Leaders' Playground
What if work could feel like play? Join Irene Salter PhD for stories, science and strategies that help leaders thrive, not just survive.
Leaders' Playground
12: How to free yourself from impossible expectations
Ready to ditch the "super-mom" cape and toss out those impossible workplace expectations? The newest episode of eaders' Playground" is here to shake things up!
We're diving into the wild world of social norms and asking the big questions: Can anyone really "have it all"? Why do we keep tying ourselves in knots to please everyone? And what does Barbie have to say about it all?
Join us for a fun, science-filled ride (yes, fun and science belong together) as we explore the myths we've all bought into - from the "ideal worker" (hello, 24/7 email responder!) to "ideal success" (TED talk, anyone?). We'll chat about cognitive biases, share stories, and even draw our own "ideal" selves (spoiler: mine looked suspiciously like Legally Blonde's Elle Woods).
So grab a coffee, put your feet up, and let's rewrite those old-school rules together. It's time to turn work into play and find success on our own terms. Who's in?
Resources:
The Barbie movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517268/
America Ferrera’s monologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBqlDWHkdHk
Psychology 101 primer on social norms: https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-roles.html
All about that persnickety anchoring bias: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/anchoring-bias
Great Forbes article on the bandwagon effect: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycehoffman/2024/05/26/bandwagon-effect-what-it-is-and-how-to-overcome-it/
Find Brigid Schulte’s fabulous books and TED talk here: https://www.brigidschulte.com/
Why Women Still Can’t Have it All by Anne-Marie Slaughter: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/
William Ouchi’s Theory Z merges Japanese and American management philosophies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_Z_of_Ouchi
If ideals show up for you in the form of impostor syndrome, then check this out: https://www.irenesalter.com/post/how-to-get-good-at-impostor-syndrome
For complete show notes, transcript, and free downloadable resources go to: https://www.irenesalter.com/podcast
Welcome back to the Leaders Playground. It is time for a frank talk about the whole notion of living up to expectations. Can you do it? Can women be super mom? Can men be everything to everyone? Can anyone be the perfect daughter or son? Can we have it all? No, just no. In this episode, we're going to take a look at what psychologists have to say about social norms and expectations. We're going to explore the cognitive biases that drive our behavior and we'll look at what Barbie, sheryl Sandberg and Maya Angelou have to say about it. We're going to end with three steps to change those social norms we live in. Let's get started. Hi, thank you for listening to the Leader's Playground, the podcast for leaders who wish their work could feel more like play. Leadership can be lonely, overwhelming and just plain crazy-making. We are here to rekindle your spark. I'm Irene Salter, your host and a PhD neuroscientist and science educator with a passion for helping people thrive, not just survive. Please click that follow button so you don't miss a single episode.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about what America Ferreira says in the Barbie movie. It is literally impossible to be a woman. She says Like we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin, and you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but you also have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash others' ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but always be looking out for other people. I am just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know. Oh my gosh, I loved that scene in Barbie. When I watched her deliver that line, I nearly jumped out of my chair and cheered yes, this, so much this.
Speaker 1:But it's not just women who struggle with impossible ideals. Also in that Barbie movie, ken struggles with ideal manhood. The C-suite suits struggle with what it means to be an ideal corporation. It's like we're all trying and failing to live up to a myth, and it's not just one myth it's many.
Speaker 1:Take the myth of the ideal worker that you should be the first in and last out of the office. You should respond to emails within 10 seconds, be willing to cancel any personal appointment at the drop of a hat, be maximally productive and on time all the time. Never, ever procrastinate. When work is busy, you put off your physical needs like eating, sleeping and even going to the time. Never, ever procrastinate. When work is busy, you put off your physical needs like eating, sleeping and even going to the bathroom. You have to multitask like a pro. Never complain about an assignment, no matter how stupid or ill-conceived it might be, and go over and above on all things. Ever recognize that ideal worker or perhaps there's the myth of the ideal mother that you should read to your child every night for an hour. Go to extreme lengths to prevent falls and poisonings and curtain cord hangings. Sacrifice sleep and self-care for your child's benefit. Enroll your kid in every imaginable extracurricular, especially travel teams. Help with homework. Make all the meals from scratch with organic ingredients. Show up at every school event looking like a fashion model and keep an immaculate house worthy of the cover of Sunset Magazine. How's that one? Let me pause here to thank Bridget Schulte for introducing me to the concept of the ideal worker and the ideal mother. My book club read her book Overwhelmed, and she Today.
