Women-in-workplace—either white or women of color, have had a remarkable victory with great results and greater impact. But women-in-leadership? Still a challenging territory.
A 2023 Report by Mckinsey, conducted across Corporate Canada and America, spanning 276 organizations—employing more than 10 million, found that women represent one in four C-suite leaders and women of color- just one in 16 men! As shocking as it is, there is still hope and there are still wars fought at every corporate corner.
2023 witnessed a few hard-fought gains. Since 2015, women representation—globally, has experienced an upsurge of 11% in leadership role (from 17% to 28%). But representation is not enough. A balanced culture that is inclusive and pro-women leadership is the need of an hour. Debunking myths and opening a growth passage has become equally important.
With a similar objective, we at IMPAAKT Magazine, dived deep to look for the most practical, innovative and a change leader driving impact for women-in-leadership and found Kelly Loudermilk.
More than opinions, Kelly has built her perspectives through her experiences. Her humble beginnings as a corporate contract recruiter to becoming Founder at Build HR Inc., just in 13 years; is truly iconic. She has worked with organizations with an employee count of 3 to 15000. Additionally, she is also a Forbes Human Resource Council Member, where she contributes to the community of human resource professionals with thought leadership articles and her firsthand industry insights.
Realizing these contributions, IMPAAKT’s 2024 exclusive edition “Women-in-tech Accelerating Progress,” honors Kelly Loudermilk for her contribution and the way she has been trailblazing path for businesses to work with their people.
Dive into our podcast excerpt where our Editor-in-Chief—Shrutika Khedekar, sat down with Kelly to understand her experiences and the key insights that she believes to be transformative and revolutionary for women empowerment.
Fostering Empowerment Culture? Facilitate Women with ‘THE BUMPER CAR EFFECT’
As a seasoned leader, Kelly understands the importance empowering women in leadership roles and how it can create a positive impact. She cites Forbes Studies and Harvard Business Review notes that, “empowering your people to be creative and to lead change and to feel safe enough to make recommendations or ask questions creates innovation at its finest. There are a lot of things that you can do to try and calibrate it to what your culture needs to be internally.”
“However, fostering a culture that empowers women is not the end game. It’s not about opening a backdoor entry to the power corridor.”
In Kelly’s experience, she has noticed that women face more difficulty than men do when it comes to just stepping into that empowerment. When a women steps into position of power, they’re often perceived negatively. At times, this is because, in traditional terms, ‘women in power’ is not exactly a polished woman.
To solve this vicious cycle, Kelly suggests providing women with parameters, processes and tools that navigate them at better decision making and this also helps in balancing the momentum with creative control. Kelly refers this as‘THE BUMPER CAR EFFECT’
With Bumper Cars, women – when stepping into the power can have a smooth transition and deliver great results with innovation.
Kelly really likes the idea around decision making on a spectrum. She quotes, “Predictive Index is a firm out in Boston. I like them a lot. There’s a ton out there. I love them. They have a particular behavior driver that they measure on the spectrum, which is around whether you’re a kind of this driver or a different one.”
When Empowering Women, How to Collaborate?
Kelly very well understands diversity and has gained a knack for collaborating with everyone in the spectrum with her inclusive lens. She understands the wide spectrum of people. Some are quiet, some outspoken. So, to collaborate inclusively, she ensures that everyone is heard and considered.
Moving one step ahead, Kelly believes in creating multiple avenues for collective participation. She notes, “In any point in time when I’m coming into a diverse group, I ensure that I’m capturing everybody’s input. And how I do that is by creating multiple avenues to that input because not everyone will speak up in the meeting.”
But many won’t speak up and to provide them with a backdoor, Kelly keeps an open string. She points out saying, “if anything else comes up, your best ideas come up when you’re not focusing on this idea. You might be driving, in the shower, or on a walk. Don’t be afraid to come back and bring it to the table and do it asynchronously. Like have a conversation, slack me, e-mail me, whatever that might look like.”
Challenges Faced by Women Leaders and How to Fight back?
- It’s Not About YOU!
Kelly notes that women face hurdles, especially because of a virtue where they associate work as identity which leads to internalizing every reaction and stimuli in place of work. She strongly suggests not getting affected by people’s reactions. Not everything is about you!
- Respect Your Boundaries
A lot of times, women – who’s not normally aggressive or like assertive for their self needs, starts holding their boundaries, they are perceived differently. For such moments, Kelly says, “people are like, oh, you’re being aggressive, you’re being combative. And it’s like, no, you’re not.”
- Navigate through the Difficult Waters!
Kelly emphasizes holding higher standards and not becoming reactive on every outside stimulus. It is important to modulate your approach, try different techniques, but ultimately, stay true to your beliefs. Even if people find it aggressive – honor your boundaries.
She suggests, “Play with those waters and how you want to drive your ship, but don’t step back from your standard and hold your boundaries. They will adjust accordingly. It will take time, and it may be that it is something you have to be careful in navigating, and that’s OK too.”
Playing fair with – “Women in Workplace”
“If apples are apples, you can’t pay for oranges,” quotes Kelly.
A fair trade with women workforce has become a long-lasting war. Although there are multiple hard-fought gains in this arena, there are still multiple pockets, especially with leadership positions where corporations need to evolve.
She adds, “At the end of the day, if you were performing the same job as another peer, the difference in pay has to be aligned with what is called a bonafide reason, meaning this person has X number of years of experience.
