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Dec 19, 2022
Michele Markey, CEO of SkillPath
When I first entered the learning and development industry, I encountered a lot of doubt about my abilities as a trainer. At the time, I taught OSHA, lean manufacturing, and facilities management, and many of the attendees in my training events were men. Whether it was my age, gender, or skill level, I often sensed their dismissiveness when I walked into the session. “What could she possibly have to teach us?”
Fast forward to the present, and I’ve noticed that when I’ve had the opportunity to promote someone, women are often more careful to ensure they understand the job before accepting it. They partly do this because they’re evaluating their readiness for the role, but I think the other part is unconscious self-doubt that has been generally ingrained in women.
While some outside forces and attitudes are slow to adapt to the modern business landscape, I’ve found that the more I look inward, the more I have been able to set my own standards and not conform to what others expected of me.
Everyone has different skills, but it can be difficult to learn how to harness those abilities and channel them properly. Over time, I was able to figure out how to maintain a belief in myself when others didn’t. But it takes more than mental willpower; there are concrete action steps that I took that helped me along the way.
Not every woman wants to be CEO or an entrepreneur. And that’s okay. You don’t need that job title to show others that they should heed your advice, and you don’t need it to be a leader. This is about gaining knowledge and experience that will help in your career. The more I learned and the more I trusted my own skills and instincts, the more respect I earned.
Nothing is going to happen overnight. Confidence takes time to build, so use the opportunities you get to learn and grow. The more you learn, the more confident you’ll be. Embrace challenges and have a tenacity to navigate the unknown. Be willing to collaborate and innovate; sometimes things need to be held together with string and duct tape, and you need people who are willing to roll up their sleeves with you and solve problems creatively.
For women, there will be a lot of outside factors that will make us doubt ourselves. While 2022 is much different than 1982, sexism and unconscious bias still exists in the business world. You can’t control what others say or think, but you can control your reaction to it. I found that the more I let that doubt from others be my fuel, the more I found success and confidence in my own capabilities.
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Michele Markey
CEO of SkillPath
Michele Markey is the CEO of SkillPath. A leader in the learning and development industry since 1989, SkillPath delivers more than 16,000 training sessions each year and has enriched the professional and personal lives of more than 10 million individuals worldwide.
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