12 February, 2024
#47 Portrait from a male ally for women in finance: Michal Paprocki
Why did you decide to join Wo.Men in Finance steerco and to become a male ally – active member?
I did decide to join Wo.Men in Finance, because I would like to see more women in tech while today I still have an issue with my own management team, not having any women in it yet. I want this to change. I am ready to try new approaches.
I consider everyone getting equal chances as essential. No matter what your gender, origin, religion or walk of life is. I understand that, in a male dominated tech world, it is harder for women to speak up, to ask for a raise or even to accept the challenge of promotion.
Male role models can anticipate this fear, encourage everyone in the team to share their views, proactively discuss promotion with women in their teams.
Why do you think male allies / inclusive male role-models are needed? Especially at C-level ?
To create the necessary climate of psychological safety, we all need to act with the right mix of courage and humility, to be bold expressing ourselves and setting vision without being too dominating. Conflict is part of the team dynamics, but it should never hurt, or be felt as personal.
I am convinced that a safe environment is also better for productivity and creativity.
When you feel safe, you will dare to tell your boss when you do not understand a mission, or if you think there is something wrong with your team’s goal. If you don’t, you will not communicate about your experience, and the collective intelligence of your team will suffer from this lack of exchange.
At the beginning of my career, in Poland, due to pressure on execution and excellence, to show strength, to achieve… there was a lot of “pretending” : pretending that the mission was OK, that you can handle all challenges, that we did believe in the strategy, that you do not need help.
A recent situation where you needed to act as an ally / inclusive leader
Simple story. A typical large meeting taking much time when people, very often in good faith, are talking too much and enforce their perspective. And I knew that a female colleague of mine wanted to contribute but did not “dare to interfere”. This is when cutting some more extravert profile and giving voice to her really helped. Herself and the quality of conversation.
What remains difficult for you?
I have been surprised and shocked by the results of the Wo.Men in Finance survey, at how many women have experienced sexual harassment or sexism in their career. I had not expected this, and this is a disgrace. We clearly need to work to avoid such situations.
If you had as a man, worked in a more inclusive company at th beginning of your career, what would have been different for you ?
I would have been able to be more honest, about how I felt, about my work and about my needs.
What kind of behaviour do you still meet at work that you would like to see changed?
I still find that people are afraid to speak up. This is also probably a cultural issue. Being from Poland and having worked in a Dutch environment for quite some time, I now experience the culture in Belgium to be way less “direct”.
One thing you usually don’t tell about gender equality, but that is maybe more personal.
While I managed large IT problems for 20 years now, it is often my wife who finds savvy ways to deal with tech in our personal life. 😉
