as a big factor in ensuring men could work outside the house and earn money for the family. 

So we still suffer these effects today. After all The CEO by 30 Man and the LinkedIn This Morning Man forgot who cooked their dinners too. And looked after their kids, nursed them when they were sick and sacrificing their own leave.

A male colleague told his boss, he needed to go home as his child was sick. His boss replied, no, get your wife to do it.

Let’s move now to racial inequities

The CEO by 30 Man and the LinkedIn This Morning Man are both from races that hold power in their respective countries. 30 Year Old CEO is a white man in North America. The LinkedIn guy is Chinese Singaporean in Singapore. Notice I mention Chinese Singaporean, as Chinese from mainland China are not the power based majority and are looked down upon by Singaporeans.

Notice too that I use the words “power based majority” as opposed to simply “majority”. It’s what I’ve learnt reading Shereen Daniels’ The Anti-Racist Organisation who reminds us that white people are NOT the majority. The global majority are in fact people of colour. 

The very fact that a global minority are in power on a global level, and hold privilege in the Global South shows up inequities. These inequities have existed since colonisation by European nations across the globe and the concept and disparity of race was introduced and strengthened through eugenics. 

What is tragic though is how this concept of white supremacy is alive in non Western countries today - as if being white or proximity to whiteness is something to aspire to from skin whitening creams, being able to speak flawless English in the “right accent” and downplaying one’s own cultural heritage and identity (I wrote about this in relation to the ongoing Tory leadership contest).

So who decided West is Best?

Whiteness and Western ways have long been held as the ideal, is centred, and the default within which everyone orbits.

In the way that Copernicus and Galileo - hang on, we are now discovering that it was Islamic astronomers before them - challenged and disrupted the narrative that earth was the centre of the universe, we are now questioning why West and White is the centre of Everything.

De-centering Whiteness is needed in workplaces. Question why a professional look has disallowed Black curly hair. Question why the hijab, the Jewish sidelocks or a man in a sarong is unacceptable in some places. Question why a multinational corporate’s communications is primarily in English or its leaders are primarily from the West. Question the superiority of Western norms and Western education when they are the global minority. 

Non Westerners or people who are not white have to adopt white centric norms in order to rise up the corporate ladder. This is exhausting, especially if English is not your first language or Western ways are new to you.

I’ll always remember a conversation with a group of talented engineers about becoming more visible at work so that the “higher ups” would see them and their chances of promotion were greater. This meant presenting and speaking more at large meetings - terrifying for one simple reason. They worried about their English. What if they pronounced a word wrong and got laughed at? What if their grammar was wrong?

It hit me then, that language is a big stumbling block. Corporations and the world misses out big time because it does not give equal space to people who don’t speak English well. Even if as a leader, you were to say, I don’t expect people to have good English, have you any idea of how much a non English speaker has to overcome just to speak to you? 

You speak good English!

Subtext in a Western English speaking country: you don't look like someone who speaks English.

Deeper Subtext: You don't look like you belong here.

Deeper deeper subtext: You're not one of us and don't deserve to be here.

Please note too that Asian looking people can and do speak excellent English and please don’t compliment us on our English because that suggests we don’t belong in the West.

“If I can’t say this or I can’t say that, then what should I say?”

This is really the wrong question because this isn’t about you. 

If you are in the power based majority, instead of speaking, listen. Be receptive. Give back the space, because you have taken too much space, to those who rightfully should have that space.

Stop taking up space that isn't yours

Should men give their opinions on abortion?

Should non Black people say the Williams sisters and Lewis Hamilton don't face racism?

Should non disabled people design accessibility aids?

Should Masterchef judges fault chicken rendang for not being crispy?

Zaleha Kadir Olpin's book My Rendang Isn't Crispy, following the huge outcry because the white Masterchef judges didn't understand that chicken rendang is not fried but cooked for a long time in spicy sauces.

Sunny Singh, a British writer said this beautifully to Philip Pullman in light of a book by a white woman writer, who presented stories of refugee and migrant children to the UK, in her own voice:

Parasite winning the Oscars broke barriers. It proved to the world what many of us already knew, that powerful stories are everywhere and should not be just monopolised by an English speaking West. The way in which we tell stories shouldn’t always follow a formulaic Greek drama storytelling style either.

