EP78: Lessons On Inclusive Leadership From a Naval Aviator

Interview with Professor David Smith / Naval Aviator, Gender Rights Expert

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

A Naval Academy graduate, David is an associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School where he focuses on inclusive leadership and gender in the workplace. His life in academia started after his stint as a Naval aviator, flying combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. How did he come to his research? He saw his wife, a fellow Naval Academy graduate, struggle far more than he did, despite being just as well educated and trained. Learn how to be a more inclusive leader.

---

Get our free newsletter covering all things fatherhood delivered straight to your inbox: https://thecompanyofdads.com/thedad/

Transcript

00;00;05;19 - 00;00;25;15
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange, and sublime aspects of being a lead dad in a world where men we're the go to parent aren't always accepted at work among their friends or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Simon. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the Company of Dads.

00;00;25;19 - 00;00;46;10
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead dad of the week. We have a community both online and in person. We have a new resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The dad to sign up today at the company dads.com backslash The Dad. Today, my guest is David Smith, a Naval Academy graduate.

00;00;46;10 - 00;01;07;00
Paul Sullivan
David is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. His focus is on inclusive leadership and gender in the workplace. He's a co author of two books on the topic. Good guys. How Men can be better Allies for women in the workplace. And Athena Rising how and why men should mentor women. But before his life in academia started.

00;01;07;05 - 00;01;19;15
Paul Sullivan
He was a naval aviator. Top gun stuff, combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. I can't wait to see where this conversation goes. David Smith, welcome to the Company Dads podcast.

00;01;19;18 - 00;01;23;21
David Smith
Great to be here with everybody. Thanks for having me join.

00;01;23;24 - 00;01;29;00
Paul Sullivan
I got to ask you first what was your what was your callsign? What was your Naval Aviator callsign?

00;01;29;03 - 00;01;50;22
David Smith
So, you know, it's interesting. We think of naval aviation as being this homogenous group, but we do have a lot of actually diversity amongst the communities. And I flew in the P-3 community. And, you know, cosines were not, as I would say, you know, standardize in terms of everybody having one. So I didn't necessarily have one.

00;01;50;25 - 00;01;56;26
David Smith
It wasn't like, when you think about tactical aviation on, on the aircraft carrier.

00;01;56;28 - 00;01;57;16
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;01;57;19 - 00;02;06;08
David Smith
Every all those squadrons, everybody has a callsign that's part of their culture. A little bit different for for those of us who were not part of that.

00;02;06;11 - 00;02;11;15
Paul Sullivan
So I can just call you a maverick, then we can just dispense with that. I'll just call you Maverick from now.

00;02;11;21 - 00;02;17;06
David Smith
Professor Maverick. It sounds like. Sounds fun.

00;02;17;09 - 00;02;32;14
Paul Sullivan
We obviously want to get into, you know, your research, which falls squarely into what we're doing at the company. Dad's. But talk about, you know, what was the naval Academy like in the 1980s as it relates to your your focus today on gender and leadership?

00;02;32;16 - 00;02;56;17
David Smith
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. The 80s were a time when, again, the early years of, gender integration. The first class of women entered the Naval Academy in 1976, graduated in 1980. I was a 1987 grad. So we were a few years into that. But still the percentage of women was pretty low. So less than 10%, of our overall class was women.

00;02;56;19 - 00;03;22;13
David Smith
Very different experience, coming out of your traditional, I think, public school systems. I went to high school, finished high school in state of Maryland, and certainly we were at least 5050, you know, in terms of our most of our classes. But I think a lot of I look back at a lot of the kind of upper in classes in terms of like AP classes and things like that, that I took tend to be more women in those classes.

00;03;22;13 - 00;03;48;27
David Smith
And that was kind of my, my perspective and my what I was used to. And seeing you get to the Naval Academy, then suddenly less than 10% women, in any class that you have there, and certainly in the in the company areas where we lived. So a very different experience. And also the fact that at the time, the Navy still, had laws and rules from Congress that that prevented women from serving completely and equally in the same way that we did as men.

