Women Leaders on Unsolicited Advice and Competence-Questioning Communication

The field of psychology has increasingly been making calls for psychologists to engage in advocacy as “citizen psychologists” (APA, 2020). Indeed, 2017 APA President Henderson Daniel made a call to action for engagement in volunteer efforts within professional organizations (e.g., APA and its divisions), as well as leadership within these organizations, as one primary avenue of advocacy beyond the therapy room. In a study of psychologist and psychology trainees’ advocacy behaviors, 80.6% of participants rated engagement in professional organizations as an important actionable step; however, this was one of the least endorsed behaviors in terms of advocating for underserved or minoritized populations (Forestieri et al., 2024). The authors concluded that this incongruence may be due to systemic mistrust—that is, younger cohorts may be less trusting of larger institutions and believing that they will work towards shared goals.

However, there may be some other factors to consider when looking at low engagement in professional associations. Within non-profits, 75% of workers/volunteers are women, yet only 45% secure top positions despite their eagerness to take on these roles (as cited in Renock, 2017). Women do volunteer at rates that are about on par with men or slightly higher (Providence Community Health Napa Valley, n.d.). Thus, while women do not necessarily get elected or nominated for high powered positions, yet they do tend to volunteer and provide service work. This has even been documented within APA itself. More than half of APA’s membership identify as women and that statistic mirrors the percentage of women who hold governance positions. In alignment with other professional communities, disparities are illuminated at top in APA as well. For example, less than 20% of APA’s journal editors are women (Clay, 2017). Sexism and genderism have been implicated in hiring decisions (Stamarski & Son Hing, 2015), and this can certainly can be generalized to nominations and elections. Indeed, for our own division (29), since 1967 we have had 43 male presidents and 15 female presidents (one individual served for two years). Though, a simple glance at previous volunteers for non-presidential positions illustrates a majority of women in these roles (https://societyforpsychotherapy.org/about/past-board-members/).

Competence Questioning for Women in Leadership Positions

Another deterring factor may be women’s experiences when they are placed in leadership positions or adjacent to leadership positions. In general, women leaders contend with multiple gender-based stigmatization, discrimination, and microaggressions in the workforce. This is evidenced by women typically taking a year longer than their male counterparts to achieve tenure status (Clay, 2017). Terms like mansplaining (condescending explanations from men to women about something that the woman is presumptively knowledgeable about), manologuing (giving unsolicited advice and opinions), and manterrupting (research has supported the phenomenon that men are three times as likely to interrupt a woman compared to a man) have evolved to describe women’s experiences in the work force.

This is not the first time women in APA have shared their discontent over their experiences of sexism. In 1969, women formed the Association for Women Psychologists (AWP), just 64 years after women were welcomed into APA in 1905. As a result of advocacy at the 1970 APA convention, APA Councill of Representatives voted to create a task force specifically for women in psychology to address topics like child and health care facilities, education, and employment (APA, 2006). We hope this effort is seen as an extension of all the dedication and advocacy women have done before us in APA.

We wish to focus on another term which encapsulates a related, but also distinct experience that women face—competence questioning communication assumes that: a) the woman didn’t already consider something, b) that the responsibility falls on the woman, and that c) guidance is needed for the woman. Indeed, Briggs et al. (2023) found that competence-questioning behavior was more common when women were junior or equal to the “communicator”, in the presence of others, and focused on work topics. The authors hypothesized that competence questioning may still occur for women in senior positions, but is less frequently acted on because of their higher power.

Examples of Competence Questioning for Women in Leadership Positions

A female director of a postdoctoral residency program shares that applications to the program have decreased since the pandemic. She remarks that the decline in applications is paralleling what other programs have seen. A male colleague adjacent to the program but not within it nor responsible for making decisions suggests tabling at a large national conference. The female director responds that they have consistently tabled at one national conference over the past three years without much change—and indeed, even conference attendance is also on the decline. Her tone is assertive, albeit flustered and agitated; she attempts to move the conversation back to her original intention – to share that trends are down and how this is similar to other programs. Another male colleague interjects with commentary that the female colleague was dismissive of the suggestion made by the initial male colleague. He notes that something has happened in the “process” of the discussion, indicating the female colleague has somehow “shut down” the conversation and the helpful solutions from the male colleague. The male discussant heading the conversation thanks the second male colleague for his observation, apologizes to the first male colleague for the female’s “dismissiveness”, and the conversation moves on to another topic.

