65 Women of a Certain Age

Women of a certain age often reach the height of their professional expertise while facing gendered ageism at work. In this episode of the Joyfully Unstoppable podcast, executive coach Becky Hamm explains how sexism and ageism affect women’s careers and what experienced women leaders can do to protect their professional power.

You’ll learn how to:
-- Recognize gendered ageism in feedback, advancement, and succession decisions
-- Separate useful feedback from biased assumptions
-- Communicate your value to people with influence
-- Demonstrate your continued professional relevance
-- Evaluate whether your organization sees you in its future
-- Build career options from a position of leverage

Gendered ageism can affect which women are hired, heard, developed, promoted, and retained. Middle-aged women bring decades of experience, judgment, relationships, and institutional knowledge to their organizations. This episode offers practical strategies for making that value visible and maintaining professional success throughout your 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable
00:34 A personal update from Becky
02:37 What “women of a certain age” means at work
03:52 When professional experience starts working against women
06:51 What is gendered ageism?
10:46 How to separate bias from useful feedback
13:04 Four qualities of useful feedback
14:19 Questions to ask when feedback feels biased
17:09 How to make your professional value visible
22:28 How to demonstrate continued relevance
23:22 Three professional learning priorities
26:52 Does your organization still deserve your talent?
27:18 Signs your organization sees you in its future
27:55 Signs you may have reached the end of the road
29:54 Building your next chapter from a position of leverage
31:26 The professional value of women in middle age
32:47 Connect with Becky and preview the next episode

If you are considering a career change, connect with Becky at @womenleadwell across all social platforms to schedule a complimentary 60-minute Leadership Strategy Consultation.

How to Handle Criticism (blog post on growing from feedback): https://womenleadwell.net/how-to-handle-criticism/

#WomenOfACertainAge #GenderedAgeism #WomenInLeadership #AgeismAtWork #ExecutiveLeadership #CareerGrowth #WomenOver40 #WomenLeadWell #JoyfullyUnstoppable

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Transcript

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0:05

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to succeed without the stress. Whether you lead a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I am so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Hamm, executive coach, speaker, and founder of Women Lead Well. Join me each week for straight talk, practical tips, and a dash of encouragement. Hello, friend. I hope you are having a great day. Can you believe it is August? Not only that it is August, but we are in the second week of August. We are nearly halfway through August. Kids where we live in Virginia go back to school this week. What happened to the summer? And it's particularly crazy for us. We have spent the last two weeks on vacation. We took a Disney cruise in Alaska, and so flew to Seattle, took the train from Seattle to Vancouver, kicked around Vancouver for a couple of days, um, where I had the best Mexican food of my entire life at this restaurant called Machete, which is about a block away from the Science Museum, which the kids loved. Right now, because of the World Cup, the Science Museum, which is a big, like spherical shaped building, is wrapped in a soccer ball, and so that was so much fun. But oh my goodness, this restaurant Machete, phenomenal. So good. So good. And then the cruise, we have done other Disney cruises, and we love them. We will continue to do Disney cruises 'cause they're great. But we tend to go to Florida and take cruises down in the Caribbean, but I tell you what, that Alaska Disney cruise, it was seven days. Everyone in the family agreed, hands down, best cruise we've done. It was amazing. So if you have thought about a Disney cruise, have questions, whatever, hit me up. I would love to talk about it. If you are looking, if you would be interested in booking a Disney cruise, um, but don't really know where to start, hit me up again. Uh, one of my friends is a travel consultant, I think they call them, for Disney, and she does a great job every time getting us connected. And yeah, so much fun. But now we're back and it's back to school, and whoa Nelly, is it crazy. I can't believe the summer has flown by. I hope wherever you are, it is not too hot. I hope you are having a fantastic August, you had some fun time away to reset and relax yourself, and let's get after it. We're going from so much fun to not fun at all. Well, this part is fun. Are you, um, are you watching the show on Prime Ride or Die? It's got Octavia Spencer, Hannah Waddingham. Um, it is amazing. So I would say it is a little bit violent, and so if that is not your jam, you might wanna skip it, but it is a fantastic show. Early on in episode one, Hannah Waddingham's character is being counseled for ignoring protocols and going rogue on assignments. And I wanna be clear, she's an assassin for the British government. Um, and so you can imagine what going rogue might