Women in Leadership Ep. 5 | Women in STEM: Support & Inclusion

Welcome to the Women in Leadership podcast series from MIT Professional Education, a space dedicated to inspiring and supporting women in leadership roles. In this podcast, we speak with experts who share their insights and advice on how to navigate common challenges faced by women in leadership, as well as how to foster the development of aspiring professionals. Join us as we explore the world of women in leadership in this exciting and necessary conversation. UNESCO reports that worldwide, women make up a mere 35% of science, technology, engineering, and math students, and this figure decreases to 28% of those undertaking PhDs.

An unsurprising outcome of these study rates is that only 24% of the global STEM workforce is comprised of women, and there is a glaring lack of female leaders in these fields. In this episode of Women in Leadership, MIT professor Anna Frevel discusses her leadership journey as a woman in STEM and the importance of collaborative initiatives such as mentoring younger students. Join us as she shares her observations on how to be a supportive ally and responsibly guide the decision-making process of mentees.

we need to create more opportunities um i think visibility just is sort of backpacking onto that um if we have opportunity that are available to women and where women encouraged to participate in them that will automatically bring visibility one very simple although somewhat sad example is when women were still stuck to the kitchen with the children, that was no outside visibility at all. Now everyone is in the workplace. I'm in my office here today. That is already to some degree visibility.

But this is only the first step. It's not the last. It was obviously a very important part for society to get women into the workplace, but it really doesn't end there. so I think we need to have the men really do some supporting here and with that I mean you know ask women what do you need what do you want how can I help in many cases I think opportunities for visibility for women get lost because someone made an assumption they assumed oh she's too busy um maybe she doesn't like this you know things like that it's like how about letting her decide if she likes to do that maybe she doesn't have experience but maybe she wants the challenge maybe she doesn't right but who am i to to decide this ahead of time so So I think asking questions to your colleagues, to your women colleagues, is really, really important.

And I think it really opens doors. So I think that's what other people can do. in addition, of course, to more technical and structural things, such as asking people if they want to participate in a proposal or a new project, or if you can nominate your women colleague for, I don't know, employee of the month, some awards, whatever is sort of of value and has recognition value in your workplace. is women can do that to each other.

So it can be very uplifting to support each other and to collaborate even on this sort of more career framework topics, right, that elevate others' careers. It doesn't need to be a man nominating a woman necessarily. I've nominated many of my students, most of them women, for various prizes. That actually looks good on my CV too, because when my students do well, that always comes back to me.

Yeah, so there's all of that that definitely needs to be taken full advantage of. But always the underlying current is like, am I assuming, oh, she doesn't need to be nominated, right? It's like, ask, would you like to be nominated? It's not that hard.

And another thing of course is I think that women themselves need to step up more rigorously as well There are always two sides to the coin We have the internet now. We have social media. Put yourself out there. If you have a business, advertise it.

Do it well and then go for it. No shame. Just go for it. That's what this is for.

It's a noise-making machine, and if you don't participate, nobody will hear you. So you can create many opportunities for visibility as well. And often, in my experience, once you kind of get something started, there will be others who will be quite happy to support you. And that, of course, creates a sort of visibility snowball effect that can be quite wonderful.

and often it's women who will help amplify your voice and you can do that to others and then many good things are happening. The increased presence of women in the general workplace is only the first step toward improving outcomes for women in STEM. To truly revolutionize these fields, promising female students need consistent encouragement and the right kind of support from peers of all genders. Here, Professor Froebel underlines how being a mentor is not just about giving advice, but more importantly, actively listening to students in a way that helps them discover and design their own professional trajectories.

Yeah, being a mentor or having mentorship, offering mentorship is very, very important. I enjoy that a lot. This is how my leadership class came about because people have always asked me, How did you become a professor at MIT? And I've been telling pieces of that story to many people.

And I wanted to kind of put all the things together to give the full slate, the full array of advice to folks. And it is really good fun to unpack a lot of things. but uh what i enjoy most is that even in the classroom but also of course outside of it um people come to me and i just listen to to what their story is um sometimes people don't even or they feel like they don't even know what their story is and so then we try to poke around a little bit and see like okay what what kind of aspects of story are here and how can we spin that that wheel forward right because if you think of your career in terms of a story it's it's much easier to to start thinking about the beginning the middle and the end right you because you always want to know how the story ends um so there's that the the story and you really need to know your own story in your head right but then what prevents that in many cases people come to me and they have a story in their head, but they're afraid of it in some way.

They're afraid of the roadblocks, of the detours, things that other people could do to them or not do for them. And so I listen to all of that. And in most cases, I can debunk most of it. and um then people look at me as like oh yeah this wasn't such a big problem it's just thank you for reframing the issue or you know or just tell them this is not something you need to worry about or you know worry about this in three and a half years but not now and so that that puts people's mind at ease um just to be able to talk with someone who can sort of slice and dice it a little bit and say like, okay, yeah, these are all good points.