In this situation, it is assumed that the female colleague: a) does not have a full understanding of the problem, b) has not examined other methods of recruitment and engagement, and c) has an attitude and tone that are inappropriate and dismissive. Conversely, it is assumed that the male colleague: a) has a full understanding of the problem, b) has solutions that the female colleague had not thought of, and c) has an attitude and tone that are entirely supportive and helpful and warrant gratitude and graciousness.

Furthermore, the male colleague who interjected and accused the female colleague of being dismissive re-centers the conversation. The female colleague’s response is indeed rooted in emotion and appropriately so. She is experiencing competence-questioning. Rather than the conversation centering on that piece of the process, the conversation is skewed towards the male colleague’s discomfort in having been shut down for his solution.

Ultimately, these assumptions result in the woman’s competence being questioned both implicitly and explicitly. The female director may be left with questions and thoughts ranging from:

• Should I have shared more context about how I’ve attempted to solve the problem? About the research I’ve done on how other programs have attempted to solve the issue?
• Was I unclear in my purpose or expectations for bringing this to the group?
• What am I missing? Is there something I’m missing?
• Why was it assumed that I was being dismissive rather than responsive? Should I have been more gracious in my response?
• Why was I called out? Why was his interruption not called out? And why was my behavior apologized for but not his?

Another example is below:

A junior female faculty member at a PsyD in Clinical Psychology program was the only faculty member who obtained the degree the students were pursuing. This faculty member expressed concerns regarding the application approval process as it was ignoring important qualities related to success outcomes of psychology trainees. Her tone is concerned and slightly anxious. Her speech is fast given previous experiences of being interrupted, so she wanted to share quickly to prevent this from occurring again on an important topic.  A senior male faculty member with the same position title as the junior faculty member, who neither has a PsyD, nor a degree in Clinical Psychology says firmly, “I don’t see this as a problem at all”. The conversation ends there.

In this situation, it is assumed that the female colleague: a) is overreacting with her concerns, b) lacks expertise in the field she obtained a doctorate, and c) does not bring valuable contributions that merit a detailed conversation. Meanwhile, it is believed that the male colleague: a) has the final say in a matter in which they are less versed related to doctoral training concerns, b) is not open to hearing concerns of the junior faculty member, and c) has an attitude and tone that commands respect, as that has been reinforced. Additionally, it should be considered how sexism and ageism intersect to further devalue the junior female faculty’s statements.

Consequently, these assumptions result in the woman’s competence being questioned by the individual and the community. The female faculty member may be left with questions and thoughts ranging from:

• Did I not make sense because I was speaking too fast?
• What I unclear about my concerns?
• Did I offend someone in bringing this issue to the discussion?
• Am I forgetting a conversation that was previously had about this concern?
• Why did my opinion not matter?
• Does no one else agree with me? Am I wrong?

Consequences of Competence Questioning for Women in Leadership Positions

Thus, there is not only the cognitive labor of responding to situations at hand, but also the mental labor of thinking about how to frame things so as not to have one’s competence questioned. As illustrated, these experiences can lead to self-doubt, questioning one’s own communication style and competence. It can instill frustration, low self-worth, helplessness, anger, fear of being misunderstood or misperceived. It also puts the woman in an impossible position – respond assertively and one might be labeled a “bitch”, ignore it and one might assume she was indeed incompetent and didn’t know. Ultimately, for those women in leadership, can impact attempts to overcompensate in response to perceived incompetence, withdrawal, or disengagement. This may lend to women consciously or unconsciously agreeing to take on more work tasks, overwork with fewer resources or compensation, respond in a subdued manner, and accept less recognition. Indeed, women leaders are in a precarious position – to be professional, firm, and non-defensive at all times and at all costs (Briggs et al., 2023). It leads to women leaders feeling silenced and receiving a loud and clear message that they are not to push back.

Academia and its abuses of power may extend to the nonprofit spheres as well. For example, Coin (2018) describes how within academia there is an agenda that is centered on suffering in order to pursue one’s passions. Women leaders may be faced with similar dilemmas – suffer to pursue advancement in one’s career and advocacy efforts or withdraw and disengage. And when women attempt to pursue advancement, they must also contend with having to explain their motives, their intentions, and to justify their actions.

Competence-questioning can also take the form of expecting perfectionism and intolerance of learning, leading to a fear of misspeaking, being unknowing, or otherwise opening themselves up to chastisement. Brown, in being interviewed by Shane Johnson on the podcast If Men Can’t Listen to… on Episode 2, stated the following:

The day before, somebody had been on the comment section of one of my other videos, and I was asking a question about virology, and someone came to the comments section and said something to the effect of don’t open your mouth until you know everything…. What is this shitty culture of never being able to be seen not knowing everything?…It pervades patriarchy and I think that it’s a part of either toxic masculinity or professionalism culture. A lot of what I’ve experience din the academic world and the professional world is having to behave like a man. I see successful women do the exact same thing to each other.”

