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“You’re a Mom. So What?” New Research Reframes Motherhood as a Leadership Advantage
University of Surrey professor Emily Ma studies the skills women develop through motherhood. At a panel at Surrey, five of us shared how those skills show up at work and what employers still miss.
When Professor Emily Ma went back to work after the birth of her first child, people kept asking how she was coping. Compared with life at home with a newborn, she told them, going to work felt like “a leisure activity.”
She was only half joking. Ma has spent several years studying what working mothers learn as they juggle two sets of expectations. The “ideal worker” is always available. The “ideal mother” is always there for her children. The women in Ma’s research said motherhood sharpened skills employers look for in leaders, even as mothers still face questions about how committed they are to their careers.
Last week, I was one of five working mothers on a panel at the University of Surrey called Leading Through Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Can Develop Leadership Skills, part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. Ma shared her research, and we talked about how motherhood had changed the way we work, what we wanted from our careers and what others assumed about us.
What working mothers say they learn
Ma, a professor of hospitality and event management at Surrey, began this research in the U.S. with colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They looked at how working mothers coped with competing expectations at work and at home. The women described getting better at deciding what needed their attention first and solving problems as they came up. They also talked about becoming more patient, more tolerant and more confident in their own judgment.
“It is a lot of work, I have to emphasize again,” Ma said. “But it is a very rewarding process as well.”
After moving to the UK, Ma wanted to explore how working mothers’ experiences might differ in another country and across roles. Her team interviewed women leaders in hospitality and tourism. I introduced her to several of the women she spoke with.
“For moms, leadership development isn’t limited to retreats or on-the-job training. It’s happening 24/7,” one interviewee said. “The skills a leader needs day to day, we already have,” said another. “But becoming a mother forces you to use them in practice every single day.”
Ma argues that employers could do a better job of retaining and advancing women if they recognized the skills women develop during maternity leave and career breaks. She saw how much that shift in perspective could matter when her babysitter was preparing for job interviews and worried about a long gap on her CV. Ma reminded her she hadn’t been “sitting there doing nothing” and helped her see that raising children had given her skills she could talk about. She went into the interview more confident and got the job.
What I saw differently at Loews
When I had my daughter in 2004, I was head of PR and communications at Loews Hotels. Becoming a mother gave me a firsthand understanding of what families traveling with children needed from a hotel.
I ended up leading a partnership with Fisher-Price that brought toys and gear to Loews hotels. My daughter even modeled for the Loews Loves Kids photo shoots. Becoming a parent changed what I noticed about the guest experience, and that helped me spot an opportunity for the business.
“But I thought you had two little kids”
Dr. Shuhui Wang, a senior lecturer in finance at Surrey Business School, moderated the discussion. I was on the panel with organizational culture expert Helen Beedham, child and adolescent counselor Joy Jiang, University of Surrey senior administrator Elizabeth Jones and Dr. Marion Karl, who heads Surrey Hospitality and Tourism Management.
When Karl’s new leadership role was announced, several colleagues congratulated her and then added, “But I thought you had two little kids.”
“I felt like, oh my god, this is the wrong thing to do,” she said. It took other mothers with older children to help her shake that doubt. She leaves at 2:30 p.m. on pickup days and works in the evening. She’s open about how she makes it work.
For Jones, having a son made her more ambitious. “I think my ambition and confidence absolutely skyrocketed since I had my son,” she said. She wanted to be a role model for him, and that helped push her to go for a promotion. “I thought, well, I’m doing all this already. Why not get the recognition for it?”
After I became a mother, I was less eager to go to networking drinks at 6 p.m. on a Thursday. I still wanted to do interesting work and take on bigger projects. Yes, you’re a mom. So what? You still have your career and your own hopes and dreams.
Imagine if Karl’s colleagues had asked what she was looking forward to doing in her new role. A manager can ask that question before offering a promotion, too, and follow it up by asking what support would help her take it on.
In part two, I’ll share the panel’s advice on how to tell whether an employer means it when they say they’re flexible, and when to ask about a four-day week.
