Gender Communication Patterns

"Back then, my boss told me to charm the president of the client, that's what it'll take to finally close the deal." I shared this during one of our recent private circle coaching sessions, and no one was surprised... Instead: 👉"Mine told me to wear something softer to the board meeting. Less intimidating." 👉"I was advised to laugh more around the CEO. He likes women who don't take themselves too seriously." 👉"HR suggested I 'build rapport' with the CFO outside of work. Maybe golf, polo, drinks." Charm him. Soften yourself. Laugh more. Build rapport. 4 different companies. 4 different industries. The same playbook. 💔 Here's what tolerance actually costs: Every "that's just what it takes" you absorb doesn't just disappear. It relocates. Into your silence in the next meeting. Into the promotion you don't ask for. Into the boundary you stop enforcing because you've learned it won't be respected anyway. Tolerance isn't patience. It's training yourself to shrink. And the opposite of tolerance isn't confrontation, It's recognition! When Jen realized 4 other women had been told to "charm" their way to promotion, she stopped questioning her own judgment. When Rachel discovered 3 other executives had been told the same man was "old school, just work around him" she stopped wondering if she was being difficult. When Amy learned every woman in the room had been told to "document but not escalate", she stopped believing HR was neutral. 👁️The system only works if you think you're the only one. It needs you to think your experience is unique. That you're the problem. That if you were just more strategic, more patient, more charming, it would be different. But when 5 senior women sit in a room & compare notes, something shifts. "Is this normal?" becomes "This is the pattern." 🔥 The women who hold power in these systems share three things: 1️⃣ They stopped believing their experience was isolated. The moment you realize your "difficult" boss has been "difficult" to every woman before you, you stop personalizing & start strategizing. 2️⃣ They found other women at their level. Not mentors. Not sponsors. Peers. Women navigating the same rooms, the same politics, the same unwritten rules. Women who don't need context because they're living it. 3️⃣ They turned shared experience into collective leverage. One woman saying "this happened" is an accusation. Five women with documented patterns is a business risk. The math changes. This is why we built ㊙️ The Private Circle ㊙️. A room where 5 senior executive women turn individual experiences into collective intelligence. Where we don't just share what happened, we build what happens next! $4,998. 3 months. 5 senior executive women who are done being isolated by design. Next cohort starts Feb 2026. 💬 DM me if you're ready to stop being the only one who knows. 👊 Because the system isn't afraid of one woman speaking up. It's afraid of 5 women realizing they have the same story.

I once got feedback that I was “intimidating.” I took it to heart. I spent the next few years trying to be as approachable, warm, and agreeable as I could be. I assumed this was a character flaw that I needed to fix. But years later, I realized something: this feedback wasn’t about me. It was about the system - one that judges women more harshly and polices their personalities more than their performance. And the numbers back this up. 👇🏽 🎯 Women are 7x more likely to receive negative personality-based feedback than men. 🎯 56% of women have been called "unlikeable" in reviews (vs. 16% of men). 🎯 Harvard Business Review found that 76% of “aggressive” labels in one company’s reviews were given to women (vs. 24% to men). This Is the Leadership Double Bind: Speak up? You’re “too aggressive.” Stay quiet? You “lack confidence.” Show ambition? You’re “unlikeable.” Ask for a promotion? You’re “too pushy.” And here’s the kicker - it’s worst for high-performing women. This is why women... ↳  Hesitate to showcase ambition. ↳  Are reluctant to ask for opportunities. ↳  Are leaving workplaces faster than others. So, what can we do? Here are 3 ways we can start changing this narrative today: ✅ Check your language. Is the feedback about personality or performance? If you wouldn’t give the same critique to a man, please reconsider. ✅ Challenge vague feedback. “You need to be more confident” isn’t actionable. Women deserve the same clear, growth-oriented feedback as men. ✅ Support women’s ambition. If certain leadership traits (ex. being assertive) are seen as strengths in men, they should be seen as strengths in women too. Have you ever received unfair feedback? What’s one piece of feedback you’ve had to unlearn? 👇🏽 ♻️ Please share to help end unfair feedback. 🔔 Follow Bhavna Toor (She/Her) for more insights on conscious leadership. Source: Textio 'Language Bias in Feedback' Study, 2023 & 2024 #EndUnFairFeedback #IWD2025