Additional Experiences of Competence Questioning

Competence questioning may emerge in these various examples as well:

• Language use that demotes the individual (e.g., “let’s hear from this young lady”) that ultimately would never be utilized with a male colleague (referring to a licensed psychologist as “young man”).
• Input and contributions being ignored or restated from another individual (a term called “voice nonrecognition”)
• Correcting a behavior or work product differentially among genders (e.g., Suzie’s document has track changes throughout fixing grammar whereas Bob’s document has comments focused on content)
• Condescending explanation (e.g., explaining the principles of Dialectical Behavior Therapy to a DBT-certified therapist).

Ways to Combat Competence Questioning for Women in Leadership Positions

Training deficits may be one culprit for the problem at hand. For one, few psychology training programs overtly stress the importance of volunteer work and professional membership participation as direct forms of advocacy. Secondly, even when participation and membership are encouraged, supervisors may fail to mentor students on how to meaningfully engage in these organizations. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there may be serious mentorship gaps in how to appropriately prepare women, and other individuals holding minoritized and multiple identities, to navigate the political structure of these organizations in which they may contend with misogyny and sexism (amongst numerous other -phobias and -isms outside the scope of the present article).

Ross-Nash (2022), in her discussion of trauma-informed supervision, describes how administrative supervision is necessary to explore how an individual “has the space to succeed within the organization they are working in.” In other words, mentorship for women leaders needs to go beyond pushing for skills acquisition and into broader exploration of organizational policies. Thus, the following recommendations for what women leaders, and allies, can do in the face of competence-questioning should be taken within context:

1. These actions can only be effectively engaged in with support from mentors, allies, or the organization at large.
2. These require tact, skill, and practice that one might regard as necessary competencies in developing one’s professional identity through training, supervision, and mentorship

Below are suggestions for navigating competence-questioning behavior:

1. Incorporate trainings. Trainings that specifically relate to understanding one’s own biases and potential microaggressions is pivotal, as is fostering group cohesion through exploration of when and how these dynamics play out. Actively working to change the system and to create policy around addressing harmful dynamics is needed.
2. Calling it Out. Though perhaps the simplest of recommendations, this may be the hardest unless there is also support from allies. Briggs et al. (2023) found that women do not confront the individual who questions their competence and when they do, it’s with the intention to not work with the individual again. While women leaders may be able to respond with comments like, “I appreciate your input, but I’m already familiar with this” or “…but I’ve done work in this area already,” they are also inherently being mindful of being “tone policed.” As such, having an ally who can step in to say, “X is already familiar with this” or even more directly calling out the behavior, “I did not hear that X was soliciting feedback or opinions; as an expert in this area, let us turn our attention back to her” can be powerful and instrumental.
3. Disarm negative or sexist remarks. Disarming others can be done in ways that don’t necessarily “push back” but don’t necessarily take accountability in the form of self-doubt and self-criticism. Asking for clarity (“what did you mean by that?”; utilizing humor (“yes thank you, young man” with a wink and a chuckle); and calling out the pattern (“I’m hearing you repeatedly share about how alliance ruptures in the therapy relationship are important to repair which is seemingly ignorant to the fact that this is my area of expertise”) can be utilized.
4. Continue to be “you.” This requires knowing oneself deeply and having the confidence to stand one’s ground. There is power in leaning into the emotions of anger, frustration, helplessness, even confusion and showing those emotions to trusted colleagues, friends, and family members, while simultaneously guarding display of those emotions in situations where they can be misperceived.
5. Lean in and Lend Support. In alignment with being oneself, women leaders may want to seek out the support and mentorship from other women, validating that no one is alone in their experiences. Similarly, female leaders should think about offering the same mentorship and guidance to more junior colleagues offering validation and practical guidance.
6. Find allyship. it may be prudent to find allyship in men who are willing to call out behaviors and/or redirect conversations.
   1. Resources for women in higher education can be found here: https://www.wihe.com/info/resources/
7. Write a blog post. This one may be a bit tongue-in-cheek for us, but calling out the behaviors and giving name to them, while also offering constructive ways to respond as a way to mentor junior female colleagues, is an excellent avenue.
8. Continue advocacy efforts. This can extend to not only the individual level in which we support women leaders, but also on a broader and more macro level. Females in volunteer leadership positions may feel more supported when women are also in charge, try to use more participatory approaches, and are more engaged in supporting women (Clay, 2017)