Nuggets On
maternity transition
It is well understood that maternity is a key inflection where there is leakage in the leadership pipeline. Women leaders talk about hard choices and trade-offs that women have to make but also offer perspectives on how they could think about Maternity & Career rather than making an Either/Or choice.
Women Leaders - a leaky pipeline
Zia talks about the leaky pipeline of women leaders and talks about the key inflection points where the leakage is maximum. She talks about the false glass-ceilings that women often have in their heads.
Role of a spouse around maternity
Zia talks about how there are several hidden variables that need to be taken care of for a woman to re-enter the workforce effectively after a maternity break. She outlines the small things that a spouse could do in this context.
The Maternity transition
Maternity is a critical transition for women and like Anu mentions, you don’t know what you don’t know in terms of how things will play out. She talks about her lessons from that passage of play. She also talks about how she took stock of options out there when she returned to work post maternity and discusses typical mistakes women often end up making in this phase.
Women Leadership - The barrier no one speaks about as much
Roopa talks about the fact that there is a lot of commentary around women coming back to the work force after they start a family. She mentions that support structures and corporate policies are evolving and this problem is slowly being addressed. She discusses the barrier that shows up when women are in senior management roles. She talks about the notion of self-belief which often comes in the way of women raising their hand for top jobs and for a seat at the table.
Women and intense careers
Falguni speaks about how she juggled her family and her career at various points in time. She specifically speaks about the Maternity transition and says that women shouldn’t treat it as a P&L discussion where they are trading off the income with the opportunity cost of being with the child. She urges the women to look it as an investment in oneself that pays out over the future.
The first transition - How do we make this work?
Jennifer speaks about the context behind the first transition which is often about couples having a discussion about how they make the relationship work. She mentions that in the initial years after marriage, couples are often leading parallel tracks. The first transition is often triggered by an event (one of the spouses gets a promotion and has to relocate or you have your first child). These situations can force couples to have conversations around how they make the relationship work. The parallel model begins to break down at this stage.
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