Behind a Successful Woman is a ... Woman/Man?

the blunt truth about Women building their careers

(Warning: this article may contain controversial points-of-views …)

Friends, we have all heard of the phrase:

“Behind every successful man is a woman.”

This phrase means many things to different people. From my personal experience, this means that the woman plays a role in supporting a man’s career by clearing all of his distractions in life so he can focus on his career. Sometimes it also means, that the woman finds opportunities through her network and circle of influence for her man, not herself.

This is the case of my own parents, where my mom brought many career and business opportunities to my dad through her connections at her church in Costa Rica. In addition, she also took care of everything for him (finance/accounting, the entire household responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, hosting home parties, etc.) What’s most amazing about this is the fact that she has a Chemical Engineering degree and she gave up her career to support my dad. I’m sure you have seen many such examples.

I’m not trying to generalize this, but throughout my career, I have also observed many cases where male executives have a stay-at-home wife so they only need to focus on their work.

What does this mean for women who have the aspiration to grow their careers, climb corporate ladders or try to make it as a successful entrepreneur?

Who is the person that can support a successful Woman, one who can clear all of the obstacles ahead of her in this competitive race of professional career?

Though the above picture might not be true for all women, it is still true for many of us, especially because there’s an inherent pressure from society for women to assume the role of taking care of the household chores and children.

So, here’s my controversial point of view.

“Behind every successful woman, there has to be a man or a woman supporting her.”

What this means to me is that there has to be someone that plays that supporting role that many men had for the last few centuries. This often is the spouse or a family member that’s there for the woman to have a competitive career. Without it, the woman will be weighed down and will likely have to compromise her career potential.

Yes, there are cases of Super Women that can do it all; however, it is exhausting, and just not sustainable long term.

Some people asked me “Linda, how do you have it all? A thriving career and a family?” Well, the truth is that not only am I a lucky woman to have partners do MORE than their fair share of household responsibilities, but I also had my mother who took care of my babies when they were born for many months.

It is not just me, I have also observed that many female executives have either a stay-at-home spouse or a spouse that took a back seat in his/her career.

You can also throw money at the problem, by hiring a full-time nanny, or better yet, a wet nurse + nanny + housekeeper + home cook (I knew a female exec that had many “helpers” because neither spouses were willing to take the back seat.)

To sum this up:

1) Find someone who can support you and clear your path if you want to compete in the career race. Have this discussion with your spouse and gain his/her support. Find ways to make it work.

2) If you are a man and your female spouse has the ambition, the abilities, and the tenacity, support her as much as you can, take up more than your fair share of the household responsibilities, and help clear her path. This is so crucial to close the gender gap.

3) Hire help and delegate as much as you can: cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving kids around, kids tutoring, etc.

And sometimes, it is ok if the house is dirty for a few days, and it is ok if you just feed the kids boxed mac-n-cheese, and it is ok if you don’t check the kid’s homework or organized the best birthday party on the block. Give yourself permission to not have to be a perfect mom/spouse/daughter, because you chose to spend time on your career and fulfill your professional ambitions.

And it is also ok to slow down your career because you choose to play the wife/mom role for a while.

Whatever you choose to do, never feel guilty, I repeat, never feel guilty for any of your choices.

Good luck everyone!