00;03;48;27 - 00;04;09;22
David Smith
So, for example, when we were there, women could not serve and combatants, combatants, ships, aircraft, submarines, Marines, direct ground combat, all those things were not available to women. So there certainly was not an equal playing field when it came to that. And it led to, I think, a lot of perceptions that that women were not able to serve in the same way.

00;04;09;22 - 00;04;36;15
David Smith
And, and because of that, they were not, as, again, not seen as equals. And in the eyes of a lot of our peers and were treated that way. So there was a lot of outright discrimination back then, which was again, kind of a shock to me to see these, the really brilliant, amazing leaders, that were equivalent to us, if not better than us and many, the men in many cases, being treated that way.

00;04;36;18 - 00;04;41;14
David Smith
But, it was certainly an eye opener for me walking into that, that experience.

00;04;41;16 - 00;05;01;17
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, a lot of friends who went to the Naval Academy. I've been fortunate enough to address the cadets, up at West Point when my first book came out, my first book was all about pressure. And one of the things that always, impressed me about, the armed services is the ability to adapt and the ability to focus on what, needs to be done.

00;05;01;22 - 00;05;23;10
Paul Sullivan
There's this ethos, obviously, of of shared sacrifice. If you're going into combat, you have to protect the people that you with. So, you know, in your career as a as a naval aviator, you know, flying some combat missions. How did you see things begin to, evolve as it related to, women's roles in, in the Navy?

00;05;23;13 - 00;05;48;05
David Smith
I think the biggest change was my my. So my first squadron, it was all men, because the 1993 was when the combat exclusion law changed and allowed women to, to serve in combat and ships in the Navy as well as combat aircraft. And so that's when we started integrating women into the squadrons. From my perspective, where I started experiencing that and it was a big shift, and I also was.

00;05;48;08 - 00;06;09;08
David Smith
So I saw that in, you know, one of the first squadrons to integrate women, was on the first aircraft carrier, the USS Eisenhower, that integrated women. And so I got a front row seat to a lot, seeing a lot of how that was done. I think it was interesting, you know, probably no surprise to to your listeners that the military provides lots of rules and regulations, of course, around everything.

00;06;09;08 - 00;06;39;07
David Smith
And certainly gender integration was no different when it came to that about kind of creating boundaries and and the rules, that of how we were going to to do things. But that's about as far as it went. And what never really happened. And to this day, I think we're still struggling in the military largely to to really begin to shift this, this changes to think about how does it change the culture, how does it change the everyday way that we we're we work together in interpersonal relationship that we have in the workplace.

00;06;39;10 - 00;06;58;16
David Smith
Those are a part of it. As you said, I think the relationships that we build with our colleagues and our peers in the military are critical to the mission, to getting the job done, having that trust, having each other's back, being there, seeing each other as equals and and really there to sacrifice and work with each other in that way.

00;06;58;18 - 00;07;14;05
David Smith
So we never really addressed that about what we're going to be, some of the challenges in ways that we needed to change the maybe some of the culture in the workplace and the way that we were doing things, to make it better and to begin to question the way that we were, had always kind of looked at things.

00;07;14;05 - 00;07;28;22
David Smith
This is the way it's always been done. And there's of course, you know, in the, in the military, in the army, in the Navy, of course, they have lots of tradition, in the way things have always been done. And so any time we we rubbed up against a little bit of that tradition, that was always a challenge.

00;07;28;24 - 00;07;47;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, but what about for you? You personally. I mean, as your naval career progresses, as, progressed as an aviator, you would have, you know, many options for when you wanted to get out. If you wanted to get out, you could easily become a commercial pilot. You could have become a, private pilot. You chose to go, the academic route.

00;07;47;19 - 00;08;04;29
Paul Sullivan
But I'm going to guess that, you know, most passions come from, personal experience. So was there something, along there or something with, with your own two kids that that shifted that, you know what? There's been an amazing career, but I'm going to, you know, I really want to follow my passion for sociology. I really want to look into gender roles.

