Restless talks with my female friends in leadership positions in their 40's always came down to one key question: motherhood? They all wished someone had told them earlier that freezing eggs could have been a perfect option to save their future plans when ready to swap boardrooms for nurseries.
Egg freezing is a form of preserving female fertility, allowing women to safeguard their younger, healthier eggs until they are ready to start a family.
However, when does a woman leader believe she is ready to start a family? In many cases, it's when she's in her forties after she has gained professional success, sensing it was time for a change. How can we help women in leadership become both CEO's and super happy mothers? Shall we measure success in a different way when it comes to both women and men, encouraging them to believe that power and money and professional achievements are only part of success as we know it?
Great leaders set examples for many, so we shall not let our female leaders believe they failed for putting their personal lives before their professional ones. Where are the mentors who can incorporate motherhood as a milestone in women's roadmaps with the same weight as achieving degrees and positions in the business world? I do believe that leadership courses shall tackle this issue and involve men in the process and make it equally important for motherhood preparation plans to be introduced into the curriculum of leadership studies.
It should never come as a surprise when one blows 40 candles on a birthday cake that the choice of becoming a mother is nearly blown away.
I strongly believe that getting men involved in the work-life discussion is important. After all, the issue impacts us all.
There are thousands of articles touching upon the topic of how to balance motherhood and leadership, but where are the articles for those who are not even there yet, advising them to balance their lives by making those first baby steps?
The more we talk about it, the more positive business socio-inputs we can generate. Thus, my friend, who is the head of a successful pharmaceutical conglomerate, would not have to give up on her process of becoming a mother and would have help to give birth to not only wise thoughts, but healthy children at her age. And then, and only then, will I feel comfortable calling a business culture a real culture.
Just think about it!