Don’t Shy Away from Self-Advocacy

Self-advocacy — standing up for yourself, ensuring your needs are met and making your voice heard — requires courage. It can be easier to do in some situations than others.

“Studies show there are three principal reasons for not advocating for oneself,” said Shami Anand, founder of Power Your Impact, LLC. Moderating the recent “Empower Your Path: Self-Advocacy for Women in Supply Management” webinar presented by the Women’s Supply Management Community, she said they are (1) shyness or anxiety, (2) fear of retribution and (3) fear of being labeled as aggressive.

The Women’s Supply Management Community, which has more than 1,000 members, women and men, is a partnership between Institute for Supply Management^® (ISM^®) and Power Your Impact.

There are many situations where self-advocacy can make a difference; during the webinar, three female supply management executives talked about their experiences and offered insights and recommendations.

Setting Yourself Up as Your Best Advocate

When advocating for yourself, develop a toolkit just as you would in a job, said Simone Ray, former director of supplier diversity at Hilton Supply Management. For her, the first tool was working with an executive coach.

“I felt like that was important to help me to move forward,” she said. The executive coach also has helped her learn how to approach senior leadership “to ask them to do what I needed them to do.”

The second tool: a mentor. “I needed someone who could give me guidance (and) share something related to the position,” Ray said. The third? A sponsor, who could represent her and relay her needs when she was unavailable to be there. “I made sure to get with the right people to have those conversations,” she said.

The other tools in Ray’s kit were tactical, like books about being a leader, and technical, like ChatGPT. She used generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help her craft discussion. “I use that quite a bit to soften my approach, to soften my language or to make it collaborative,” she said. “(I always try to) make something collaborative so that everyone thinks it’s their idea.”

Being Self-Aware

Anand noted that it is important to be confident when advocating for yourself. “If you’re not confident as you go to make your ask, others will see right through that,” she said. Working with a coach, role-playing and other tools can be helpful to gain that confidence, she said.

Anand asked panelist Tanya Santiago, vice president of sourcing at Visa, about the role self-awareness play in self-advocacy and how to balance self-promotion while staying authentic to your values and your leadership style.

Santiago answered that self-awareness didn’t come naturally to her. “It came through coaching from great past managers, and friendships and peer groups sharing live feedback and commentary,” she said. “I’m grateful for those who spoke up and cared enough to provide me with that.”

People could be unwittingly off-putting or showcasing a personality that’s not necessarily who they are, she said. “So, it’s important that people speak up and help you learn,” she said. “I learned as I matured, not only in my professional career, but also in personal relationships, (that) once you understand certain cues or triggers, your self-awareness will then enable you to be able to talk through your ask what you want to achieve.”

Being authentic to yourself, Santiago said, will drive your leadership style.

Reducing the ‘Mental Load’

“I heard the term mental load a year or two ago and it really resonated with me,” said the third panelist, Jennifer Lada, senior director, procurement at Grail. Mental load typically refers to the invisible cognitive and emotional effort involved in managing work and home life. “And I find women just get so much mental load from so many different directions all the time.”

One example: Your son opens the refrigerator and asks where the milk is without looking for it. You, the mom, wonder where the milk is, and so get up from across the room to find it. “It’s one of those moments that puts mental load on you more,” Lada said.

In the workplace, she has found that women are a bit more likely than men to volunteer for such tasks as taking notes in a meeting or cleaning up the room afterwards — the work equivalent of mental load.

She recommends that before volunteering or getting up to get the milk, sit back for a few moments to see if someone else comes through (or your son finds the milk hidden in the back.)

(Photo credit: Getty Images/4x6)