00;08;04;29 - 00;08;07;07
Paul Sullivan
Well, how did that come about?

00;08;07;10 - 00;08;29;25
David Smith
And a lot of it started, as you said, with personal experience. And, and so, you know, full disclosure, my son, my wife, my partner is is also a Naval Academy grad, classmate was in 1987 as well. And as we were entering in the early days of our careers, of course, we had a lot of conversations about how things were going and what we were experiencing at work.

00;08;29;25 - 00;08;55;11
David Smith
And interestingly, she experienced things very differently than I did. She saw things that happened to her that I never saw getting access or finding information or resources or mentors, people there to support, just didn't wasn't as easy for her and for me. I never felt like I had to go look very far for a lot of that information and things just were very naturally easy.

00;08;55;11 - 00;09;24;29
David Smith
She faced so many types of different headwinds, based on, again, just gender and the perception of who she was as a leader. I think the other challenge that I experienced in terms of that was also about being in a dual career relationship, a dual career marriage in this case, and these were pretty unique in the military at the time in terms of having two people who were both in the military serving on active duty, there weren't any at the time.

00;09;24;29 - 00;09;54;07
David Smith
Any rules or policies related to dual military couples in terms of how we were going to be, how we would receive our orders. Right. And of course, co-locate was one of the big issues that one still military couples are always facing. And as the military, we're always moving every 2 or 3 years and trying to sync those up so that we are we're moving at the same time and we're moving to the same location was always important to us as part of our family.

00;09;54;10 - 00;10;14;09
David Smith
And that could be a challenge, in managing two different career paths. And there were different career paths for us. And everybody has unique needs and milestones along the way, and trying to sync those up and manage those, as well as being able to be in the same location can be quite a challenge, especially in a bureaucracy in a large institution like the military.

00;10;14;11 - 00;10;23;18
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, were there moments when you were on a, I don't know, an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic and she was stationed in San Diego or something like that, where you were that far apart?

00;10;23;21 - 00;10;43;01
David Smith
Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, my first squadron was in Hawaii, at a at a Barbers Point, Hawaii. And my wife at the same time had orders to, Jacksonville, Florida, and not quite on the same coast, maybe not even on the right. The continent, I don't know, but it was the Jacksonville.

00;10;43;06 - 00;10;45;17
Paul Sullivan
We have a place in that home of the Blue Angels for people.

00;10;45;21 - 00;11;11;23
David Smith
That's. Yeah. Yeah. So, Yeah. So we were we had some facing challenges there when it came to that, and it took it took a lot of work on our part and, and working with, with trying to figure out how to work within the system or, you know, and maybe up around the edges of the system of how things were done and why these were important for us, to be able to be co-located because, again, it wasn't the norm, it wasn't anything that people were used to doing.

00;11;11;23 - 00;11;13;16
David Smith
And so, yeah, there were a lot of times when that.

00;11;13;16 - 00;11;20;06
Paul Sullivan
Happened, what happened? What happened when she's in Jacksonville and you're in Hawaii, how does that get resolved? Or are you just a part? For two years.

00;11;20;08 - 00;11;38;18
David Smith
We were able to to work within the system. And the they call them detailers. These are the assignment officers that write the orders that tell you where you're going next. And so we were able to work, work within that system. And it took about a year or two to work through that. But we eventually got things fixed so that we were in the same location after that.

00;11;38;20 - 00;11;58;12
David Smith
But but I think that's really important because the next set of orders, was going to be the first opportunity. My wife had an opportunity to decide whether to stay or leave the military before me, because my flight training counted as part of my commitment. In terms of my service, so she was able to come up on that time before me.

00;11;58;12 - 00;12;16;29
David Smith
And as we were taking that next set of orders, there was a decision about, all right, are we both going to stay? Is why I'm going to stay or that's neither of us going to stay. What are we going to do at this point? And we had a lot of conversations. About what? About how do we combine two careers in the military with a career in the family.

00;12;17;02 - 00;12;19;16
Paul Sullivan
And what did she what did you decide?

