How to support working mothers in leadership roles - and see huge benefits

It’s 2022 and I am about to present a new communications strategy to the Oxford Smith School’s Advisory Board – a group whose net worth runs to the many billions. I have only been back from maternity leave for a few months. Should I feel nervous? I look around the table. 

The Head of Development, who will go on to raise £12M that year, has recently returned from maternity leave. So too has the Director of Executive Education, whose team is gearing up to provide climate training to 65,000 civil servants. The eminent Board co-chair is currently on maternity leave – she has taken a day off her mum job to lead the group today. I realise I’m in good company, and don’t need to feel nervous. 

When I reflect back on this day, I feel extremely lucky to be part of the Smith School. But the culture here didn’t happen by chance. It was built deliberately, and that means it can and should serve as inspiration for change in other organisations.

What does it take to support working women in positions of power and leadership? 

Today is Mother’s Day so I am going to share some personal reflections on this question, drawing on my experience as a new mum. But I hope these can be useful for organisations supporting parents, birthing partners and carers in the broadest possible sense. 

The Oxford Smith School has a team in which the senior leadership are 60% female, the Director and COO are both women, and someone (of any gender) is always working from home with a sick child. But this scenario is unfortunately still unusual. 

Just last week, the FTSE Women Leaders Review found that only 21 of FTSE 350 companies (6%) have a female CEO. The gender pay gap and pension gap also become more prevalent for women age 30 and up – and this is thought to reflect the 'motherhood pay penalty' as well as other factors such as our society’s persistent and systemic unequal distribution of caring responsibilities. 

And, it was only in 2019 that UK women age 40-49 started to make more money than those 30-39. Just let that sink in. Women were making less money the older they got. 

All this is despite the fact that growing evidence shows investing in female leadership is crucial to climate action, clean energy and crisis mitigation. Not to mention all forms of workplace effectiveness. 

There seems to be a ‘danger zone’ for women in their 30s, where parenthood or other caring responsibilities can lead to reducing working hours, stepping back from leadership roles, and making less money. 

Supporting mothers during this time has the potential for outsized impact, because it sets up their career trajectory (and earning potential) for the rest of their lives. 
 

• Paid maternity leave
  The University of Oxford offers the equivalent of six months full pay for maternity leave. This was double what was on offer at my previous job, and factored in to my decision to move. There is a lot of evidence that paid maternity leave is a good thing. And offering it means organisations can attract and retain the best candidates. 

  Paid paternity leave is also hugely beneficial, but still under appreciated. Working at Meta, my husband got four months fully paid parental leave, enabling him to take care of me as well as the baby – and setting up more equal caring patterns overall. However, this is unusually generous in the UK, which lags far behind the rest of Europe when it comes to minimum paternity leave at just two weeks at ‘statutory’ pay. Many new Dads don’t take it at all for financial reasons, which can impact the bond they have with their child. 

  Studies show that countries that offer at least six weeks of paternity leave have smaller gender wage gaps. Paid paternity leave also helps normalise men taking time off for caring responsibilities, which helps reduce stigma about this for everyone. But there is much more to be done in this regard.

• Adequate maternity coverage
  At Oxford, it’s standard practice to advertise maternity posts. But this isn’t always the case. And if a job function goes unfulfilled, its impact will slow, stall and backslide – leaving the returning mother scrambling just to claw back what was lost. I was shocked to learn that some organisations don’t factor maternity cover into their budgets.  

  Supporting the return to work is also important. At the Smith School, I was offered (free) leadership coaching which gave me a safe space to sort through insecurities and rise to the challenge of returning to a high-profile role while also getting the dreaded ‘sick child’ call from nursery what felt like every two seconds. A staggered return to work, advice from mentors, and support from colleagues went a long way as well.  

• Promotions and projects 
  Right before I went on maternity leave, one of my good friends was told she was no longer eligible for a promotion after announcing her pregnancy. Recent research shows that 52% of all mothers have faced discrimination when pregnant, on maternity or when they returned. But this doesn’t have to be the norm! 

  Halfway through my maternity leave I got a promotion, and my team expanded by two direct reports. Rather than being forgotten or passed over, my manager deliberately reached out and involved me in her strategic thinking. It was kind, it was supportive and it was a great example of her award-winning ‘kindness in leadership’ approach. It was also an active retention strategy that was good for business. And, perhaps most importantly, it made me feel confident and valued at a time when I often felt anything but. 

• Flexibility
  Flexible working helps brilliant women stay in the workforce, and that has outsized benefits for organisations. 

  Here’s an example. A former colleague tragically lost her husband to terminal illness, and was left with her own grief as well as that of her two teenagers. In the pre-Covid-19 pandemic years when this was still extremely unusual, the Smith School offered her fully flexible working. I rarely saw her in the office, and lots of her work occurred outside of core hours. She also raised £60 million in research funding. 

  Post-Covid, the University of Oxford is trialing a progressive approach to flexible working. Under the ‘news ways of working’, you can decide, along with your manager and team, a working pattern (including remote working) that works for you. For me, this meant I could continue full-time, based in London. If this hadn’t been possible, I simply wouldn’t have been able to keep my role (or that new promotion).  

• Role models and mentoring 
  As I highlighted at the beginning of this article, having senior leadership in an organisation provide authentic and ‘no regrets’ role modelling helps create a culture where everyone feels empowered to balance work and life. 

  In the Smith School, the COO models a no-nonsense approach to flexible working. When your child is sick, you simply need to take care of them and be trusted to make up the work later. If you need extra air flow and filtration in meetings to make sure your child stays healthy, the School accommodates you. Asking for these types of things is therefore normalised, at all levels of the organisation. 

  Men are also be crucial role models in this space. By talking about their children or other caring responsibilities more openly, and actively taking time for those responsibilities, they help destigmatise and dismantle the harmful stereotype that only women have to juggle their work and home life. 

• Mental health support
  Around 1 in 5 women will experience a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety in the early years of parenthood – and in general this time is often difficult for parents. Early diagnosis and treatment can make a huge difference, but mental health support is often extremely difficult or expensive to access. 

  The Smith School has a free, bespoke mental health support system (MyMynd) that includes one-to-one counselling, and the University of Oxford also provides mental health and counselling services. This kind of support is great for everyone, and vital to supporting mothers. 

  If you or someone you know is struggling, you can find information and resources on postpartum depression and anxiety at these links:
  - NHS Postpartum Depression  
  - Mind Postpartum Anxiety 
  - NHS urgent mental health helpline 

The task of supporting women and mothers in leadership positions is far from over. 

The cost of childcare in the UK, for example, further contributes to gender pay gaps. Practices to help support women and equality in the workplace are not consistently applied, and can take a very long time to be adopted.

Even in an organisation like Oxford University, that in many ways provides fantastic support, the experience of female academics is often very difficult and parenthood comes with career challenges different to those of professional services staff.

Further, we know that women of colour experience a larger pay gap, fewer promotions, and more redundancies, as well as extremely worrying maternal health outcomes – black women, for example, are four times more likely to die in childbirth. This needs to be addressed, urgently, and organisations must normalise providing both broad and bespoke support to those who need it most. 

This Mother’s Day I’m grateful to the Smith School for supporting my journey as a working mum, and I hope this article will inspire those still coming to the table.