The hidden cost for women of being ‘easy’ to work with

Heather (a pseudonym) was a senior leader at her firm, one level below the C-suite. And the C-suite had some really big personalities. Heather was excellent at reading those personalities. She understood them, anticipated what they needed and often served as the go-between among these higher-ups, playing emotional regulator for them independently and as a group. These roles made her indispensable, but they were not actually part of her job and they took up a lot of her time. The whole team functioned much better because she was doing these things. But it was never part of her performance review and never put toward her promotion, and in the end, it kept her stuck without credit for the work. I see versions of this all the time in my work with women leaders—women who are “easy to work with” because they are doing a second, usually unrecognized and uncompensated, job. Another classic example was Lucy (also a pseudonym), the only woman in leadership at her startup, who essentially became the workplace therapist for the male CEO. Every time there was a problem, whether interpersonal, product or logistical, she would get called in. While she liked helping and solving these problems, an…