look like. And her handler says to her that they knew this would happen since Waddington was a WOACA. And she's like, "WTF is a WOACA?" And he says, "It is a woman of a certain age." And this becomes a recurring bit through the show. Her character is recognized as the best assassin the British government has, as evidenced by the fact that she takes care of all of her peers that the government sends to take care of her once they decide that she's not useful to them anymore. But somehow, because she's in her late 40s nearing 50, and because she thinks independently and uses independent judgment on assignments, that she no longer has any value. And ladies, let's be honest, the show might be fiction, but the disrespect given to women of a certain age is real. There is a particular moment in a woman's career when her experience starts working against her in a way that her male counterparts don't experience. You may have spent, you probably have spent, decades developing expertise, judgment, the ability to lead through complexity. You have got a track record. You understand how organizations operate. You can see the consequences of a decision before anyone else reaches the end of the PowerPoint, and then the language around you starts to change. You might be, quote, unquote, "Too set in your ways." You might not have the energy. You might be characterized as you might not seem as hungry. People may call you intimidating. People may start to say that you have a lot of experience, but spoken in that tone that makes it unmistakable that someone is identifying a liability This has a name, it's gendered ageism, and there is tons of research to document that this in fact happens, at least in American culture today, and there is increasing evidence to document that AI is making it worse. This affects which women are hired, heard, developed, promoted, and retained. And when you partner the ageist sexism of women of a certain age with the sexism that targets junior women for being too young, what the research tells us is there is no prime in a woman's career, not like a man who hits their 40s and 50s and that's their professional, like apex of their professional journey because they now have the maturity and the experience. And so maybe they weren't respected when they were younger, but they certainly are respected when they get a little bit older. No, ma'am, this doesn't happen the same for women. You're too young, and so you're discounted for being too young, and then all of a sudden, magically, you're too old, and you're put out to pasture for being too old. And that's what we're talking about today, going from Disney cruises to getting put out to pasture. We're gonna talk about what women of a certain age, middle-aged women, 40s, 50s, 60s, what you're navigating, and then how we can protect our professional power and potential during what should be one of the most influential periods of our careers And we're gonna start by naming the problem accurately. Gendered Ageism occurs when stereotypes about age and gender combine. The EEOC reports that between 2020 and 2023, it received more than 52,000 age discrimination charges. Women filed over half of them. Women also filed over 15,000 charges alleging discrimination based on both gender and age. Those figures represent only the cases that reach the formal complaint process, right? EEOC on Women Leaders has documented age-based credibility penalties throughout women's careers. As I just mentioned, younger women are viewed as inexperienced, older women encounter assumptions that they're outdated, that they're difficult, resistant to change. And so that period during which women are considered the right age to lead can become remarkably narrow. And you can read about this, Harvard Business Review has documented, other people have as well. And so let's identify a few ways that this can appear. You might be excluded from succession conversations. I talk about succession planning all the time because it is so important in senior leadership, and if you're not in the room, if you're not part of that conversation, that should be a red flag to you. You might be receiving fewer high-visibility assignments than your peers. You might see that development opportunities move toward younger colleagues. You might have your experience, hard-earned experience, interpreted as rigidity, when actually you just have the judgment to understand what is happening and what should happen next. You might be expected to mentor others without receiving investment in your own advancement. And let's be clear, I talk about the importance of mentorship and advocacy all the time. I want you mentoring women younger than you, but you deserve to have somebody investing in you, too. That should never stop, regardless of where you are along the chain. You might find yourself facing these coded, v- veiled, very fraught questions about energy, adaptability, longevity, or quote-unquote, "fit." You might see signs of aging being treated as evidence about your competence. Hmm. That one is always a kicker, right? Hmm, people talking about hormones or slowing down. I'm laughing 'cause I have to. You might have your communication style, which could reasonably become more direct as you grow more senior and aligned with perimenopause, but you might have that direct communication