Nice girls grow up to not care anymore
Take a moment to think back to your younger self at the start of your career. What messaging did you receive about being likable at work?
Did you feel you needed to soften your tone to be liked by your peers?
Or did you need to be tougher to be taken seriously early in your career?
In my recent small-group coaching program for midlife women, Speaking with Presence, we shared some of our early work experiences.
One woman recalled feeling the need to appear tough in her field to be taken seriously, while another shared she had to soften her tone to be more likable as a woman of color. A woman from the South felt she had to be less direct due to regional expectations.
What all these women had in common was that they felt they had to change who they were at work to be accepted when they were starting out.
Whether it was due to working in a male-dominated field, being the only woman of color in the room, or facing societal pressures from their region, they felt t…
