Conversation with Mita Mallick

Please state your name, title, and briefly share your role in forging gender parity.

Mita Mallick
Wall Street Journal and USA Today Best Selling Author
Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Transform Your Workplace 

I am on a mission to fix what’s broken in our workplaces. We need to ask ourselves why more women aren’t in C-Suite and Executive Leadership roles and take responsibility for changing that. 

What has been the best piece of advice you’ve received from a mentor (male or female)?

Focus on your superpower and what makes you stand out.

What impact has sponsorship had on your career?

In Reimagine Inclusion, I talk about how I have been over-mentored and under-sponsored in my career. Sponsors have been instrumental in my career; they have gotten my name on a list for a job I didn’t even know existed. Advocated for me to get paid more, introduced me to the CEO, got me appointed to company-wide task force. Career sponsors have advocated for me behind closed doors and been a game changer in my career.

How do you define parity?

We will achieve parity when we no longer use different standards to measure women and men when it comes to leadership.

In Reimagine Inclusion, I include the following:

Ask yourself if you have ever been in a conversation where a woman’s performance was being judged using the following language.

• Is she being judgmental or honest?
• Is she being abrasive or direct?
• Is she taking up too much space or expressing her opinion?
• Is she too quiet or being an active listener?
• Is she angry or disagreeing?
• Is she impulsive or decisive?
  And more…

Next time this happens, try reframing the question and ask if we would use the same language when evaluating men.

What do you think is one of biggest challenges today to achieve parity?

The biases we hold on what roles we expect women to play in society vs men. Some of these biases we aren’t even aware that we have; our stereotypes of women and men that come from media and also from our own cultural biases and how we were raised. We need to interrupt those biases in the workplace in the everyday decisions we make that impact careers and the overall potential of our company.

What are three words you try to live by and why?

Just Be Kind. It’s what I keep telling my kids. In a world where everything seems more polarized and divided, choose kindness. You have no idea what someone else might be going through. So Just Be Kind.

What do you wish people understood about DEI or gender parity efforts?

It’s not only the job of HR or the Chief Diversity Officer or the CEO to fix DEI efforts or achieve gender parity efforts. It will take all of us to make this change. As Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”