described as difficult or intimidating in a way that would never happen to your male counterparts. You might be overlooked for emerging areas because other people are gonna assume that you would resist anything cutting edge. Hello, AI. You might be recommended or encouraged toward more supportive roles while men of the same age remain leadership candidates. Here's my point for all of that. It's not to be a Debbie Downer, but it is to say that gendered ageism exists, and it is oftentimes a matter of interpretation 'cause any one-off of those could be innocuous. Any one-off of those could be innocent. And so if any one of those things happen, I am not saying you should draw the conclusion that you're being discriminated against. What I am saying is that you should look for patterns and be mindful of things as they pop up so you can best protect yourself. Because the same behavior, experience, or ambition, when it receives different treatment depending on whether you are a middle-aged woman or your male counterpart is a middle-aged man, that's not cool. Okay, so what are... Those are some of the things that you should be looking for. Now what I want us to do is let's separate that, when it is bias, from what could be actual useful feedback on how to improve your performance, and let's look at how to take bias when it exists and not internalize it. Because gendered ageism becomes especially damaging when women begin treating it as accurate information about themselves, right? When you internalize that bias to limit yourself, that's terrible. That is unnecessary. You are making judgments about yourself on the basis of lies, of untruths. And so let's peel that piece back a little bit so that you can take the feedback that can improve your performance without reaching conclusions about your own potential that might be based in bias and, uh, a s- a culture that systematically discriminates against women. Right? We don't need to do this. And I would say I have a blog post from back before the podcast came out on how to, how to differentiate between crappy feedback and feedback that can make you better. I will link that blog post in the show notes, and I would love for you to take a look. Let me know what you think. But now, let's say... An example. Let me give you an example. A woman who is passed over for a viable opportunity and begins to wonder whether she's lost her edge. That is you internalizing bias A woman who is described as intimidating and starts making herself smaller. That's you internalizing bias. when colleagues treat your ideas as dated, so you question whether your experience still matters. That is you internalizing bias When you notice younger employees receiving more attention and you just assume that you have missed your window, that is you internalizing bias Over time, the organization's perception of you can begin shaping your own perception of yourself. And hi, my hand is in the air for those of you listening to me on a podcast and not watching me on YouTube, I have absolutely done this myself, but it does not serve you. And so here is what I would recommend to you for how to recognize the feedback that is useful and can help you grow, and how to just turn down the volume on the bias so you don't internalize it. Useful feedback has four qualities. One, it is specific. It identifies an observable behavior or decision. Two, it explains the effect. You can understand how the behavior affected either people or performance or results. Three, the feedback is actionable. You know what greater effectiveness would look like, so you've got a target for how to hit the mark, for how to improve performance. And four, and this is a big one, it's applied consistently. Leaders displaying similar behavior receive similar feedback. If you're getting value judgments about being too much, less energetic, out of touch, difficult, set in your ways without any of the specificity and clarity of what would actually hit the mark, then, then you might be dealing with some bias that deserves further examination. And you might wanna just, again, take a look, examine it. If you agree with it, then take that on to improve your performance, but don't internalize your self-worth or your value on the basis of vague bias-drenched feedback. Not all feedback is good feedback. And so I would encourage you, when you get something like that from a peer or a, a leader, someone senior to you, ask them, "What specific behavior are you referring to? Can you give me an example of that?" Like, "Wow, like that, I don't, I don't like hearing that. Can you tell me when, when you saw me act in that way? What specifically was I doing?" Right? What effect did that have? And I would say Always ask this in a way that ties to organizational goals. How did this affect our ability to reach our Q3 targets, or something like that. Because people might not like hearing you talk in a certain way, they might not like hearing you act in a certain way, but if you're still delivering the results, then who... Their opinion about, their preference for how you're gonna behave, whatever. If they, if they are able to tie your behavior to an impact on actual outcomes that align with organizational goals or mission or values, then that's important feedback to take. But if they can't give you that connection, then by asking