This is evident from the way I am writing this article - what is she saying, there’s too much here??

This is a stream of consciousness and no one has edited me. I’m channeling Haruki Murakami. You can always stop reading.

Back to my main point…

Equity doesn’t exist in today’s world

The world that we live in today has been shaped by a predominant narrative (the minority white neurotypical male western view) that has overshadowed feminine, Indigenous, Asian, African, Islanders, Latin American cultures and ways of perceiving the world and has constricted how we live, work and express ourselves. 

It is time to be aware of how we have boxed ourselves in so much that we educate our children to sit in these boxes, and willingly give up our own sense of identity and expression at work so that we may aspire to be CEOs by 30, with or without 4 kids. Frankly I have never heard any woman express such an aspiration.

White men are damaged too, by white male dominance. Through Mark Greene and Charles Matheus of Remaking Manhood and Mike Kasdan of Lawyering While Human, I learnt how men reign in other men who don’t conform to the Manbox - in that they show emotions, cry or wear colourful dresses.

Photographed by Tyler Mitchell, Vogue, December 2020

"Anytime you're putting barriers up in your life, you're limiting yourself"

Harry Styles

Is there any wonder why young people are challenging the gender binary? In fact, who decided there are only two genders when quite a number of cultures around the world have more than two? My own Bugis heritage have named 5 genders where the truly genderless (female and male while being neither female or male) is divinely bestowed.

Yesterday (14 July) was Non-Binary People’s International Day where I witnessed some enlightening shares by non binary people and allies here on LinkedIn. Here is one, shared by Elisa Glick who describes gender as a spectrum.

Yet rather than explore and break free of millennia imposed gender rules, many people, including a large group in the UK are stuck in fighting broader pronouns and exclude women who don't fit their narrow view of women from "women only" spaces.

This is dangerous. People who say they are standing for women and women’s spaces have ignored the fact that even our bodies don’t neatly fit into a binary. Decisions about who can compete in women’s sports have excluded African CIS women. The irony is that these feminists (known as Gender Critical feminists) have focused on defining women in a narrow “woman’s box” and their body parts, which is what women in the 70s were trying to break out of.

A woman can be a driller on a rig, or an astronaut, or a soldier. 

A man can be a nurse or nursery school teacher.

A person can be anything and does not need to be defined as a man or a woman.

We Are Lady Parts was one of my favourite British comedies of last year which busted the Muslim woman stereotype. It's about a Muslim woman's heavy metal band. Disclaimer: I am Muslim and this surprises many Westerners when I reveal this.

There are no boundaries.

Is our workplace biased against people who are not men or don’t fit gender norms?

Would you like to be further mind-blown?

How our physical perceptions narrow our thinking

Meet Thomas Tajo.

Thomas is a blind inclusivity advocate who runs Vision Inclusive. We met on Clubhouse and each time he speaks, I am indeed mind-blown. Thomas talks about how limited our view of the world is when we constrain them to conventional abilities.

“We have a very narrow view of who is an abled human being and that narrow perspective of human ability is what shapes us: the way we design our works, work environment and the nature of work.

So if you have a narrow perspective of human ability, narrow view of who is a productive human being with productive ability, most of your workplaces would be designed for you to work from narrow perspectives of human ability.”

Thomas Tajo

Our world is built around an assumption that everyone has the same physical and neurological abilities and perceptions. This has forced many who don’t have 100% abilities around this narrow framing to adapt.

As I write this I am sitting at a train station and watching an employee carry a ramp to the train. Why did we design trains, in fact all types of transportation and infrastructure, on the assumption that everyone can walk and navigate high steps? We rule out people in wheelchairs, the elderly and people who may be ill, heavily pregnant and small children. We are trapping them to be dependent on someone else, or doing something extra to ensure that they can access a train or an office.

