Women in leadership address barriers, balance, mentorship

Key takeaways:

• CHEST leadership aims to clear a path to increasing women in leadership positions.
• Choosing effective mentors and being a good mentor can help to get more women into leadership roles.

HONOLULU — For the first time in history, the presidents of the leading national and international pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine organizations are currently women.

In honor of this fact, and in order to help increase the number of women in additional leadership positions, CHEST hosted a panel at its annual meeting of four influential women in which they discussed barriers to leadership positions for women; work-life balance, especially for working mothers; and mentorship.

“While we have had increasing numbers applying to pulmonary and critical care, when you look at the higher levels of leadership and fellows of the American Thoracic Society and American Academy of Chest Physicians, those numbers drop off,” Aneesa Das, MD, FCCP, scientific program committee chair for CHEST 2023, professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and the panel’s moderator, told Healio. “The more we understand that we have sponsorship at higher levels of leadership, and we see people who look like us in leadership, it helps us to be inspired to continue to reach those goals.”

The panel also included CHEST President Doreen J. Addrizzo-Harris, MD, FCCP; ATS President M. Patricia Rivera, MD; and European Respiratory Society President Monika Gappa, MD.

“We all have this imposter syndrome thinking that if we take time to care for ourselves or we can’t do it all, we must not be good enough,” Das told Healio. “But we recognize that we all feel this way and it’s part of the natural path to success. I hope people leave this session feeling positive, knowing we are going in all the right directions and that there’s hope and change for good.”

Addressing barriers to leadership

Each of the panel’s participants described situations that could have or did impede their respective roads to leadership positions as women in medicine.

The past few decades have seen exponential change for women in the field, but some of the same barriers still exist in the workplace that held women back in the 1970s and 1980s.

“For me, being a woman was the biggest barrier,” said Rivera, who also serves as professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary diseases and critical care medicine at University of Rochester Medical Center.

Although the biases against women have lessened, they are still in effect in many places. Rivera described that when she asked for a higher salary, she was told it was unnecessary due to her husband’s work and his salary. She was also told there was no maternity leave or places to nurse when she was beginning her career. She subsequently fought for these things to change in her own workplace.

“I always advocated for equality in positions and salaries. It took a lot of effort and time to make sure those barriers were made better for the people behind us,” she said.

For Gappa, professor of pediatrics and director of the Children's Hospital at Evangelisches Krankenhaus Düsseldorf, living and working in Germany added to the problems, as she was told not to apply for senior positions and to focus on her family.

“It was always sort of a double challenge, or maybe triple challenge. Many of you will have experienced the same,” she said. “But I think it's worth it to really pursue your own career.”

Traditionally women are much less likely to ask for promotions or apply for positions they are qualified for compared with men, which can lead to a lack of women in leadership positions.

Harris, professor in the department of medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, ran a task force on promotion for women and equity at her institution and described how many men would seek promotions after 3 years, whereas women had 10 or more years at their positions without seeking higher positions.

“Why was that? We didn’t feel like we deserved to be promoted,” she said. “So, empowering the women, especially in our organization, is very important. There are going to be those barriers, but there are ways to handle it.”

Work-life balance

Raising children and finding a balance between professional and personal lives can be exceptionally difficult for women, who often have societal expectations to take care of domestic chores as well as their careers, the panelists said.

Addressing how to balance this has a different answer for every individual.

“It’s different for all of us, right? Our personal lives and our professional lives are very different. It isn’t a cookie cutter,” Rivera said. “I learned very early on that you can have it all, you just cannot have it at the same time. And it’s OK to wait.”

For Das, who reduced her working hours at her institution in order to manage her other professional responsibilities as well as care for her children, described why that decision was important to her.

“There’s no wrong way,” she said. “It’s not a sacrifice, it’s a choice. I’m choosing where to put my priorities. It might be a slower trajectory, but I chose that because it was important to me.”

Additionally, you may need to ask for help, according to the panelists, all of whom had varying degrees of assistance in their personal lives in order to excel in their careers. This ranged from utilizing daycares or family members to live-in nannies or au pairs.

“It’s OK to say, ‘I need help.’ We’re so afraid sometimes to ask for help. We are so programmed by our society and biologically to think that we have to do it all and, in reality, we don’t,” Rivera said.

Mentorship

A large part of succeeding in your own career is seeking effective mentors and then, in turn, helping other women coming up by being a positive mentor.

“As you move up, I think the important thing is to get mentors, not only from within your institution, but it’s very important to network and have mentors who are outside, so that you can really get somebody’s opinion or a different perspective,” Harris said.

Mentorship and networking allow women to share their own experiences and advocate for what is best for all women in the field.

Gappa described how building networks of fellow clinicians can assist in elevating women to positions in leadership.

“These networks have been existing for men for ages. It’s very important to have these so that you know other women who are interested in working in the field and working in leadership positions,” she said.

“I think we all have individual stories that we can tell. ... It’s what we do with our stories that are really the interesting part, the bridges that we can build to get us to the other end,” Rivera added. “I encourage all of you to reach out to individuals who you think could help you and foster you.”

Becoming a good mentor requires not only talking to mentees about how to excel in leadership, but also showing them. Being an example in leading in your profession shows those coming up behind you how it can be done, according to Gappa.

“You want to be that person so that others want to be just like you. Be a team player, be honest and loyal, and people will want you to be on their team,” Harris said.