fake it till you make it

i have been thinking more about leadership since watching whale rider at the weekend and in particular women in leadership. i was reading an interview with urban street artist swoon and she is asked about her advice for young girls and women artists… and it seems pretty relevant to young women and girls in any walk of life including church:

RO: In closing, I would like to relay some words of encouragement from you specifically to the young girls and women out there doing art or thinking about doing art. If I put you in front of a room full of young female artists what are your words of encouragement? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

S: I’d say try on a little overconfidence, and to use an old cliche, fake it till you make it. I think culturally we are raised to recede into the background — stand by your man. Mostly girls aren’t brought up to be overconfident, chutzpah isn’t considered attractive and it takes a lot of brass to think that anyone wants to look at that puke you just slung on a canvas, but in many ways that’s exactly what it takes to make a space for yourself in the world. I learned a powerful lesson in this respect when I applied for a grant that I wasn’t at all ready to apply for, in the name of a collective that wasn’t officially formed yet, and we got it. I had to step out a few feet beyond myself to even try for something like that.

the full interview is at kutureflash

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. moya March 16, 2005

    well she doesn’t sound very confident. the thing about confidence is you don’t have to shout about yourself cos you know you are ok anyway. what women suspect about most men is that their game is all about fighting each other underneath and trying to look better than the next – cos then you have no rivals. and this happens (in my opinion) in xian circles all the time. life is not about shouting louder or ‘better’ than the next person. faking it is not truth surely?! faking it to make it for women would be to join in the boys game – many women in leadership i speak to see the game the boys are playing – they spectate, see it very clearly and decide they have no need for their self-esteem to join in. it is easier for them to talk to other women where (as usual – she says very sexistly) they just get on with the work that needs to be done very straight forwardly – ok with perhaps a bit more talking and relationality going on.
    preach over.

  2. moya March 16, 2005

    ps I do know there is a difference between shouting about yourself and raising the profile of your project so people are informed and support it better. it is important to do the latter

  3. Wes March 16, 2005

    I’m having trouble finding the whol interview on kutureflash. Would you mind sending the exact info to a technological defunct wild olde man in the US of A. Thanx!

  4. cheryl March 17, 2005

    i’m reading malcolm gladwell’s new book “Blink”. He tells a story of how there were no women playing male-dominated instruments (french horn, trombone, etc.) in orchestras until the 1950’s. It wasn’t a conscious discrimination, conductors honestly believed, from their experience, that women didn’t have the breath or stamina or strength to play these instruments in lead roles. In the late 50’s they started to do blind auditions, and were astonished to discover that a large number of women were getting the gigs for these instruments (women that the conductors had previously judged less able). In sighted auditions, the conductors couldn’t hear the quality of the music played by women because they simply didn’t believe it was possible. Gladwell’s point was that our judgement of someone’s ability is never just about their ability for a task. It’s wrapped up in all these other layers that we don’t even realise we’re judging them on.
    Confidence isn’t the only factor. Being given space to show confidence is a whole other story.
    That being said, i’m given amazing space by the church i’m part of have a quite subversive leadership role. the traditional leadership roles would be much trickier to get into. i don’t want them, luckily, but there’s still something very wrong with the system that that’s the case.

  6. cheryl March 17, 2005

    of course, Gladwell also says that the most under-represented group in leadership is short males… and without doing any research, and thinking only of the leaders i know, i think he’s probably right!

  8. rocky April 3, 2005

    I came to your site accidentially, but found it very good to read. Thanks.

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