7 Ways Women Can Empower Each Other Towards Success in the Workplace

As young girls, our best friends are often other girls. We play in the sandbox together, race each other across the monkey bars, and braid each other’s hair. But as we start maturing into young women, we are subtly taught to compete with each other, usually to get attention.

As adults, we start wishing we could look like that woman on the cover of Vogue, be as intellectual as that woman who quotes authors and news articles, or be as popular and desirable as that supermodel we follow on Instagram. This turns to envy and then to competition, and instead of building each other up, we start tearing each other down.

But what if we celebrated each other and saw the magic that can happen when women come together, when they love and support each other? Not sure how you can start empowering other women? We’ll show you a few ways you can amp other women up, fix their crowns when they’re down, and band together to form a badass gang of empowered and powerful women.

You Don’t Need Pom Poms to Be a Cheerleader for Other Women

Contrary to what we learned growing up, when one woman wins, we all win. Instead of feeling threatened or worried that we won’t ever have our successes because another woman got there first, we can celebrate her achievements. Why? Because it shows women just getting started that achieving what seems to be unachievable is indeed possible. They have a support system so they can try things they may have been hesitant to do before.

But we can also applaud our strengths when there’s no obvious win to celebrate. It can be easy to forget about how talented we are, so let’s all remind each other of our skills, and often. Instead of pulling each other down, we can help women climb. Forbes suggests taking this a step further by helping others see our accomplishments and giving us the recognition we deserve. And then share that with leadership, colleagues, and anyone else in a position of power.

Forbes also suggests that when women act as cheerleaders for each other and aid in getting recognition, we also help combat imposter syndrome (questioning your ability to do your job). Truly, when one woman wins, we all win.

Mentor Her to the Top

Most people we know have a mentor. Whether they’re a health coach, a former boss who is helping us take the next step in our career, or a friend who’s showing us how to achieve a happier and fuller life, a lot of us have someone guiding us. But when it comes to women, it can be incredibly impactful to have a female mentor. We can show the pathway to success based on our journeys, giving our mentees a leg up. We already know that women can do incredible things, but when we have a leg up, we’re even more unstoppable.

Empower Ambition Women suggests sharing opportunities with mentees to help with promotions. Female executives are powerful, and we have the opportunity to seek out women who would benefit greatly from working in a management or executive role. Keep your eyes open and share, but also advocate to leadership why a particular woman you’re mentoring would be a great fit. Connect her with the right people.

Forbes sums it up beautifully: “Empower your female coworkers by introducing them to the people who can help them access the resources and knowledge they need to grow and improve—these are the people who will inspire them to keep going when they are faced with the sadly likely scenario of being undervalued, undermined or overlooked.”

Another facet of mentorship is building up our mentees’ confidence. Take this mentorship opportunity to build her confidence, encourage her to raise her hand for new opportunities, and to ask for support with training programs and conferences that could hone her skills. You’ve already “made it,” so you want to show her it’s possible for her too and mentor her on how she can get there.

Instead of Backstabbing, Have Each Others’ Backs

Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception,” and she couldn’t have been more right. Though we have made immense progress in getting more women in boardrooms and involved in big decisions, we still need a voice in those meetings.

When we are the only woman in a meeting, it can be intimidating to speak up. And even when we’re among other women in the room, there’s still a chance that men will dominate the meeting. If you find yourself in a meeting with another woman (or even a few), be a megaphone for them. Back each other up when you share views and be vocal in your support—when you don’t, be respectful and give her the time and space to continue speaking.

Be Approachable Enough for Women to Feel Comfortable Coming to You

There’s something incredible about a woman in power, but for less experienced women, there’s also something intimidating about a successful woman. While this should be celebrated, we also need to be conscious of it to make sure we are approachable to other women.

Offer to be a mentor or host lunch and learns with female colleagues. Focus on showing women that they can come to you to learn and grow. We are role models for these women, so we need to act accordingly.

Put Vulnerabilities on Full Display

As strong, successful women, we already know that we can be intimidating to others, which is why it’s crucial to share our struggles and vulnerabilities. Forbes highlights why this is so important—compared to men, there are so few visible successful women. This makes us think that the rare few that we do see are almost magical and that their successes are unattainable for us.

Tell us your story, failures included. When we share our mistakes, we help other women avoid those mistakes, but most importantly, we share that we are not magical beings, but just like the women who look up to us. We’re just a bit further along on our journeys. We can show women that we can all make mistakes, fail at things, and still end up on top!

Talk About Money

Employees across the globe have been told to be hush-hush about salaries for years, mostly to protect employers. But this hurts women more than men because it prevents us from making any progress with the gender pay gap. Share your salary with women interviewing for similar roles and discuss how you successfully negotiated higher pay or better benefits. When we’re transparent about salaries, we arm future generations of women with what they need to demand fair pay and compensation that reflects their value.

Build an Empire Together

We’ve all heard of building our professional networks, but as women, we can create an empire by connecting groups of intelligent, powerful women. Seek out encouraging, strong, and motivated women who want to help other women. The more, the better. And don’t just limit yourself to women at work. We can build our networks with colleagues, family, friends, mentors, and even strangers. It doesn’t matter where we are in our careers or our age—the only thing that matters is a dedication to empowering our fellow women.

Let’s do this!

Ladies! Are you ready? Let’s start empowering each other to be even better women and professionals because when we come together, magic can happen. We can mentor each other, connect one another to great opportunities, help each other grow, fight together for pay equality, and give us all a voice in our meetings and the world.