Becoming the Workplace Goddess

Having a job since I was 13 years old has entitled me to make a few specific observations about women in the workforce.  The first is we’ve denied the feminine side of ourselves for too long, in that we do not realize the qualities we inherit as women are equally as sacred and important as the men in our lives.  We can conceptualize ourselves as both male and female spirit, both God and Goddess, equally divine and beloved.  The feminine side of God has been diminished for so long we’ve come to believe that we are something less important because we can’t see ourselves in images of God.  And when we don’t acknowledge ourselves as a spark of that collective essence, both Mother and Father God, it can make us feel unworthy and flawed. It translates into low self-esteem, because we believe our true self is somewhat less important.  It permeates into relationships and before we know it, we have claimed an unworthy state of mind, and then begin to create that in our immediate experience. In the workplace, it has affected our overall confidence level when we compare ourselves to men doing the same type of jobs.

Since Henry Mintzberg’s observations in his 1973 diary studies of executives, management styles have drastically changed.  Old ways, as well as the old boy’s network, has steadily been dismantled in favor of organizational structures that encompass more female friendly policies and ideas, with the idea of empowering the female through equal opportunity and culture change.  Throughout this process, women stumbled on the rocky road to empowerment, adapting in public and private realms encumbered by unspoken, old fashioned and traditionally bureaucratic parameters. Women thought power would arrive by managing exactly like men because they slid into the workforce in a fairly dominated male environment and needed to adapt.

But now, as a body of research is beginning to develop on this demographic, we’re learning that we were barking up the wrong tree. Our own woman-culture, or our entire system of shared meaning and knowledge, is uniquely intact.  Our 20-year take-away value:  self-power or empowerment does not happen by riding on the top of the hierarchical heap as a pseudo-man.  It doesn’t even come from manpower disguised as womanpower.  It comes from a sense of appreciating, and knowing at the deepest level possible that we are truly worthy because we are an image of the highest power that exists.  We are beginning to realize what constitutes our beingness is as equally divine as a man, because we are the same soul substance.  Although we love God, and we are God, we are also the Goddess.  And we’re beginning to love ourselves for who we are, which includes both aspects of a divine equation, because self-love is about demonstrating that which is within, our spiritual power.  Female qualities and values that are precipitated from this spiritual composite will someday be demonstrated at the highest levels of organizations with great success.  However, for now it seems we first must be more comfortable in our own skin and finally acknowledge that what we contribute has tremendous significance, both to society as well as the bottom line.

My second observation about women in the workforce is that once we define, and embrace the feminine side of our spiritual composite, we will re-embrace the masculine principle in a more balanced fashion. The result will be the institution of a set of values that correspond to who we are and what we do well.  If we allow it, our feminine side will begin to reconceptualize leadership roles that include affirming, dynamic views of our self-development process. Work will be viewed as a unique service to the larger community. This will be done through new policies we set, reflected in our decision styles, and by outlining the long-term objectives of what our organizations need to accomplish in order to make sense from the act of working.

At a very deep level, the glorious aspects that make up the Yin side of us is our core competency – and we’re seeing evidence that harnessing those energies in ways that assist one another in our spiritual evolvement can make us better in our work.  In the future, knowing how we co-create with spirit will become the mission and vision for organizations that will finally permit everyone, not just women, to fabricate meaning from doing.