More ‘Masculine Energy’ you say? Hmmm....this same energy that men are taught to brandish, unapologetically and with pride, becomes a weapon turned inward when a woman dares to wield it. The workplace, built on structures that celebrate dominance, decisiveness, and control, claims to value these traits universally, but is that true for women? Research tells us, over and over, that women who embody “masculine energy” are seen as competent but cold, ambitious but abrasive, successful but unlikable. They are punished for the same qualities that elevate their male counterparts. What Zuckerberg calls for, a celebration of aggression, sits comfortably in the mouths of men who have always been allowed to speak it. For women, aggression is an offense to an unspoken contract: you may be present, but you must not be too much. Assertive women are consistently penalized in evaluations of likability and influence. We know this, and yet the narrative persists that to succeed, women must channel this masculine energy. But success in these terms comes at a cost. It is to exist as a contradiction, a body both defiant and disciplined, always apologizing for taking up space. https://lnkd.in/gUbw9rtR

“Be more assertive” is the most misleading advice women get: Not because it’s wrong. Because it’s incomplete. I see this pattern constantly in coaching. A woman is told she needs to be more assertive. She challenges an idea in a meeting. She pushes back directly. And then she gets feedback like this: “He doesn’t like being challenged. He prefers I not do it in the meeting.” So she adapts. – She doesn’t say no. – She doesn’t say a big yes either. – She says, “Let me go think on it.” Not because she lacks confidence. Because she’s learned where the penalty lives. Another client put it even more plainly: “Before, I would have jumped in and said something with passion. This time, I stopped myself. I pulled back and delivered it with warmth.” That’s not a personality issue. That’s not imposter syndrome. That’s pattern recognition. Women learn quickly that the same behaviors are read differently. So they start managing reactions instead of just sharing ideas. From the outside, it can look like a confidence gap. From the inside, it’s strategic restraint. The women who actually succeed long-term don’t become less assertive. They shift their style to read the audience. One client told me she started going into meetings with a simple intention: “Be clear and warm. These are executive presence opportunities.” She didn’t get quieter. She got more deliberate. Clear and warm. Direct and human. That’s the difference most advice misses. Women don’t need louder scripts. They need strategies that account for reality. The framework in the graphic explains why this happens. The harder question is what to do once you see it. – How do you stay influential without shrinking? – How do you be direct without triggering backlash? – How do you step off the likability trap entirely? I go deep on that in this week’s podcast episode on the likability trap. Not theory. Practical moves women actually use to lead without paying unnecessary social tax. If this post hits close to home, listen to that episode next. It’s the part most advice skips. Link is in the comments. 👇 🔔 And if you want more leadership thinking grounded in how rooms really work, follow me, Jill Avey.

Confidence is praised until it becomes inconvenient. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve spoken to who were told to be more confident. They took the feedback seriously. They started speaking up. Taking space and owning their accomplishments out loud. But the moment their confidence made someone uncomfortable, the tone of the feedback changed. Now they were “too direct.” “Too full of themselves.” “Too much.” I have heard this myself a few times throughout my career when I made that shift. What’s confusing and exhausting is how invisible the line is. You’re expected to be confident… but not arrogant. Assertive… but not abrasive. Vocal… but not dominating. Ambitious… but only if it doesn’t disrupt anything. Where is the middle ground and where is the line between “not enough” and “too much”? I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on this one; I am sure it hits home with many of you. I've heard stories from women at all levels, from individual contributors to senior leaders, who felt like their confidence had to be carefully managed, softened, or scaled depending on the room they were in. It begs the question: → Is confidence only safe once you’ve earned a certain title? → Do we actually want confident voices or just convenient ones? → And how many women are holding back right now, not because they lack confidence, but because they’re tired of being penalized for it? This isn’t about blaming individuals. It’s about recognizing that the environment often sends mixed messages and those messages shape how women show up at work. Confidence shouldn’t be a trap. It should be something that’s welcomed, encouraged, and respected even when it challenges the status quo. #confidence #leadership #womenatwork #businesswomen