It should be a hard fact; it shouldn’t be based on gender. It should be a hard fact as to why there is any discrepancy, if at all.”
Beyond Power, Productivity and Purpose; What Women Leader’s bring to the Table?
‘Women in leadership’ have created phenomenal impact. A study by HBR, Forbes where it is proven that women leaders have performed statistically better in profit and non-profit Fortune 500 Companies. The reason behind this outcome, as opinionated by Kelly, is that women in leadership welcomes dynamic thinking, pivoting the ability to holistic growth with heart and soul – just like the way people prefer to operate.
Kelly quotes, “I think there’s a perspective and emotional intelligence that women bring into the room which helps to provide a positive direction and ripple effect that goes down to somebody at the front lines performing the work.”
“If you don’t treat your employees well, they’ll leave. And that idea is very much exemplified in research today that when you treat your employees well and treat them with this element of respect and emotional intelligence within your strategy, it will only help you benefit in the end.”
“When women come into the workforce at a leadership level, there’s not a direct correlation, but it helps bring emotional intelligence to that higher level more consistently throughout the group.” – Kelly Loudermilk
Encouraging Women to Build Supportive Network
In leadership, networking has always been the foundational stone to growth. Kelly truly loves the idea of networking – whether Synchronous or Asynchronous.
She also mentions that networking can be draining too – depending on the type of person. “There is this idea of asynchronous life and synchronous life so that in person, in real time scenario, if you are driven by that, don’t be afraid to search on LinkedIn, what’s in your area, what can you connect with. There are so many groups grown organically that you can be a part of that synchronously in person’s ability,” says Kelly.
But there’s this other side of asynchronous networking and many from an international scale that you could be a part of because of the asynchronous piece.”
Finding the Right Balance with Work-life Harmony
When looking for harmony and trying to balance life and work, in Kelly’s words, “put your rocks down right in your jar. Like, what’s the things that are important?”
Work, family or personal priorities? communication is always the real gamechanger. If one can communicate with their leadership about the schedule and understand their manager’s priorities and find a way to deliver expectation of an organization, Work-life-harmony will always find a way.
“Where you put your rocks down of what’s required from you from a mother’s standpoint or from a life standpoint, and then fill in the gaps with where work comes into play so that you can meet the requirements of both, hopefully without overdoing it. So, you will have some moments where you schedule it just for you, for your own mental sake and then be able to honor those as hard appointments,” suggests Kelly.
Empowering Women by Sharing and Recognizing Achievements
Women have been making strides’ not only in workplace but also around multiple terrains. Recognizing triumphs and sharing them only makes you better for tomorrow. Also, this can encourage women in workplace too!
We asked Kelly about any event she would like to highlight or the achievement she shares across her board; she referred to a very exciting one!
“I got approached by this individual that I was working on another project for opening a restaurant with a group. And I had never been in the restaurant or lounge industry by any means. And I was like, I don’t even know what the heck to do here.
I was like, OK, why not? I’m still going in my career. I can learn a lot and I can figure out what I want to do. So again, that curiosity piece as well as just being open to exploring different avenues is what led me to go down that path. “
“I got to see something translated into reality, and that’s something I tried to work with, with a lot of my groups. That was so different. And it was exciting to share that accomplishment because it was different. It’s not the norm of what you would expect as an answer as well as it shows that when you’re curious enough, it can lead you down paths that you never thought was possible.”
Kelly mentions that sharing achievements connects people at a human level. This helps even to the frontline. She emphasizes sharing struggles, success and celebrating them in unity.
Advising Aspiring Women Leaders – Peel back the Onion layers
When in leadership, subjectivity is the king. Not all fit in the same box – neither should anyone – and so shouldn’t be the leadership either.
This is very well advised by Kelly Loudermilk. She cites ‘movie Shrek’ where Eddie Murphy and Mike Meyers talk about the idea of an onion where you’re peeling back the layers,’ fits with how leadership should be. She advises,
“You have to peel back those layers.
Not every person develops the same and not every person learns the same.
And not every person wants to hear things from you the same way.
So I would say it’s all about just your approach according to the person you’re working with.
So really get to know them, understand what their dreams are, their aspirations, what do they want to grow in?”
Presenting a solution, Kelly believes in understanding the subjective requirement – Where do women want support in? Do they want it as a coach, or do they want it as a mentor?
Those are two different things with two completely different approaches.
“Some people only need a coach, some people need a mentor, and some need an advisor. As you adjust and pull back those layers, it allows you to facilitate that person’s requirements. So that’s how I try to approach it and more of that one-on-one scenario from an advice perspective. And this is probably similar to what most people say.
Get clear on what you want and it’s OK to not know what you want and try as much as you can until you figure it out,” opines Kelly.
A Roadmap to a Successful Leadership
- Be authentic to yourself. Honor your boundaries.
- Don’t be afraid to push back. Don’t be afraid to say no and be fine with the fact that it’s not going to happen tomorrow. And trust that journey and lean into whatever resources that you have, whether that’s teaching resources, whether that’s a mentor, whether that’s just signing it for all these different courses that interest you.
- Don’t be afraid to explore.
- The more you explore, the bigger your web gets and, stickier you become in that direction you want to go.
- Experiment, play, have some fun with it and it’s going to lead you exactly where you need to be.
