On Being a Team of Emotional Women
By Kate Peer
There are five members of Graydin’s core team. Along with our two co-founders, there is our administrative coordinator, our financial manager, and me, the creative strategist. Together, we manage the day-to-day of Graydin. And we are all women. I normally wouldn’t go out of my way to mention the gender make-up of our team, but bear with me.
Recently, we participated in a live team coaching demonstration with Lori Shook as part of a coaching conference called WBECS. Around 600 people watched this session, where Lori introduced her model for team coaching and then spent about 45 minutes coaching our team. As with most webinars, the chat window was abuzz with questions and comments. There were a few consistent themes in the questions, and a pervasive one was around gender.
This team is all women. What changes when men are in the mix? How differently does a team of all males operate?
I'm wondering if the appreciation comments sound different if there are men in the group or if it is all men?
This team was very cooperative and open, wonder how would it be with a mixed team?
A group coaching session with 5 men from Wall Street would look very, very different....
Having attended a girl's high school and having taught at an all women's college, this group seems to have a very feminine flavour. I believe that the dynamics in an all-male team or mixed team would be quite different.
Lori spoke to these comments, talking about a group of men she coaches who are equally able to access their emotions. It’s about the people and their personalities, not their gender.
I do wonder if an all-male team would have prompted such a discussion about gender. Would people have missed a woman’s perspective as much as they seemingly missed a man’s? And I was reminded of how much of our world is designed to the standard of men, and the detrimental effects this has on women. But, even with all that aside, it seemed that something about the team coaching was particularly ‘female’.
I’ve often felt an undercurrent of sexism in business. While at my first job, I took a corporate training course about communication. The material asked us to list appropriate and inappropriate topics for business meetings. The example of an appropriate topic was sports. An inappropriate topic? Shopping. Now, not all men like sports and not all women like shopping, but there is something undeniably gendered in this example. It wasn’t the first or last time that I was told that things often associated with women, showing emotion included, just aren’t appropriate in business.
But, back to the team coaching. Because something else happened in the chat box.
I also have an appreciation of Team Graydin. To see how a group of young women interact with each other as they continue to build their business. I have never had the privilege of seeing an all-female business operate in person, so it was an eye-opening experience for me!
I am totally amazed with the HUMILITY demonstrated by all team members in this Team Coaching.
So open, authentic and true to yourselves.
You've been so generous, vulnerable and authentic among yourselves and with us! I'm grateful!
Much appreciate your vulnerability ladies, it takes courage to be honest in front of an audience. Thank you for enabling me and others to learn.
This session demonstrated how openness and vulnerability can be so impactful in a team.
This ended up being quite an emotional session as the team started to show their vulnerability. Powerful.
One of the most moving and inspiring sessions so far.
Stay true. Thank you for being the kind of team the world needs right now. You inspire me to trust this work and the power of working on purpose.
Hearing nice things is great, but I’m sharing this feedback because it shows how the participants valued our vulnerability. If we’ve been taught to think that showing emotion is akin to showing weakness, this feedback shows differently. Honesty, authenticity, vulnerability and humility are powerful.
At Graydin, this is a reminder of what we already know. We champion the work of Brene Brown and teach the power of vulnerability on The Art: Facilitating as Coach Course. And maybe it is because we care deeply about our work, because emotion is a necessary part of coaching—and sure, maybe it is because we are all women—but we have never been afraid to show each other emotion. It isn’t a Graydin meeting if someone doesn’t cry, I sometimes joke. We weren’t going out of our way to be vulnerable during the session. We were just being ourselves.
So, what was my takeaway from all of this? I think I’m still working it out. But, it was a reminder to be vulnerable and that showing emotion is a power, not a weakness. It was a reminder that we are not powerful despite being women, but we are powerful because we are women. It was also a call to action—an invitation to continue to work with these women to build a corporate culture where all forms of emotion are not only welcomed or celebrated, but they are wildly and deeply appropriate.
If you are curious, you can watch the team coaching session here. If it prompts any thoughts on vulnerability, gender and corporate culture, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.