“No, I’m speaking.” She had to say it nine times just to finish her sentence. I saw this clip, and it stayed with me. Not because of who was “right” or “wrong.” But because of how many times she had to repeat herself just to be heard. Nine. Times. This is what thousands of women face in the corporate world every single day: → Women are interrupted 33% more often than men, and 46% more often in mixed-gender groups. → In meetings, men hold the floor 75% of the time, even when women are the majority. At my last organization, this was the #1 issue women brought to my attention - how often they were interrupted or spoken over, no matter their role or level. Watching her say “I’m speaking” brought me back to all the times I had to stand my ground. Knowing the labels would follow: “abrasive,” “intimidating.” And I know I’m not alone. Every woman has felt that moment, the battle just to finish a thought. The comments were telling too: one even said her mic should have been turned off. That’s how the system responds to bold women. It doesn’t just ignore them; it silences them. And silencing women has real consequences. When voices are shut out, so are decisions, opportunities, and influence. Leadership isn’t about being the loudest in the room. It’s about making space for every voice to be heard, especially the ones that challenge your own. For women navigating this, a few strategies I’ve seen work: → Hold your ground. Calmly restate, “I’d like to finish my thought,” until space is given. → Use allies: ask a trusted colleague to redirect the floor back to you if interrupted. → Open with a key point so your voice is anchored in the discussion. → Support & amplify other women’s ideas so they’re not dismissed. To every woman reading this: Keep speaking. Even if you have to say it nine times. 💬 Have you ever had to say “I’m speaking” just to be heard? I’d love to know how you handled it. 💌 Click on the link in the comments to join my newsletter

IF SPEAKING UP COSTS YOU CREDIBILITY, YOU STOP TALKING. McKinsey just put data to something women always understood without a chart. As women move up, they don’t feel more empowered to speak. They feel less safe. Less safe to disagree. Less safe to take risks. Less safe to make mistakes out loud. Not because confidence disappeared. Because experience showed them the cost. Let’s be very clear about what the data is pointing to: Women aren’t quieter because they lack a voice. They’re quieter because they’re paying attention. They’ve learned that: + their mistakes linger longer + their dissent gets labeled “difficult” + their risk taking is scrutinized instead of celebrated So silence becomes strategy. Not weakness. Not insecurity. A rational response to an uneven system. Here’s the leadership blind spot no one wants to own: When women don’t feel safe taking risks, you don’t get innovation. When women don’t feel safe disagreeing, you don’t get truth. When women stop speaking up, you don’t lose noise, you lose insight. Psychological safety isn’t a perk. And it sure as hell isn’t gender neutral if the consequences aren’t. Fair, equitable psychological safety is the entry fee for honest leadership. Anything less is just asking women to be brave in a system that punishes them for it.

Women are punished for being competent when they aren't compliant. Research shows that when women assert boundaries or authority, they are: • rated as less likable • seen as less hireable • considered less promotable Meanwhile, agreeable women are praised as “great team players”. Especially when they are doing more labor for less credit. So the workplace trains women: Be capable but not commanding. Be confident but not firm. Lead but don’t disrupt. Contribute but don’t confront. This is the double bind: If you comply, you are liked but stalled. If you lead, you are respected in theory and punished in practice. That tension you feel in your chest before speaking? That softening of your voice you didn’t choose? That urge to explain, smooth, pre-apologize? Your body learned the cost of visibility long before your mind could name it. And until workplaces stop profiting off of our extraction, women will keep being asked to choose between: being liked or being sovereign. The good news? Once you can spot the bind, you can stop contorting yourself inside it. That’s where the real power begins.

When a man speaks up, he’s confident. When a woman of color speaks up, she’s “difficult.” In tech, it’s not enough for women to do the work. We have to work twice as hard just to be seen. We’re told to “find our voice” and are then punished for using it. We’re called bossy when we lead. Rude when we disagree. Ambitious when we ask for a raise (like that’s a bad thing). Meanwhile, our male counterparts? They’re visionaries. Go-getters. Leaders. Breaking through the noise as a woman in tech isn’t just about skill. It’s about navigating bias with the precision of a chess master while still trying to win the game, and it’s exhausting. To my sisters in the industry: Your voice is powerful. Your ambition is valid. Your seat at the table isn’t a favor… it’s something you worked hard for and earned. And to the companies reading this: Stop telling us to “lean in” while moving the chair. Start recognizing strong leadership regardless of what voice it comes from.