00;12;19;18 - 00;12;47;09
David Smith
We ultimately decided she decided she she thought, well, she was going to get out and she did. And she went into the reserve at that point. So she served in the reserve until 2009, when she retired from the Navy Reserve at that at that point as well. But, interestingly, you know, along the way, she there was lots of time where again, she she would have active duty time, even though being in the reserve, she would have active duty time where again, it was me and my two kids.

00;12;47;11 - 00;13;05;26
David Smith
And so being being the lead dad during those times, especially, or other periods of time when, when she was called, called away and it was just me with the kids, certainly there were more times and longer deployments for me than than for her most of the way where, where she, she had the lead for that.

00;13;05;28 - 00;13;25;24
David Smith
But of course, September 11th changed a lot of that for both of us. We were at a point in time where we kind of had a rhythm and had it figured out on on how to do this, how to combine a reserve Navy career with an active duty career and had a great system, I think, in terms of how we were doing that as, as parents and, and both managing careers.

00;13;25;26 - 00;13;37;12
David Smith
But then 9/11 happened and she was like a lot of reservists were called back to active duty. Yeah. And so she was back on active duty full time for a year. And we were not prepared for that.

00;13;37;14 - 00;13;40;29
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And what was her role? What was her specialty in the Navy?

00;13;41;02 - 00;13;42;25
David Smith
She was a public affairs officer.

00;13;42;28 - 00;13;57;21
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Yeah. So she was called and so she's called back and you obviously are on active duty in, you know, probably the most heightened point you were among the most important to your career. How did you work it out? How did you work it out, around the caregiving of your two kids.

00;13;57;24 - 00;14;17;13
David Smith
So it was one of these where we kind of pieced it together in a lot of different ways. So. So there was she, was her her schedule was such that she was on a very kind of a rigid, we call them watch schedules, you know, schedule rotations. And sometimes it would be in the middle of the night, you know, early in the mornings.

00;14;17;13 - 00;14;36;04
David Smith
And so her rotation was really challenging in terms of her watch schedule. And then she had and then there was travel for her as well. My I had a very heavy travel schedule. I had a more fluidity in terms of my work schedule, but I had a a heavy travel schedule, which was the challenge for us. And so we use friends.

00;14;36;04 - 00;14;54;25
David Smith
We use family. We would we the kids went back with their grandparents for, a couple months during the summer, which was an easy one when they were out of school. But school's back in session. We really relied on on friends, and our, some of our friends who lived near us, our neighbors, that I, that we also served with.

00;14;54;27 - 00;15;05;02
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And when you say you had a heavy travel schedule and 911. Am I correct to for that? That was probably combat missions that you were you were flying you you weren't kind of going to a conference in Chicago.

00;15;05;04 - 00;15;27;02
David Smith
Correct. So yeah, the first year, I was I was not in a deployed unit. I was on I was on a staff that was actually running the operations for the war. And so sometimes it would require me to be in different places internationally. Sometimes it was back. It was flying from Hawaii, back to DC, participating in a lot of the planning, and operations for that.

00;15;27;02 - 00;15;39;28
David Smith
So that first year was really I wasn't in, in combat. I was actually, you know, back there planning and helping to, move people around. It was the years after that, the next three years after that, actually.

00;15;40;01 - 00;15;44;18
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And talk about the type of plane that you were flying when you were in the Navy and what that plan did.

00;15;44;20 - 00;16;12;04
David Smith
Yeah. The, the P-3 Orion, been around since the Cold War days. Originally designed, as a submarine hunter. The again against our adversary, the Soviet Union back then. And that was primarily what we did up through the Cold War. I started my career. I had one Cold War deployment, to attack Alaska in the Bering Sea, flying off and flying out of there, again, mostly, you know, working through the Northern Pacific there.

00;16;12;07 - 00;16;20;23
Paul Sullivan
Well, it's good to know that the Navy is fair, that they start you off in beautiful Hawaii, and then they send you to barren Alaskan.

