Advita Patel is the Managing Director of CommsRebel, an internal communication and employee experience consultancy based in Manchester, U.K. She's also the co-founder of A Leader Like Me, a global membership programme which helps underrepresented women of colour succeed further in their career. She is a chartered PR practitioner, a Board Director and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. In 2020 she was named on the Northern Asian Top 100 powerlist and on the top 101 list for Inspiring Workplaces as one of the global influencers for employee experience.
In an interview with Asian Voice, Advita spoke about women in leadership roles, imposter syndrome and the art of effective communication.
What is your current assessment of women in leadership roles, especially women of colour?
It's not brilliant. There are pockets of good examples, but overall, we're still not seeing any significant traction, especially with women of colour in leadership roles. It's one of the reasons why my co-founder and I launched A Leader Like Me.
What are the kind of challenges women face when they want to make a way to hold a position of power?
Sadly, there are quite a few, but one of the main ones I often hear about is the lack of flexibility in roles that limits opportunities. Times have changed, and organisations need to understand that the traditional work model no longer exists. I think it's one of the reasons why so many women decide to work for themselves (you can find out more about how to succeed as a freelancer at an event I'm speaking at on 20 April http://bit.ly/36Fh9Iq)
What would your advice be to women who have the ambition and perseverance to grab leadership roles, especially when they compete with men?
Don't allow your inner-critic stop you from moving forward, put your hand up for opportunities and don't wait to be asked. Women tend to wait until they hit 100% of the job description or until someone tells them that they are good enough to apply for promotions, most men don't.
Please give some tips for effective communication for our women readers in the professional space.
I always think about the five C's when I want to be effective in communications:
Clarity: Be clear in what you're asking for, avoid jargon and complex language.
Concise: My favourite quote is: Be brief, be bold and be gone.
Concreteness: Make sure that you have data and important facts to back up your message
Correctness: Be factual and accurate with the information that you're sharing.
Confidence: Be confident with the work that you're doing.
With rising MeToo stories around the globe, how do you think women working independently, or in a corporate job can protect themselves and also be able to report any kind of sensitive issue?
If you work for an organisation, you need to report it immediately, especially if you've told the person they are behaving inappropriately and they haven't stopped. If you work independently, I suggest you join a professional membership as they often have support lines in place. However, ultimately no one should ever be made to feel uncomfortable, so if this is happening and you don't feel safe, you need to report it via the police. I also recommend you check out the great work by https://www.culture-shift.co.uk/.
How can women cope with imposter syndrome both in personal and professional spaces?
I want to make clear that there's a difference between feeling like an imposter and not feeling confident. Imposter syndrome is when you feel like a fraud and you think that one day you're going to be 'found out'. High achievers normally experience this.
There are various reasons for feeling this way, some of it from childhood, and sometimes it can happen due to the environments that we work in. For women and women of colour, we can often experience it because we feel like we don't belong in certain spaces. This can trigger some fraudulent feelings because we don't see people who look like us and we question how we 'made it' when so many others haven't.
To help you believe in your worth and not feel like a fraud, I always recommend people to have a 'hype' or an achievements folder on their phone. Fill this folder with great feedback you've received, things that bring you strength, photos and so on. When you feel you are not good enough or don't belong, look through it as it will help.
