This article is written by Lucy Ellis, Senior Communications Advisor, Department of National Defence, Canada. This article is one of the finalists in Apolitical’s 2020 women in government writing competition.

A few months ago, I experienced a peculiar phenomenon: I personally identified with a senior leader at work.

What struck me, as I was filled with excitement, was that I had never felt this way in six and a half years as a public servant.

There are senior leaders who I respect tremendously for their intellect, their ethics and their vision. There have also been senior leaders with whom I was frustrated for lacking in one or all of those categories.

But there was something different about having a coffee and taco-loving, meme-slinging, sarcastic, successful and tremendously experienced woman in charge that got me in a different way. I could see myself in her. I could see my future in her — my aspirations to do what I love, and do it well, and have a positive impact on my department, as well as the public service as a whole.

Seeing her was an affirmation that I could keep being 100% authentically myself, and achieve my professional goals because of that, and not despite it.

A part of me already knew this. I have embraced my identity at work, and have used it to my advantage in the past. However, I have never been able to banish the lingering fear that I will be judged and taken less seriously because of who I am.

Sticking out like a sore thumb

I started my career in an environment where the median age was 40 and the vast majority of people in the building were military officers and men.

I am the office millennial. Therefore, I was trusted to manage the Canadian Joint Operations Command social media presence when I was 22 and freshly bridged into the public service. It went great; all of our key performance indicators skyrocketed because the account sounded like an actual human.

We need leaders who are collaborative, and who can motivate people to perform at their best because they feel inspired to do so, not because they fear negative repercussions

I am bubbly, warm, and effusive — with a bit of a potty mouth to boot — which made my presentations a lot more engaging than dry PowerPoints, so I was invited back to conferences to speak. I was also invited to give other presentations by people who were in those audiences. I realised my passion for guest-lecturing, and have been provided more opportunities to pursue that and share my knowledge.

I am unabashedly feminist, and therefore my opinions have been sought for documents relating to gender issues and sexual harassment. It was so profoundly meaningful for me to be able to help shape our messaging on those issues and become the gender focal point on my team.

I smile as a default expression, and I have daily, sporadic, high pitched — and if we’re being honest, quite cute — hiccups. These things disarm people. They make me approachable. I absolutely refuse to be embarrassed by them. I’ll stare someone dead in the eyes, daring them to comment. I meep. Deal with it.

Too soft to lead?

I am also a weeper. I feel my feelings deeply. I could not sit there, stoic, when Corporal Nathan Cirillo was killed at the National War Memorial and my team was responsible for answering media queries about it.

I could not dispassionately write a speech about fallen Canadian Armed Forces members in Afghanistan, or a tragic helicopter crash that claimed six lives, or documents about gut-wrenching conditions in long-term care facilities. I cried in front of people and in private. My work was better for it. It was more empathetic.

So many of my traits are the exact opposite of the stereotypical, masculine version of leadership.

I’m too young. Too casual. Too mild-mannered until suddenly I’m too abrasive. Too cute to be taken seriously. Too emotional to think logically or critically. Too female. (Can we take a collective moment and talk about the shiver that goes up your spine when men refer to women as females?)

There are enough obstacles for women; we don’t need to put them up against ourselves

Let’s be honest here. Unfeeling, top-down, rigid leadership isn’t effective. The public service needs leaders with emotional intelligence. We need leaders who are collaborative, and who can motivate people to perform at their best because they feel inspired to do so, not because they fear negative repercussions.

I truly believe that we are on the cusp of changing our dynamics and building a better public service that is respectful, collaborative, effective and inclusive. I also firmly believe that all of those qualities are mutually reinforcing.

When we talk about structural issues that prevent women’s leadership, we often think about harassment, the effects of maternity leave on career progression, and the disproportionate expectations for family care and home management. We think about numbers of women, and how to get more of them. But I think we need to have serious discussions about the kinds of traits that we prioritise in performance evaluation, and the blind spots that occur when unconscious bias exists in supposed meritocracy.

It’s hard not to internalise the unstated assumptions about what makes a good leader, and it’s harder still to fight the urge to replicate the kinds of leadership that you see being rewarded at higher levels.

It’s past time to unlearn the negative associations that we have with our own identities.

I think we start with embracing the parts of ourselves that some people might perceive as weaknesses, but we know to be strengths. And I think that we start with supporting one another as we go about this journey. There are enough obstacles for women; we don’t need to put them up against ourselves. — Lucy Ellis

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