that question and them coming up empty, that helps them to self-identify that it's an opinion or a preference and not tied to anything real, and it gives you the ability to then answer how you are delivering results toward the Q3 goals or whatever it is. You can ask them, again, "How is this affecting my performance or the results that I'm responsible for?" Right? My wheelhouse is this, I'm delivering these results. How does this behavior impact these results? And you get that specificity back from them. Always ask, what would right look like to you? What would you need to see me doing in order to meet this expectation that you're identifying for me? Keep it professional. You don't wanna be emotional about it 'cause then you're just feeding into the bias, but you wanna ask the questions to get the feedback, and you wanna ask in a calm and composed manner. These questions require the other person to move from impressions, and again, their personal preference, their feeling of comfort about how you need to be for them to feel good, to actual evidence and actual organizational performance. All of this is to say that you can, and I'm gonna argue should, remain open to feedback while protecting your identity, your sense of self-worth, and, and keeping them resilient against other people's assumptions. 'Cause other people can have whatever assumptions and preferences they want. You aren't beholden to them Another thing that I would recommend is beyond individual feedback of someone communicating that bias in whatever way is, and I said this on an episode a couple of weeks ago, I think it was episode 63 on how do you communicate you're ready for promotion, but that is, as always, to make your value clear to people with influence and power. Organizations often rely on outdated impressions of long-tenured leaders, and so they are stuck in their impression of you from when they first met you, however long ago that was. And that is not a fault to them, and that's not bias, that's just the way the brain works. But you as a woman do have to, no joke, work a little bit harder than your male counterparts to maintain that sense of relevancy. This is the bias, that your male counterparts will be given the benefit of the doubt in the way that you won't be. And that's, and that's not every workplace, and, uh, that is not every leader or boss, but the, the research is what the research is. Like this is just the trend. This is the context in which women operate. And so you can interrupt those impressions, you can update those impressions by continually connecting your work to current and future organizational priorities. And go to episode 63, I talked about it there, where I mentioned the importance of intentionally communicating your value. You absolutely cannot assume that anyone else is gonna see the amazing work that you're doing. They should, but that is just not the world that we're living in right now, where everyone is so stressed out they can't see beyond their own belly buttons. Visibility requires more than working hard or being recognized as dependable. It just does. Decision-makers need a clear picture of the problems that you solve, the results you create, and the scope at which you are prepared to lead How do you do that? Well, you want to consistently describe your work in terms of organizational outcomes. Every update should be tied to how you're moving the needle on an outcome or a target. You want to quantify improvements in revenue, retention, risk, time, quality, or capacity. And again, do not steal other people's work. Don't take credit for other people's work. You can do this in terms of what your team has produced and how you have positioned your team to have those results. Give credit where credit is due, but do not undersell yourself. That's my point. And be clear to communicate the value consistently. And this is important not just for you, this is important for your team, too. We are living in an era of mass layoffs, and you have got to, every single day, be communicating your value. You just do. And your value as an individual and your team's value as a team. You just do, and you have to do it in a way that resonates with what your senior leaders value. It's not just that you're hitting the marks that are important to you, but that you are hitting the marks that they have identified as being important to them. It's just the reality of the world we live in You also can highlight yourself and your value by taking ownership or showing initiative with emerging and future-facing issues, AI being a huge one, but not the only one. You can build relationships with leaders beyond your reporting line. This part is critical, and I did talk about this in the other episode as well. You want people outside of your own vertical as advocates. Well, that doesn't just fall in your lap. You have got to be intentional about identifying and cultivating those relationships. You can pursue assignments that are connected to organizational growth, transformation, enterprise strategy. You should absolutely be communicating your ambitions directly to your boss and your boss's boss, to your mentors who are mentoring you You can and should keep your internal and external professional profiles current. Do that LinkedIn, make sure you've got that updated. And if you have any questions about how to do that, I mean, I'm not a LinkedIn strategist, but I got a, a pretty good, uh, resilient profile on LinkedIn. I have several thousand followers, I think eight, maybe nine at this point. Eight at least. Reach out, I'm happy to talk to you about what you can do to enhance your profile on LinkedIn. But you want internal, external facing profiles to show the receipts, right? Provide the record of results, endorsements, expanded opportunities. And y- you don't necessarily wanna come across as self-serving because, again, there, that is another gender distinction men can self-promote without blowback in a way that women can't. You simply want to consistently communicate how you are adding value to the organization in ways that matter to the organization, and how your team does that, too. Your work creates value. The way you communicate makes that value visible and connects it to your future growth. That's what I'm saying here, and it's important. So you wanna do it. Okay. Next up, you wanna do what you can to control the narrative about your relevance. Ageism often depends on the assumption that the experience you have belongs in the past. The, and the world has changed significantly, and so it is a fact that some pieces of all of our experience are outdated and not relevant for today. That's not ageism, that's just the fact that we live in a rapidly changing world. But you don't wanna just allow that assumption to sit there, right? You wanna do something to counter that assumption. And so being intentional about your continued professional development allows you to connect the experience that was valuable in the past to current experience that you are continuing to gain to the vision of where your organization and industry are going. And so I would encourage you to identify three different learning priorities. One is a developing issue that affects your organization, whatever that might be. Several years ago in higher education it was distance and hybrid learning, and so people invested a lot of time in that. More recently, over the past few years, it has been generative AI. People are investing a lot in that. Different industries are changing in different ways, but figure out what is the growth edge for your industry? How can you take what you already know and build on that to better position your organization with respect to this change? You're gonna learn something new. I'm not saying rest on your laurels, but I'm saying use that to help refine where your growth edge is. Second is to develop a capability that is required at the next level of leadership. So that first growth edge is how do you position yourself to serve your organization in the industry? That second growth edge is how do you position yourself to lead at a higher level with greater scope, greater scale? Third is what is an area where your existing expertise gives you a distinctive advantage? So this isn't you growing, this is you reinforcing success. And so you might be thinking about topics like artificial intelligence, data literacy, enterprise strategy, change management or change leadership, depending on your organization, board governance, cross-functional leadership. Maybe there are industry-specific regulatory or technological developments that you've got a background in that give you a unique advantage that you can continue to grow and capitalize on. And you wanna pursue that learning, right? You wanna pursue that continued professional growth, communicate that you're pursuing that continued professional growth, and then ask for opportunities based on the fact of that continued professional growth. And so maybe if you are leaning into a growth edge in your industry, maybe you will request to lead a pilot project or propose a pilot project that you can then lead. Maybe you've got recommendations to make to senior leaders. Maybe you want to apply your new knowledge to an existing organizational problem. And then as you are briefing, right, as you are providing updates on the changes that you've made, you can talk about the additional value that your knowledge is providing to the organization. Maybe you can write or speak about the issue. You can build that thought leadership on LinkedIn. And again, if you have any questions, reach out. I'm happy to chat with you about that. Maybe you bring together colleagues from different functions. Maybe you help the organization understand the implications of emerging developments, whatever that might be. When you invest in your continued professional development, you are demonstrating interest in your continued career growth. You are applying the knowledge to a consequential problem, which demonstrates leadership, and so you are communicating both your ambition and your value to the organization. And so to counteract this over the hill kind of mentality that can be, that women can be subjected to, you wanna communicate continued professional relevance, and that comes from connecting what you already know to what your organization needs moving forward. And then finally, you're gonna wanna decide whether your organization still deserves your talent. Some workplaces continue narrowing women's opportunities while continuing to benefit from your labor, judgment, relationships, and institutional knowledge. That's not cool. If you feel like that is you, then you've got an opportunity to evaluate the organization according to its actions. And so here's some evidence that the organization sees you in its future. Senior leaderships discuss your future with specificity. They continue to plan with you. You continue receiving meaningful development and stretch opportunities. Your compensation reflects your contribution. Your authority grows with your responsibility. Decision-makers advocate for you, especially when you're absent. You've got access to consequential assignments. The organization has identified a credible path forward for you, so you can see how your career continues to advance. Now, those are all the green flags. What are the red flags? Evidence of, like, the professional-- you've, you've hit the end of the road at your organization. You are repeatedly asked to stabilize problems without gaining scope or recognition. They turn to you, but they don't reward you. Leaders depend on your expertise while excluding you from strategic decisions. Conversations about your growth and future advancement remain vague. You are valued primarily as a mentor, a fixer, a source of institutional memory, but your thoughts on current issues are overlooked High-profile opportunities consistently go to less experienced colleagues. Your attempts to discuss your future at the organization produce reassurance, but not a lot of action. Your workload continues to grow while your authority, your compensation, your influence remain unchanged. And so if you find yourself in this position, you might wanna ask yourself, like, "Is this organization investing in me? Am I gaining authority, compensation, influence, meaningful opportunity? What evidence do I see to support this? How long am I willing to wait for clearer evidence? What opportunities could become available elsewhere?" And I'm not saying quit your job to go look for another job, but you can absolutely look for a job while you're in a job. Best time to do it. Your loyalty deserves reciprocity. Evaluate your organization according to the future that it is helping you build. And look, this is where I would obviously offer to help. Shoot me a DM. I'm @womenleadwell across all social platforms. Reach out, let me know you're considering a career change, and I will offer you a free 60-minute consultation to help you think through your options and strategize your next steps. I have helped a lot of women pivot over the past two years. You deserve to support an organization that supports you back, and if you don't, let's talk All right, we're gonna start to wrap up here, and I wanna do it by focusing on how to build your next chapter from a position of leverage. Middle age really does support many forms of professional success. You are at the height of your career. Do not internalize any message that tells you different. You can pursue a larger executive role. You can move to an organization that values your experience, deepen your authority in a specialized area, build a portfolio of advisory board teaching consulting work, negotiate greater flexibility or autonomy, develop successors, and shape institutional legacy. You can prepare for a carefully timed departure that suits you best, and you can apply your expertise in a different field or context. Options create leverage. They allow you to evaluate opportunities according to their value, meaning compensation and how well they fit with the life you wanna live at this stage of your life Professional longevity depends on options, and women gain power when staying is only one available choice among many. Let's bring it home. Women of a certain age hold extraordinary professional value. Gendered ageism can obscure that value inside organizations that continue relying on it, and so maintaining your professional success through the middle age years requires your clarity of sight, your intentionality to see the system accurately, see your own value accurately, see where power and opportunity are actually flowing within the organization, not where you wish they were, see whether your organization includes you in its future while building the visibility, relationships, relevance, and options that allow you to decide where you go next, who benefits from your insight and experience, and what all of that makes possible for you. And I would love to hear from you. Are you experiencing gendered ageism? Reach out, and let's have a conversation. Have you found a successful way to navigate professional growth as a woman of a certain age? Let me know what you're doing. Let's share our best ideas on how to navigate this season of life so we can build each other up and collectively actually help to change these dynamics. Now, if this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. And if you haven't already, please make sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss next week's drop. It really helps my podcast find its way to other women who would enjoy it. And join us next week where I'll be talking about leading up. So much of leadership development focuses on leading those junior to you. Next week, we're gonna talk about how you can effectively lead your supervisor as well. Remember, joyful, sustainable, and authentic leadership is possible, and you deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Hamm, and this is Joyfully Unstoppable.