Speaker 1:I am personally struggling with the myth of the ideal career, the idea that you should have this continual upward trajectory in your career, each success building upon the last, no left turns, no pauses for having a kid. Be willing to move wherever the job demands, travel wherever you have to, as much as you have to collect all the shiny gold stars of success. For me as a leadership coach, that could mean launch a podcast, get on a TEDx stage, write a book, be a social media influencer, get paid speaking gigs and become a millionaire. In particular, the idea of I should get on a TED stage had somehow wormed its way into a mandate. How did that happen? Other coaches and authors I respect have a TED Talk. I recommend TED Talks regularly to my clients. My best friend and fellow executive coach has not one but two TED Talks.
Speaker 1:Several people said I'd be great at it, much to my own horror. Others said it helped promote my book. Well, this weekend I finally pressed pause, or, more accurately, that best friend of mine, tootie, looked at me with shock and incredulous horror when I shared my goals for the year. Huh, maybe that shiny gold TEDx star isn't the one I need to be seeking right now, especially as it's my son's senior year and I don't want to miss it. And now that I look at it, I can't find a single book marketing guru who recommends TEDx as a top thing to do. Did it actually help any of my friends land more clients? Do I even want to be a public speaker? I'm okay at it, but honestly I hate it. So how in the world did that become a goal? Well, let's pause for a minute and take a look at the science. Where do all of these ideals come from, and what is happening psychologically and neuroscientifically to make these ideals appear?
Speaker 1:The answer to that question lies at the intersection of social norms and heuristics. See, social norms are the social and cultural norms and expectations of a group. They're the unspoken rules that dictate how people behave in a given setting. We commonly come face to face with social norms in a new country because we don't innately know the unspoken rules of the culture. Is it okay to wear shorts? Is it okay to wear a sleeveless top? When I greet someone, do I shake hands or bow or give them a kiss on the cheek? In a restaurant, do I pay at the table or at the counter, and should I leave a tip? If so, how much? All of those things are the social norms of that culture, and just as every country has social norms, so do all of the roles we take on at work and at home.
Speaker 1:Psychologists and sociologists describe how those norms emerge and get established. Usually they emerge spontaneously, without intentional human design, though some groups are very successful at changing norms, such as a group like a company rolling out new company values. There are other times where we establish shared norms, when a group forms, such as a school classroom, adopting behavioral norms for the year. But usually the social norms are unconscious. They are things that we learn and adhere to even without thinking about. Norms will reach a tipping point where most people around will adhere to them and eventually they acquire this kind of taken for granted, automatic quality. We stop thinking consciously about them. It's just the way it's done. It becomes subconscious. The way social norms are adopted individually or societally follows the way our brain learns new things.
Speaker 1:You see throughout infancy, childhood and adolescence. You learn what behaviors are accepted and expected through parents, teachers, what you see on TV and in the movies and just through plain teachers. What you see on TV and in the movies and just through plain old trial and error. Like parents will teach little kids good manners at the table and in public. Kindergarten and preschool teachers are masters at teaching kids classroom norms. But we also absorb a ton from watching which kids get praise and which kids are reprimanded and sent to the principal's office. Kids get praise and which kids are reprimanded and sent to the principal's office. Adolescents learn fashion norms from advertising movies, tiktok school dress codes, eye rolls from the popular kids, exclamations from friends Wow that looks amazing on you. And also mom's exclamations Young lady, you are not allowed to wear that out of the house. It is no different learning norms about how to be a parent, a worker or a member of any particular cultural group. In every case, learning social norms is the same. We watch others or get taught. We get feedback. Eventually we internalize the norms and stop thinking about it at all and stop thinking about it at all.
Speaker 1:So let's go back to my ideal career scenario. I certainly didn't get a handbook stating that's what I should do. Instead, I looked around me at the most successful people in my industry. Many, many of them the most visible ones, including my best friend had TEDx talks. I got feedback after my own brief foray onto the stage when people said when will I see your TEDx talk? You'd be great, because I recommend them regularly to my clients.
Speaker 1:Ted talks were part of my day-to-day work, my go-to for short, provocative, well-researched summaries of an idea, and all of those things created an idealized social norm in my head. It wasn't based on real data. It's not based on what's actually the social norm out there. It was based on a heuristic, a cognitive bias in my mind, one that's called anchoring. See, anchoring is a very common unconscious cognitive bias that we have, that all of us have. Basically, the idea with anchoring is whatever is at the top of your mind overly influences our judgments. So what's at the top of my mind? All those successful people around me, all of those people that were giving me feedback after my talks, all of the recommendations I was sharing with clients, those things combined together to make TED Talks this huge anchor at the top of my mind and it gave that idea an outsized influence on my thinking. It was all unconscious, but it was happening. All unconscious but it was happening.
Speaker 1:There's another cognitive bias that was driving my actions too Groupthink, or sometimes called the bandwagon effect. Essentially, when within a group of people, the desire for harmony, belonging or conformity drives a rational behavior, people are so driven to minimize conflict that they're willing to stay silent or suppress dissenting viewpoints. When I was around other coaches, we would all talk about our latest achievements or struggles to reach whatever that shiny next gold star was for us. Nobody would say in their out loud voice you know, I quite like where I'm at. I really don't need another big new goal, I really don't need to increase my rates. It was so much easier in those moments to say silence than to introduce conflict and challenge that ideal career groupthink. And because I was somehow anchored on that TEDx idea, all the new incoming information simply confirmed that concept. Further. The new incoming information simply confirmed that concept.
Speaker 1:Further Strategy Take a pause. I've mentioned the ideal man, the ideal corporation, the ideal worker, ideal mother and ideal career. But there are so many different ideals and expectations that we have to navigate in the world the ideal provider, the ideal American, the ideal son or daughter, the ideal spouse, and so on. None of these ideals are achievable. They are all myths. So this week's strategy, I wanted to encourage you to identify an ideal you hold on to. You can't be the ideal worker and ideal mother at the same time, but what helps is to really understand what ideal worker means to you or what ideal mother means to you. When you can do that, you can look for the contradictions both between the ideals and also for your own identity, and that's what America Ferreira so eloquently describes in Barbie. So, rather than allowing the ideals and shoulds continue to influence you unconsciously, make them conscious. Take a good, hard, real look at them.
Speaker 1:I did this activity with my book club the other day. What we did was we picked an ideal that had an outsized influence on us and we drew a picture of it. I drew the ideal mother. She ended up looking like Wait for it. She looked like Barbie or maybe Reese Witherspoon from Legally Blonde. As a mom, she had a perfect pink suit, professionally coiffed blonde hair, heels and perfect lipstick smile. In one arm she had a designer briefcase, in the other a baby. There was a toddler at her knee. On her lapel were three badges Parent, volunteer of the Year, employee of the Year and my Kid Got Into Harvard.
Speaker 1:What this did was surface many of the hidden expectations I was unconsciously holding myself to, so that I could look more clearly and talk about it with my book group friends, and together we might be able to redefine a different social norm, one that actually works for us, one that actually looks like the reality, not like Barbie. So take a moment to draw the ideal that you feel trapped by. Maybe it's the ideal parent, maybe the ideal worker, or perhaps the ideal spouse or daughter or friend or caretaker or leader or community member. What's an ideal that unconsciously drives your behavior? Draw it, look at it. Better yet, do this exercise with other people, other friends, a mom's group, your work colleagues. Then share and discuss what comes up. Once you've done that, you can start to redefine it. How Well, let's go back to the show.
Speaker 1:When I finally took the time to get a real, good, hard look at my own idealized career, I could actually start to see it for all the ways it distorted my own reality, to see it for all the ways it distorted my own reality. From there I could craft a new career, a new idea of what I wanted to be for myself, one that takes those ideals and shoulds and turns them into something sustainable and wonderful for my own well-being. No more shoulding on myself. Well-being no more shoulding on myself. Maya Angelou said something that really resonated with me. She says pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off of you. That sounds so much better to my ideal career. It sounds like the kind of career I want to have. So, rather than follow an unrealistic ideal based on TED Talks, I'm going to do that. I'm going to pursue the things I love doing and do them so well people can't take their eyes off.
Speaker 1:I added a paragraph to my book as I was thinking about Maya Angelou's quote and I was thinking about why it's so hard for me to sometimes lean out or lean the Maya Angelou way, instead of lean in, like Sheryl Sandberg says in her book. Wrote on the front cover of the Atlantic. She said Women still can't have it all. The decision to step down from a position of power, to value family over professional advancement, even for a time, is directly at odds with the prevailing social pressures on career professionals in the United States. End quote Women can't take a year off or even step back in the never enough culture of work, stay later, perform better, do more, rise faster. They can't do it for a gap year, not for having a baby, not for ailing parents, not for mental health, not for anything.
Speaker 1:Climbing the career ladder is what women like me were raised and groomed for, like some prized pedigreed racehorse. If I choose willingly to step aside and step down, am I letting down my parents, teachers, mentors and all the little girls at school for whom I'm breaking glass ceilings? Won't the good old boys laugh over a glass of bourbon? Oh, there's yet another woman who just couldn't cut it in the big leagues. Will the Sheryl Sandbergs of the world smile a smug, superior smile? What a shame she didn't have enough ambition or grit to stay in the game. Can we all please collectively kill those stereotypes of the straight up, linear career?
Speaker 1:The research literature suggests something completely different has taken root A dynamic, multi-directional, boundaryless game of chutes and ladders. Sometimes we lean in, sometimes we lean out, sometimes we coast. Doesn't matter if you're a man or woman or non-binary. A gently rising and falling career that breathes in time to the seasons of life. That's the new normal. Individually.
Speaker 1:For me that means saying goodbye to parental expectations. The good old boys and Sheryl Sandbergs. Take that gap year, take the parental leave, take the family leave. Say no to the promotion if it's not the right season, knowing that maybe, yes, we'll be right in the next chapter. Organizationally, that means shaking up the workplace culture. Establish family-friendly policies for both men and women In your language. Around the office value family caretaking just as much as training for a marathon. You can create salary and growth structures that look more like a lattice than a ladder. It doesn't have to be this way.
Speaker 1:If we work together to create social norms that actually work for us, but what about cultural norms, ones that are even bigger and harder to fight? See, I just got back from Japan where I had some frank, heartfelt conversations with a female leader there. She grew up in both Japan and America, got her education in the United States, worked in Europe and is now a CEO in Japan, where the cultural and social norms around career and womanhood can be truly oppressive. What can a person do in that kind of situation, surrounded by such strong cultural social norms? Well, my answer is still the same.
Speaker 1:First step consciously recognize the elephant in the room. Talk about the ideals as they exist in your world. Draw, read and talk about the social norms and expectations as they currently are. Examine how they are and are not serving us. Step two connect with others that are changing the norms. Who in your community and outside of it also sees the same elephant? What have they done about it? Are there bright spots in the world that have done something different that you can learn from? Check out Bridget Schulte's books in the show notes. All of her books are all about the bright spots. For my friend in Japan, I introduced her to the work of Dr William Uichi, who combines American and Japanese management philosophies in a way that focuses on job security, consensual decision-making, slow evaluation procedures and taking individual responsibility within the group and taking individual responsibility within the group.
Speaker 1:Finally, step three create your own social norms, ones that are grounded in wellness, in psychological thriving and in love. Focus on the positivity and the things that are good in the world, the bright spots. Those social norms that you can create is about being a human being rather than some ideal like barbie, somebody who's human, with all the lovely messiness that entails, rather than living up to some impossible ideal. I would love to thank several people for helping me be completely human. First, tyler Lockamy for all of his help in sound production of this podcast, robin Canfield, who takes care of all of the graphic design and website that you can find, the show notes on Tessa Borquez, my chief operations gal, who holds my head on straight, and Tutti Tagerly, the best friend and business partner I could have possibly asked for. Thanks for the frank feedback. In the show notes you're going to find a link to more on social norms, cognitive biases and so much more.
Speaker 1:Finally, would you please do me a couple favors? First, do you know of a leader or friend who's surviving, not thriving? Maybe they are caught in a web of impossible ideals and expectations and are looking for a way out? If so, please text them a link to this show. And secondly, please click the follow button on Spotify, google or wherever you get your podcasts. That way, you won't miss the next episode, which was inspired also by my friend in Japan. It's all about motivation, the science. How do you stay motivated yourself? How do you motivate a team? Well, join me next time here at the latest playground to find out.
