Women need allies - including men - to reach the top in business

Emphasis of SheMoney event in SLC 

Brice Wallace 

Women wanting to succeed in the modern workplace need allies, including men.

The idea that women can — and should — get a helping hand from the opposite gender to reach and succeed in leadership positions was the emphasis of a recent event organized by SheMoney, an organization championing women’s path to financial freedom through education, networking, community and experiences.

“I truly believe in the theory of abundance and not the theory of scarcity,” Scott Anderson, non-executive chairman of Zions Bank, told the crowd in Salt Lake City. “And I believe that through an inclusive economy, everyone wins and everyone then has an opportunity to thrive. And when you think that 50 percent of our population in the U.S. and in Utah are made up of women, we are simply foolish if we don’t bring them into the game, if we don’t take advantage of their skills and their experience and their leadership, to help us build that inclusive economy.”

Having men be women’s allies is “absolutely the right thing to do, I think it’s the smart thing to do, and from a business point of view, it builds profitability,” he said. “There’s all sorts of evidence that shows that.”

Keynote speaker Ray Arata, author of the book Showing Up: How Men Can Become Effective Allies in the Workplace, delved into the psychology of gender issues in the workplace and stressed that many actions to mitigate them are readily available. “We have all the tools we need,” he said.

At its core is “a behavior-change endeavor,” he said. Among the steps men can take to be allies are acknowledging biases, taking responsibility, and committing to new practices and behaviors. He described them as “cornerstones of leadership, the inclusive leadership skill set for tomorrow and for today.”

For example, in company meetings, men can listen with empathy and compassion and let women — and others — finish sentences and acknowledge their contributions. Conversely, “mansplaining,” “manopolizing” and “manurrupting” can push women to leave a company, he said.

Ashley Bell, chairman of Redemption Holdings, suggested that a male founder of a company get a different perspective by having a woman co-founder, who can be “a voice to help guide you.”

“What I learned very early is, if you’re a CEO or you’re a founder, find a woman to co-found with you. Every time, you’ll be a better founder and a better CEO,” he said.

Bell cautioned that sexism and misogyny can lead to racism. “So, if a man can’t understand how to have a healthy, loving relationship with women and that it’s respectful, if he doesn’t respect the women in his life, then you won’t respect anybody, and that’s a dark road to go down,” Bell said. “So, we start here. If we can fix this, we can fix anything else.”

Anderson said discussions like those at the SheMoney event will lead to actions “which will open the door to an inclusive economy that we all want, where everyone truly has an opportunity to thrive.”

“Now, we’re not at the beginning of this journey, and we have incredible leaders in this state that deeply care about all Utahns,” he said. “But my hope, though, is that today we can build even greater skills and bring even more focus and take more responsibility to ensure that our actions will impact and support our talent at work, the success of our organizations and support the leadership growth of others.”

Men as women’s allies can not only recognize women’s voices and celebrate their achievements, but they also can help bring about changes in policies, regulations and laws that will facilitate the growth and development of women in Utah, he said.

“And I think men need to share the responsibility for discrimination and harassment and ensure that we have the safe environment for all of our people, but especially for women, and it’s up to us as men to do that,” Anderson said. “And I think, lastly, it just makes good economic sense. If we want to be successful, we should and we have to do it.”

Madison Limansky, chief operating officer at SheMoney, said many of the suggestions made at the event focused on building soft skills, which she said are crucial for good leadership.

“I think we spend a lot of time developing our hard skills, but we hope that this event gave you the opportunity to realize how important the relational skills are in good leadership,” she told the audience. “We’re really wanting to build community with companies and individuals who care about this work. What we at SheMoney have identified is that if we really want to make an impact for women, we have to be in community with the men that are leading the state.”

SheMoney Founder Jacki Zehner said men represent the vast majority of people in leadership positions, especially in the state of Utah. While an analyst, trader and eventually partner and member of the partnership committee at Goldman Sachs in New York City, Zehner said she worked with a lot of men.

“And I would not have made partner, especially at the age that I did, without incredible support from so many amazing male leaders,” she said. After “getting a seat at the table,” she worked to help evolve workplace practices and culture “to ensure that it was the meritocracy that it aspired to be.”

“And as a workplace culture changes, as a broader culture landscape changes and evolves, if we want to attract and retain the best talent,” Zehner said, “our companies need to evolve and our leaders need to evolve as well.”