Note on Alt Text: Whilst I have provided Alt text for all images here, LinkedIn has not enabled alt text for cover images, so I typed out the words on the image on the captions line. Captions are not available on the mobile version, so I've retyped it here so it can be picked up by your screen readers: Alt Text: Words across a black background with a party popper. The words read: "How I became a CEO at 30" , 239 leadership tips" , "Lean In" and "Wake up at 4am, Someone is handling the kids and cooking my meals, I think?

I intentionally interrupted this piece to explain the alt text feature. Most non blind people don't think about explaining images when posting them. We also don't consider making our workplaces and the way we work accessible to people who are blind or deaf. I am guilty of this too. We need to be more aware, and we do that through connecting with people with disabilities and learning from them.

Young barristers in England recently set up Bringing (Dis)Ability to the Bar. Founder Konstantina Nouka who uses a wheelchair, had just been called to the Bar and lamented how few law Chambers were accessible to her because they were in old buildings built before accessibility laws kicked in. 

How many of us have considered how our offices or the ability to get to them excludes a great many qualified and talented people. Our workplaces are all the poorer for it.

Disabilities advocate Mark Parrin told me that the biggest barrier for disabled people isn’t physical or money. It’s the mindset of non-disabled people. 

How much longer would it take for a disabled employee to get around town compared to a non disabled employee? Cities, the world is less accessible for them.

How does your workplace make it equitable for disabled employees?

Does your job descriptions cater for people with disabilities? 

How many of us would consider work environments from an autistic perspective? I was taken with how the Malaysian Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin ensured covid vaccination halls included quieter spaces for autistic people, because his son is autistic. Does that not benefit so many of us?

Do our workspaces work for people on the spectrum? Open planned offices with bright lights and noise is disturbing for quite a few people. Any wonder why they enjoyed the solitude of working from home. Peace and quiet enabled them to focus, not have to deal with anxiety and emotional labour of noisy colleagues. They became more productive, more creative. Not worrying about microaggressions or the anxiety of responding to people according to acceptable social cues.

Shana Tufail who serves on the co-production Board of Neurodiversity in Business has helped me understand how virtual presentations and meetings for neurodivergent people can be overwhelming. We should not be expecting people to have their cameras on, but rather expressly state that it's ok for people to keep their cameras off.

When workplaces are designed from a neurotypical and non-disabled perspective, we exclude many. We put them on PIPs (performance improvement plans) because they can’t deliver according to targets and KPIs. How many leaders talk to employees who are struggling and find out why?

In the UK, the working world is designed for 22% of the population to excel. In the US, it’s even lower - at 17%!

This is why we typically see white non-disabled men dominate leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies. Without true diversity where people can rise without having to compromise who they are or play the power dominance game, our world is poorer for it. We see that today with the climate emergency, pandemics and increasing inequities within the West and globally.

Practical Next Steps

Instead of feeling overwhelmed with doom and gloom, you can take some very simple and actionable steps. Take off your “dominance lens” and ask, how does this look from a person who is different to me. The best way to find out how? Listen to them. 

And here is a first step. Look at your LinkedIn feed and ask do you have connections who are:

• different races to you?
• LGBTQ+ and non binary?
• Disabled people?
• Neurodivergent people?

What are they talking about? What is important to them? When you read their posts which is a very different perspective to yours, do you:

A: show support by liking, sharing or commenting positively? You’re an Ally.

B: Read and reflect? You’re in expansive learning mode. Growth mindset.

C: Comment to try and prove them wrong, for example “not all men” when reading about a woman talking about sexism? The opposite of a growth mindset, sometimes from a place of fear.

We may not be in A yet for all categories, but at the very least be open to learning and reflecting. 

It’s easy to succeed for those of us with privilege and fit in a world designed to help us rise. 

So as we excitedly share our leadership tips, design the working world and co-create working cultures, let’s ensure that we include and empower long marginalised voices.

This article was written on Friday, 15 July, while waiting for trains, on trains, before and after some excellent Thai food in an English pub with my associates Andy Sutherden and Philip Thorne, and in my back garden. Here's what we ate.

This is Part 2 of the Inclusive Leaders' series. Read Part 1 here: