When you hear the name Machiavelli, what do you think? Historical figure? His work “The Prince” which offered pragmatic and often controversial advice to rules on how to gain and maintain power? Maybe an Amoral Realist who believed the end justifies the means and that rules should be ready to employ deceit and cruelty to achieve their goals? And if someone uses the adjective “Machiavellian” it’s done so to describe cunning and manipulative behavior? Maybe not a good thing, right?
I know I thought some of those things myself but after reading Stacey Vanek Smith’s book Machiavelli for Women I learned a lot more about Machiavelli and came to appreciate the lessons he can offer all of us about leadership and power. And our hope after listening to this podcast, you will too!
So I ask you to suspend any prior beliefs you may have about Machiavelli and let’s open yourself ourselves up to hearing about this man’s writing done during the Renaissance period and their application to us today as proposed by the author!
3 Episode Takeaways
1. No, you’re not crazy. The no-win situation is real but we can navigate all kinds of ways and Machiavelli offers us insights into doing just that.
2. The Cinderella Syndrome and the Hotbox can be a disadvantage but by being aware of them can open up new possibilities by changing the story.
3. Facing the bias monster will mean embracing the hardship and struggle.
Mentioned in the Episode:
Machiavelli For Women by Stacey Vanek Smith
Ep 72, Andrea Mein DeWitt talks about masculine/feminine traits
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Welcome to episode 86. A Girl Take the Lead for Each
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week we explore womanhood and leadership.
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And I'm your host, yo Canny. So let me ask you, when you hear
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the name Machiavelli, what do you think?
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Maybe a historical figure. Maybe you've heard of his work
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The Prince, which offered pragmatic and often
00:00:34
controversial advice to rules on how to gain and maintain power.
00:00:41
Maybe you see him as an amoral realist who believed the end
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justified the means, and that rules should be ready to employ
00:00:52
deceit and cruelty to achieve their goals.
00:00:56
And if someone uses the adjective Machiavellian, it's
00:01:01
done so to describe cunning and manipulative behavior.
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Maybe not a good thing, right? I know I thought some of these
00:01:12
things too myself. So when my local bookstore
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recommended Stacey Vanek Smith's book Machiavelli for Women, I
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went what? Stacey Vanek Smith is a long
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time public radio reporter and host.
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She currently cohost NPR The Indicator from Planet Money, a
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daily podcast. She is also served as a
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correspondent for NPR's Planet Money and Marketplace.
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So she's no slouch when it comes to research, and this book is
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full of it. After reading Stacy's book, I
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learned a lot more about Machiavelli and came to
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appreciate the lessons he can offer all of us about leadership
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and power. And my hope after listening to
00:02:00
this podcast, you will too. So I ask you to suspend any
00:02:05
prior beliefs you may have about Machiavelli, and let's open
00:02:10
ourselves to hearing about this man's writing done during the
00:02:15
Renaissance period and their application to us today as
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proposed by the author. I hope you'll enjoy the listen.
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Here you go. Stacy presents the issue facing
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women today. Early in the book she says that
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while women are making real and substantial progress, hard won
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by generations of pioneering women, things are still a bit
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distressing. 80% of CE O's are men and within the Fortune 500
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more than 90%. Corporate boards are more than
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80%. Male women make about $0.80 for
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every male dollar. 2/3 of federal judges are male. 75% of
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elected representatives are men. Women start 40% of the
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businesses in the country, but 98% of venture capital goes to
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men. And she asks, why would this be?
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She states that popular explanations include women shy
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away from leadership positions. Women want more flexibility with
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their time, so they avoid the most demanding jobs.
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Women are more nurturing and collaborative.
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In other words, they lack the killer instinct you need in a
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leader or decision maker. And she states all of these
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explanations have seeds of truth in them.
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But she believes the real reason for the frustratingly slow
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progress of women in the workplace is something
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Machiavelli summed up quite well about 500 years ago.
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And here's the quote. Let it be noted that there is no
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more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to
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conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as a
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leader in the introduction of changes.
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For he who initiates will have for his enemies all those who
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were well off under the existing order of things, and only
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lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the
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new okay. So what did that quote mean, and
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what does it mean in today's English?
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Stacy says Changing the system is really hard, and you will
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probably fail. The old guard will freak out
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because they have so much to lose, and the people who would
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benefit from the change will waffle because they're scared
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and skeptical of how much they would really benefit even if
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they did manage to pull off this crazy hat trick.
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So for me personally, as I reflected on this, I wondered at
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my own career ambition and why didn't I go for being a CEO?
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I had friends who did, but why didn't I?
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I did become a Senior Vice President of Global Marketing
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and then again a Senior VP of Marketing and Sales.
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And being completely honest with you though, I think it was
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because I was fearful. I didn't think I was smart
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enough to break through the boys clubs.
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I could remember interviewing once with PepsiCo for a Pepsi
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brand management position and being asked in my interview what
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competitive sports I played like.
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None. I didn't get the job.
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No surprise there, right? But I did learn something about
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the game I was ill equipped to play.
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I wasn't competitive enough. Or could it have been something
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like I didn't know how to present myself in a competitive
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way? Interesting.
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And as I progressed in my career, I saw what CEO's did and
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thought, gosh, how did they learn about partnerships,
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mergers, investments in finance? And did I want to learn them?
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By the time I could have gone in that direction, I started my
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family and frankly, being a CEO didn't sound very interesting
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and I could see the cost. And honestly, I was passionate
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about marketing and that became my lane.
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I thought I could handle that and balance my family.
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So I did hit the glass ceiling, didn't shatter it, but did get a
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little close to it and had a place at the table.
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So I guess I would say to you that just because there's a
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shortage of women representation at these senior levels, go for
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them if that's what you want and works for you, but it's okay if
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you don't. I started this podcast so we
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could all find our voices, breakthrough things that held us
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back, and become aware of ourselves.
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Someone else's success could be someone else's misery.
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So build your own version. What is success to you?
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Not everyone needs to be a CEO on a corporate board, be an
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elected official or federal judge.
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You just do you, No matter what. Our path, the principles and
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lessons Stacey Vanek Smith offers us in her book might be
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helpful to all of us along our journey.
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I pulled just a few of the many gems for you.
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The first is something she calls the Power Principle, and she
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says this quote. Power doesn't exactly have the
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best reputation. Say the word, and it conjures up
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images of men and expensive suits behind giant desks.
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End Quote. And she goes on to offer an
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alternative way to think about it, since most of us do have
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negative beliefs around power and the misuse of it.
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She says this, which is a more empowering way to look at power.
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Quote I think what women want in the workplace has a lot more to
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do with the original meaning of the word power, which means to
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be able. Power means being able to do
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things, to have agency and be the masters of our own fates.
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Women in the workplace want to be able End Quote, So what is
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standing between us and power? Stacy asks.
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And I love when she wrote this. Leaders are by definition high
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status. So when women are in leadership
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position, it often does not sit well with people, and it all
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comes down to stories, which can be formidable because they are
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woven into our identities. We use stories to make sense of
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things, and letting go of them can make the world seem
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frightening and chaotic. But the good news is we can
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change the stories throughout the book.
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Stacy includes lots of research. One example is Joan C Williams,
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who is a gender researcher and coauthor who is quoted to have
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said women can totally crush it at work so long as they're about
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twice as politically savvy as men.
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And Stacy adds to this, and I couldn't agree more that that's
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a lot of savvy. On top of a day job and a family
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and gas bills and getting in your 10 steps, I think we
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can all relay, no? Oh yeah, Stacy goes on to ask us
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to face the monster, a story that is big and insidious and
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ugly and entrenched and powerful and destructive and annoyingly
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hard to kill. So what could this monster be
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and how do we slay it? She starts this with an
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explanation of the Cinderella syndrome.
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We all know how the story goes. The stepmom tells Cinderella she
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can't go to the ball, only after she cleans the entryway.
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Mop the floors, Polish the silver, iron the napkins and the
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list goes on and on. Stacy says the stepmother is
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holding out the illusion of possibility to Cinderella, and
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Cinderella believes her. She states that women in the
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workplace get put in this position too all the time.
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Whereas men are typically promoted based on what they
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perceive their potential to be, women are typically promoted
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based on actual work they've done, usually again and again
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and again. This slows women down
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substantially in early and mid career.
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Women are told they can get that promotion or raise if they just
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do this one more thing. Meanwhile, Randy and Jerry
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saunter on into the ball without having so much as washed a dish.
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I thought that was really great, how she put that together, Stacy
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says. The perceived notions about what
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makes a good leader include qualities like being aggressive,
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assertive, logical, self confident, ambitious, visionary,
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brave, and demanding, and that these are 100% masculine traits.
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Now, she says that qualities people associate with an ideal
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woman are someone who is affectionate, helpful,
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sympathetic, sensitive, gentle, soft spoken, modest, and puts
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others 1st. And if a woman displays the
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masculine traits, others feel very uncomfortable because it
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goes against their stories or biases about what they think
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leadership is. And there's something else, you
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guys. She calls it the hot box and it
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often happens to women in mid career when they start getting
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close to leadership positions or positions of power.
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It's being caught between two seats of expectations, feminine
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or leader. And it's a no win situation.
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And why people are likely to think of women as difficult,
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abrasive, and hard to get along with when leading.
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Or someone kind, generous, modest, advocate for others,
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smiling and supported behind the scenes, chronically underpaid
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and loaded down with work. Oh, in our episodes with Andrea
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Main DeWitt, we've come to see that we can mix our traits, and
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all of us are a combination of masculine and feminine traits,
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I'd add understanding that might help us navigate better.
00:13:26
And what does Machiavelli have to say about this?
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He says the Prince cannot avoid giving offense to his new
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subjects, and however, it is essential that in entering a new
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province, you should have the goodwill of its inhabitants.
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Stacy offers us this translation.
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To win your new Kingdom, you have to do things that makes the
00:13:50
locals hate you. To keep your new Kingdom, you
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need to get the logos to like you.
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To me that says mixing up our masculine and feminine traits
00:14:03
and it can be your secret weapon you guys going into battle.
00:14:07
Also throughout the book Stacy offers Machiavelli's lessons.
00:14:12
The 1st is embrace the struggle. Your hardships are setting you
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up for success, not only to get what you want, but to keep it,
00:14:24
Machiavelli wrote. Princess become great by
00:14:28
vanishing difficulties and opposition.
00:14:32
But before we all go Game of Thrones on this, which is where
00:14:36
I went, let's take them all out, Stacy says.
00:14:40
There's a Zen moment in The Prince where Machiavelli felt so
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strongly about the value of hardship, where he said
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something along the line of things happen for me, not to me.
00:14:54
And the quote goes like this fortune Machiavelli wrote,
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especially when she desires to make a new Prince great causes
00:15:04
enemies to arise and form designs against him in order
00:15:08
that he may have the opportunity of overcoming them.
00:15:12
His conclusion? Great leaders become great
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because of hardship and struggle.
00:15:19
As we reflect on Machiavelli's conclusion, I'd like to weigh in
00:15:23
and say yes. Overcoming hardships can make us
00:15:27
more resilient, more empathetic and courageous, all great
00:15:32
characteristics we'd love to have in our leaders.
00:15:36
But it can go the other way too, and lead us to burn out, feel
00:15:40
helpless, and a victim. Let's all do what we can to take
00:15:45
a different path, a path that is right for us and works for us
00:15:50
and doesn't burn us out. Stacy's hope with this book is
00:15:55
that we all use these difficult circumstances to create a new
00:16:00
kind of workplace. A workplace where everyone can
00:16:03
experience the joys, challenges, rewards, and growth that come
00:16:09
from doing the work you love. A workplace where everyone can
00:16:13
grow into their very best personal and professional
00:16:18
selves. A workplace where everyone can
00:16:22
be able, and on that note, will end today's episode.
00:16:28
Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening today
00:16:33
and wish your hope you enjoyed this episode.
00:16:36
If you did, please leave us a comment wherever you listen to
00:16:40
your podcasts or join our public Facebook group Girl Take the
00:16:44
Lead. And I'd like to welcome our
00:16:46
newest members to the Facebook group Teresa and Rebecca.
00:16:50
Thank you for joining us. You can also visit our website
00:16:54
girltaketheleadpod.com and we have a YouTube channel where
00:16:58
your subscription would be appreciated.
00:17:00
Once you're on YouTube, search a girl, take the lead.
00:17:05
So the three takeaways from this episode were one.
00:17:09
No, you're not crazy. The Know when situation is real,
00:17:13
but we can navigate all kinds of ways, and Machiavelli offers us
00:17:17
insights into doing just that. 2.
00:17:21
The Cinderella Syndrome and the Hot Box can be a disadvantage,
00:17:26
but by being aware of them, we can open up new possibilities
00:17:29
for changing the story. And three, facing the Bias
00:17:34
monster will mean embracing our hardships and struggles.
00:17:40
This episode, believe it or not, only covered chapter one, so I'm
00:17:45
planning to do a sound bite on Thursday about some more gems
00:17:49
from the book. I hope that you'll join us again
00:17:52
to hear a bit more about Machiavelli for women.
00:17:55
Thank you Stacey Vanek Smith for such a great book.
00:17:57
Plus, we have lots of exciting guests lined up for August,
00:18:00
including Nori Java, author of Keeping Your Seat at the Table,
00:18:04
a return visit by Andrea Canny to talk about her insights about
00:18:10
ageism. Courtney Lee, Founder, OYT
00:18:13
Cosmetics, Bessie Graham, Awardwinning Entrepreneur and
00:18:18
Maria Maruchian, an expert in diversity, equality and
00:18:22
inclusion. Stay tuned to listen to these
00:18:25
amazing women leaders and what they have to say about
00:18:28
leadership. Thanks for being here.
00:18:31
Talk to you soon. Bye.