You know, yes, we need to keep an eye on that, but you know, not on that. But how about you think about this as well? You know, these would be elements that, for example, you know, drive a career forward, as in like for students to do a research project, to gain research experience, but also to gain connections and a person who can write you a letter of recommendation, right? And that is what you need for your next step in your career.

So sometimes it sort of the zigzag routes that especially young people cannot really foretell And so by simply telling them how it works they can then focus on the story and less on the worries that come along with it So careers don't just happen. Not even in the best of cases, there's always an element of strategic planning behind it. And I really enjoy working with people on these strategic plans. and again this is just what I said it's alleviating the worries or at least putting some kind of label on them like now later never and then adding the pieces that drive the story forward you know making specific choices about what to do and what not to do or to do later so that that story can fully unfold right in front of them.

Behind any successful career, there is always an element of strategic planning. Formal mentoring or leadership programs can help students with the development of essential skills they may not have otherwise considered. One such program is LEAPS, MIT's Leadership and Professional Strategies and Skills training course. As the co-founder, Professor Fraiball discusses her vision for LEAPS, as well as factors such as ground rules that are critical to its success.

I hope that our LEAPS leadership program will expand further. Normally, we teach to grad students and postdocs at MIT, but we also by now have a mini version for our graduating undergrads before they apply to grad school. And we've even had a pilot to expand it to junior faculty. So there's definitely a huge demand and more gaining momentum.

And I think it scales actually really well, because we have a lot of peer aspects in it, in a sense that people talk to each other in a guided fashion about not just the problems, we've done that for decades, and it didn't get us anywhere, but about solutions. and many times creative solutions that are perhaps a little bit out of the box, but you do you and what works, works. So I'm a big fan of thinking creatively to solve people's career hurdles and other worries that they have with regards to advancing their career.

Now, we have to be fair here. And of course, acknowledge that the system or we live in a system, a university is just a subset of that, but that is not fair and equal to all its citizens. And that means that we have to emphasize certain aspects of career development more to some groups than to others. But I think here we come to a really important issue.

If we ever want to change something and really move the needle, we got to get the majority group on board. And we need them to fight for the change and not have the minority groups do all the work. In career development, everyone follows their own path. So everyone will have different needs and different solutions.

but we need to collaborate in larger groups to go about solving inequities. And so what I really enjoy in the LEAPS program is that we have about 50, 50 men and women in there. That just happens to be the case. And every year I, at some point in the class, it just kind of gets me and I'm almost going a little rant really making the point that if the men think that women are treated poorly here and there they have to step up there's no way around it if you don't do anything you're part of the problem and so I make that very clear that I have expectations of men to support women otherwise why are they sitting in my class right the entry fee the unspoken entry fee is that they have to become self aware enough to realize that they have to step up when they seeing an inequity happening right in front of them And I have many conversations with guys afterwards about this, and it does click for quite a few of them.

And we, to some degree, practice this in class as well, and I enjoy that a lot. so it takes everyone to to make a change and sometimes we just have to say it and we have to ask people to help so i think that's um really important and um how can we exchange and extend really this to to others i think that every university really should have a program like that where we help people strategize and build their careers and through that create better work environments and you know make the the thick walls of the system just a little bit thinner and hopefully eventually they'll break down and every company should have access to this as well I have personally participated in many leadership workshops.

In many cases, I found them a little bit too generic. That's always a problem. That's why I tell many, many anecdotes from my research life and, you know, life as a collaborator and advisor in the classroom, just to make it super tangible and relatable to everyone sitting in there, right? If they can't relate, then I can't function as a role model.

That's, I think, the central part to being a role model that people feel like they can relate to me. It's like, oh, yeah, I've had that problem. Oh, and this is how she solved it, right? That may not be my way, but I know there is at least one way because I've heard about it.

and I wish for all universities and basically all companies all places in this world to have access to tailored programs that really fit the needs of the people who are taking it because again as a teacher my teachings are only as good as they can be heard and integrated by the participants. Otherwise, I might as well be talking to a wall. That's not going to talk back either. And so I think there's a lot of room for improvement, not just to have generic leadership workshops, but to really work together to create opportunities for people to learn about a new way of problem solving that is related to their careers, to their own well-being, to finding balance in life with their friends, with their co-workers at work that we desperately need.

And that is going to make a lot of things better for a lot of people. MIT's LEAPS program now expands to undergraduates and junior faculty members, providing a space for collaboration, mutual understanding and creative problem solving. Hopefully, an increasing number of institutions will follow suit in creating similar programs across the globe. As Professor Frevel and other leadership experts have attested in this podcast, the career development of traditionally underrepresented groups must be actively encouraged if we, as a society, ever hope to reap the benefits of equitable progress.

Thank you for listening to our Women in Leadership podcast series from MIT Professional Education. We hope this episode has offered some useful insight and helped inspire you to become a catalyst for positive change and equity within your organization. Remember, leadership is about having the courage to put yourself forward, the drive to succeed, and the passion to make a difference. Find out more about our Women in Leadership course on our MIT Professional Education website in the Spotify description of this episode.