It is up to us, the leaders, to endorse the model costume<

Fifth episode of our series of "twice as much" testimonies, which gives women to tell the ordinary sexism in business.Anne de Bagneux, director of strategy and transformation at Transdev, explains her optimistic vision of the evolution of men-female relationships in business, and calls on managers to be assuming models for the new generation.

Ordinary sexism does not stop at the company's door.On the contrary.In a corporate framework, it takes other forms, sometimes more banal or more pernicious. Pour rendre compte de cette réalité, Usbek & Rica a choisi de donner la parole aux femmes, en se concentrant dans un premier temps sur celles qui occupent des postes à forte responsabilité.

They are CEO, HRD, innovation director, strategy director.They occupy positions with strong responsibility in communication, public affairs, insurance, transport or the bank.They are forty, fifties, or more.And they all have in common to have suffered, by accessing still largely male spheres, a form of ordinary sexism.

An inevitably disturbing experience, which they choose today to share by taking the pen.Without feeling on their fate.Not in a spirit of revenge.Rather to inspire present and future generations.To remind you that in business, when you are a woman, you have to fight twice as much-and sometimes against yourself!- When we face opposite winds.And finally, to contribute, by the strength and sincerity of their testimonies, to engage men as women on the way to equality.

After Bénédicte Tilloy (Schoolab), Frédérique Delcroix (SNCF), Alexia Lefeuvre (Novotel) and Claude Nahon (Iddri, ex-EDF), it is Anne de Bagneux's turn, director of strategy and transformation at Transdev, to testify.

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Many studies describe the loneliness of the manager.But there is an individual even more alone than a leader, he is a leader!

Statistically, we are still alone in the executive committees of companies.Being a woman in a management committee is a strong signal for young women who embark on life, as for all women in your business.Within my executive committee, I take this position as a responsibility that exceeds my operational perimeter.I will be judged as director of strategy and transformation but also-and perhaps even at first-as a managers.

Even today, being a woman in a management committee is also an exercise in resilience and endurance.We must speak stronger than usual.We take your ideas, we cut you off.Your positions sometimes end up with small accomplice smiles, more often by looks of total misunderstanding.We do not always speak the same language, in any case we do not approach the subjects with the same perspective.

Sociological studies show that the minority wall is erased when it reaches 30 %.To two women, you can fight invisibility, you can rely, take turns and be heard.At 30 % women, without you need to do anything else, culture changes, it hybridizes.The temptation of sexist jokes and the habit of minimization falls.I am both very mobilized on gender equality in business, but also convinced that the resolution channels will be more fluid and faster than you think.

I am optimistic because we have finally passed the wall of the absence of its.Awareness on women-men's inequalities is spreading at an unprecedented speed in business.Often, already, it also becomes incontesting to make a sexist joke as a racist joke.I rejoice.The new generations play a beautiful score in this new music of equality.Today, most young men have seen their mother work and do not imagine with a spouse who awaits them at home.They also want to take up more space at home with their children, than their elders.Our daughters were less exposed to gender speeches and vocations than we.Their word is already more liberated than ours.

An anecdote to illustrate this evolution.Barely three years ago, during a meeting in which I participated as well as several politicians, the organizer methodically presented the five men present, and then he passed the agenda without having said a wordOn us, the only two women also present in the room that day.We looked at each other without believing it ... I tell myself that in 2020 young women faced with the same situation would have been more visible.

I am optimistic because France has implemented laws that prove their effectiveness.No need to come back to the success of the Copé-Zimmerman law.The number of women in boards of directors now approaches 40%.Would the movement have been so fast without laws?It is obvious that no.The Penicaud index on parity is an excellent lever for progression, it is now imposed on all companies of more than 50 people.I believe hard as an iron with objective, concrete, cold measurement.I believe in the publication of figures and the emulation they create, since reputation has become a fragile active in companies.

I am optimistic because I believe that soon funders, shareholders and even customers will seize parity as a topic of leading performance, as a standard of civilization and as a criterion of commitment.We already see the beginnings of this world.

But we have a lot to accomplish, in all directions: extend the quotas to the executive committees of companies, continue working on parenting to move the lines from the start of careers ... and from the first months of little girls and littleboys who will have other family models.Myself an engineer, I am amazed to see that we do not manage to attract young girls to scientific and technological sectors.And yet, we cannot let the world of tomorrow be built and code from a vision of the world almost exclusively male!

Beyond the quotas, we must develop our conception of leadership.Opinion does not have the same look at men and women leaders, criticism of Isabelle Kocher, the ex-DG of the Engie group, are blatant proof of it.Some women, in the past, have had no other choice than to comply with a male model characterized at the time by hardness and authoritarianism.These values no longer make a recipe in today's world.No more one young person wants rigid management, without vision, without creativity, without empathy.The so -called "feminine" qualities are essential everywhere to produce engagement.And fortunately these qualities are not only found in women!Above all, it is time to judge the leadership of a person at the intensity of his vision, to his ability to produce change and take the whole ship in the storm behind her.I spent several years in Asia.This stay was a revealer for me: if we hope the diversity of leadership while imposing that we all look alike, the performance will not be there.Becoming a leader is becoming the best version of yourself, on the way to a header than you.

Time plays for us.This era calls for itself more equality.It is up to us, women, to develop our charisma, to fight against this injunction to be perfect, to distance our fear of rejection.Let us dare to take a stand, let's dare to cleave, dare to displease!It's up to us to look for our own model roles by widening our horizons.When I was 30 years old, I had no model role, I did not imagine progressing to a stadium that I have long passed out.This inability to project myself was one of the arguments of my departure in Asia, but how many of us have this opportunity?

It is up to us, the leaders, to endorse the model costume, to devote time, energy and authenticity to it.Recently, I exchanged with a high school student rather frightened by my journey.She said to me: "You succeeded, you had to make sacrifices".Sacrifices, I probably made a few, but I especially remember a lot of satisfaction.I gave myself the means to stay free and to go where my desire guided me.I have never done burnt earth policy, I have never had the slightest intention to give up my family.I'm not a superwoman.

What we are, what you are, each of you, brings to the world.Let's stay ourselves, no more, but certainly no less either!

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