How to say “so long, superwoman,” and really thrive

Superintendent Teresa Hill admits she is “a recovering superwoman from a long line of superwomen.” At the upcoming Leadhership Network for Women conference, Hill will encourage female K12 leaders to join her on that journey.

“Among women, there’s a cultural expectation that if you’re going to be in leadership, not only do you need to be good at everything, but you need to be willing to sacrifice your own personal well-being for the sake of being good at everything, doing everything yourself and supporting everyone,” says Hill, who is superintendent of South Holland School District 151 near Chicago.

The goal of her presentation, “So Long Superwoman! A Retirement Celebration,” is to identify the negatives of this ideal, which many female leaders have taken on themselves and had imposed on them by others. She describes the solution as giving up superpowers, the habit of saying “yes” to everything.

“There is a generalized expectation that a female leader is going to be more pliable, more focused on making others happy, and more reticent to set clear boundaries,” she observes. “At the same time, there are still stereotypes that are held against you.”

For example, others have doubted Hill’s knowledge of district finance, facilities management and school safety. But as a woman, people have expected her to be better at handling personal issues and emotions.

“There can be some higher expectations, as well as some lower expectations, just based on you being a female,” she notes.

She also wants women not to suffer in silence or feel as if they must possess an unlimited store of resilience. They must care for themselves in the same way they support family members, friends and colleagues.

“If someone came to us saying that they were overwhelmed, that they were extremely fatigued, that they were concerned about their health, we would give them clear and detailed and appropriate advice about the kind of rest they needed to get, how they needed to prioritize their families,” she continues. “But then we don’t apply that same advice to ourselves.”

Hill also cautions women from “superwoman enforcement,” or expecting perfection from other educators. “When you hear about somebody suffering a particular situation, you think, ‘Well, I would never do that,’ or you need to be strong or you need to deal with this in a certain way,” she adds. “There are times when we inadvertently enforce that ideal, not just on ourselves, but on others, and that is something that we need to learn how not to do.”

Moving away from the superwoman ideal is a process colleagues are likely to respect boundaries once they are set.

“To move our organizations forward, we all have to be in a place where we know what our limits are, we know what things we need to share and we know when we need to be able to say ‘no,'” she concludes.

The Leadhership Network for Women conference takes place Sept. 24-26 in Washington, D.C. 

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