00;16;20;26 - 00;16;55;20
David Smith
Yes. Very fair. Both extremes. Balancing things out. The, the P-3 is, a four engine turboprop aircraft. You know, you don't see a lot of those anymore, and they're out of service now. They they actually officially retired. There's a P-8 Poseidon, which is the replacement, which is a 737 Boeing variant, that replaced it. But, but yeah, then later on, of course, after the Cold War, Desert Storm happened, we ended up flying all, throughout the Gulf there and a lot of missions and over land.

00;16;55;22 - 00;17;19;06
David Smith
And of course, you know, all of the my last two deployments were all over land, Iraq, Afghanistan, northern, northern Africa, and again, supporting, troops on the ground, marine special forces, mostly and using other sensors on the aircraft and employing them, adapting, being a little more agile with our with our platform.

00;17;19;08 - 00;17;32;27
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, and given what you were doing in the Navy, was your wife able to have, a career after she got out of the Navy? Would she have a civilian career or was she, you know, more of the lead mom in charge of of the family, and everything is as you were going around?

00;17;32;29 - 00;18;07;10
David Smith
Well, it's interesting the timing of that, because when she, when she retired, it was only a few more years before my, my youngest, my daughter, went to college. So we were empty nesters. Shortly after she retired, and my, my wife actually got to do some fun things, as, Brodsky would say, you know, she found her unicorn space and went out there and, she went she went to culinary school for for a couple of years and and exploring ways to, to, to use some of her skills that we, we knew she always had because we've enjoyed her cooking for a long time.

00;18;07;10 - 00;18;14;14
David Smith
But, cooking is kind of a big, a big deal in our family. So we, she got to go to culinary school, and we got to reap the benefits.

00;18;14;16 - 00;18;42;13
Paul Sullivan
Fantastic. So let's pivot to your your your research, you know, interest. You know, as you're in the Navy, you're also going to to to graduate school. And, you know, this this focus on, you know, gender and leadership is really solidified for you. Tell me, when you left the Navy, you know, how you knew that, that your next step was going to be, you know, as a as a professor, I think your first appointment was back at at the Naval Academy, if I'm correct.

00;18;42;15 - 00;18;53;17
Paul Sullivan
So, yeah, to talk about that and, and how what it was like going back to the the Naval Academy, you know, decades later, not as a midshipman, but but as a as a professor.

00;18;53;20 - 00;19;20;04
David Smith
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I had the fortune after my command to, command, squadron, I came back. I was working in the Pentagon at the time, and I was looking for different opportunities, different ways to serve instead of the traditional career path. And we have a small program in the military. All the service academies have this, and it's called the, you know, different names, but the Navy is the permanent military professor program.

00;19;20;04 - 00;19;41;21
David Smith
And they take senior officers like me and they send us back to grad school. We go get our PhDs. So we become full time PhD students for for 3 or 4 years. And once you've graduated, then we go back to our service academy for me, Annapolis. And, and you teach until you hit your statutory your mandatory legal retirement date for 30 years.

00;19;41;24 - 00;19;59;06
David Smith
For someone like me. And so it was it was really a dream job in many ways. The dream opportunity to go back to your own later and and to give back to the students, and to see that. And so I was, I mean, just floored to be able to have that opportunity to go back and do that.

00;19;59;09 - 00;20;20;19
David Smith
But going back to, you know, to the Naval Academy, again, things have changed. The student body had changed a lot. And now walking into, for example, walking into a student body in a classroom now that is almost 30% women. And during the time I was there, I think they reached 30%. You know, before I retired in 2017.

00;20;20;22 - 00;20;34;01
David Smith
And, and that has a different dynamic in the classroom, and it changes things quite a bit. And it was really interesting to see how that had how that had shifted and changed some of the conversations we were, we were having men.

00;20;34;04 - 00;20;54;15
Paul Sullivan
You know, your research talks about the the role that that men can play in gender equality. This is something that we, we, we believe fully at the company of dads. You know, one of the many things we talk about is how when you, allow a man to be a dad at work as opposed to being, an event dad, that's good for him.

00;20;54;18 - 00;21;15;25
Paul Sullivan
As him being good for his family. But it's also good for the working moms, at their company, because suddenly the perspective starts to shift, even if slowly, that that all parenting doesn't fall on on moms. That that parenting, you know, apart from giving birth, breastfeeding, every other parenting role can be, can be split and isn't really determined by by gender.

00;21;15;27 - 00;21;27;20
Paul Sullivan
Talk about, from your research, some of the key findings that you have as to how, you know, men can really help, bring about about gender equality.

00;21;27;22 - 00;21;43;15
David Smith
Yeah, it was interesting, you know, and we did the research for for good guys. You know, it was it made a real difference when men showed up is what we think of is showing up the gender equity starting at home. And so we're going to create gender equity in the workplace. And we can get people really excited.

00;21;43;15 - 00;22;03;02
David Smith
And a lot of momentum behind the idea of a really creating this equity in the workplace. But at the end of day, there's a little bit of a chicken and egg story here, because it's like, well, but you leave the workplace and you go back out into society, back into your homes. And, you know, gender roles are a real and powerful, force that we have to deal with.

00;22;03;02 - 00;22;36;09
David Smith
And so showing up at home as an ally can feel or look a little bit different. And we know from the research that that women have for decades done 2 to 3 times as much of the domestic labor, the unpaid work at home, everything from the caregiving and the domestic chores all the way up to home schooling during the pandemic, of course, and certainly also including, as you mentioned there, the a little bit of the cognitive or emotional labor that goes into the planning of activities, the keeping of lists, keeping track of things, planning, events for the family.

00;22;36;11 - 00;23;04;20
David Smith
And so that's part of it, too. But we found was that when men showed up and started doing their fair share and equitable share, and, you know, and it's not I wouldn't say it's equal because I don't know that it's ever equal. It changes, it shifts, it moves depending on life stage where you're, you know, what's going on in your family with your children, maybe even with your parents, other, other caregiving responsibilities that you have in your family, certainly career stages.

00;23;04;20 - 00;23;26;25
David Smith
And what you're doing for each of you. And most of us are in dual career families these days. That is the the norm and has been for quite a while. The women show up and they do their fair share and it changes. So much within the family unit, but also frees up women to be fully engaged, fully and, you know, committed to their careers and showing up that way in the workplace.

00;23;26;28 - 00;23;44;09
David Smith
That looks different, but it also makes a difference at home in terms of I think our children and I think this is important, you know, from a dads perspective, remembering that we are also a role model and, you know, you're doing the socialization of your children and getting them prepared for their work life. Eventually, when they enter the workplace.

00;23;44;09 - 00;24;04;12
David Smith
And, they certainly are influenced. And we see that in the research that, our boys, when we show up as full allies at home and they, they see us doing this, that they have more inclusive perspectives on gender roles. And so they're going to think about how they're going to combine work and family and how they're going to achieve that for themselves.

00;24;04;12 - 00;24;27;28
David Smith
Very differently than maybe, maybe other generations have. And certainly for our daughters, I think it's really important here because our daughters see us doing this and it I think we always assume that the mothers have more of an influence on our daughters, outcomes. And in many ways, the research shows us the dads have maybe just as important influence they and as when we show up as allies, they see us doing this work.

00;24;27;28 - 00;24;40;21
David Smith
They're more likely to persist in their careers. They're more likely to reach career goals. They're more likely to go into nontraditional professions and industry. So those that have been male dominated for so long, like the military, for example.

00;24;40;23 - 00;25;07;20
Paul Sullivan
You know, I have three daughters and, you know, I live in a town where, you know, most of the caregiving is is more traditional. It's done by moms or paid caregivers. But I got this text from a friend of mine, who's a lead mom, and she said, you know, my daughter came to me the other day and wanted to know if when our babysitter, who's a girl, goes off to college, if it'll stay in her family and her brother boy will come and be our babysitter, you know, sister and brother come.

00;25;07;23 - 00;25;25;13
Paul Sullivan
And the mom says, well, well, you know, traditionally, you know, babysitting is is done by by high school girls. And this little girl who's known me because our kids are about the same, is known me forever and sees me at pick up, sees me a drop off. Knows my boss says well, you know what? All Sullivan can do these things.

00;25;25;13 - 00;25;52;08
Paul Sullivan
Why can't you know so-and-so? And I was like, it's moments like that that I see, you know, not so much my career at the New York Times, but but my career now at the company dads is having influence. But when you think about, you know, that that that modeling and the ability to, you know, show that that men are not just allies to to women, but men can do a lot of the things that have, you know, traditionally, perhaps wrongly, been assumed or assigned to women.

00;25;52;10 - 00;25;59;08
Paul Sullivan
Are there any impediments to men helping, in the workplace?

00;25;59;11 - 00;26;31;28
David Smith
So, yes. And it's interesting we find the you know, I think most of us have experienced this, for those of us who have been lead parents at any point or certainly doing your fair share where you're responsible and, you know, kind of on call to do things, for our kids or other caregiving responsibilities that there's certainly a, I think, a workplace culture out there where the norms around caregiving and the assumptions are that, you know, that, hey, that's not to we're not going to talk about it.

00;26;32;00 - 00;27;00;27
David Smith
You're not going to have it interfere with your everyday work. And so there's a lot of stigma associated with it. And we heard this, I mean, over and over again from the men that we talked to when we did the interviews for good guys, especially junior men, I think thinking about millennial dads and maybe even down towards Gen Z a little bit, in some of our interviews where they were looking for men who were role modeling, what does it look like to be a lead dad?

00;27;00;27 - 00;27;21;21
David Smith
What does that mean at work? And how do we do this in a way that because they felt they felt the stigma, they felt that bias against them if they were trying to, to leave, to go take the kids somewhere or they had something that interfered with or they didn't want to start their work day until, you know, later enough so they could do drop off or the other side would pick up.

00;27;21;24 - 00;27;40;10
David Smith
And they said that it was really helpful when senior men would role model this. And they said too often what they saw were when these guys, you know, when they needed to go do and they had caregiving responsibilities in many cases, but they would just kind of try to hide it and they would slink out the back door, you know, real quiet.

00;27;40;10 - 00;27;49;19
David Smith
Don't anybody know what's going on here? And they said that interestingly, the guys who did it really well were the ones who they called it leaving loudly.

00;27;49;22 - 00;27;50;07
Paul Sullivan


00;27;50;10 - 00;28;05;22
David Smith
And they were just they'd be very public and visible and vocal about it. They would share. Hey, I'm I'm headed out. I got to go do this or we're not going to start, you know, our meeting until here or we're going to have to wrap up by here because I have these responsibilities. What I got to do and and they were just there.

00;28;05;26 - 00;28;30;23
David Smith
No shame in it. There was no making excuses about it. It's just part of who we are and what we do. And it really helped, I think, for the junior men to see that and to begin to understand it. Okay. So I can do this too, and this is what it looks like. And so I think we I think those of us who are in senior leadership positions, we have to think about, hey, you're always role modeling and setting an example and thinking about being very purposeful and deliberate about setting that example.

00;28;30;25 - 00;28;45;12
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, we've had many people on the podcast who've talked about this, and you one guy stands out in particular. He was based on is based on the West Coast. His company is based largely on the East Coast. And he put in his calendar that, you know, he didn't say, you know, out of office or something like that.

00;28;45;12 - 00;29;01;14
Paul Sullivan
He put in his calendar for an hour each morning that he would be getting his son ready for school, and that was important for him. And but that our, of course, conflicted with the start of the East Coast. If he was on the East coast and he puts in, you know, seven 3830 nobody would care. But he puts in.

00;29;01;14 - 00;29;17;15
Paul Sullivan
Seven 3830, on the West Coast with the time difference, you know, people started to call him and he would push he push back. Now, he was a partner at this firm, so nobody's going to fire him. But he pushed back and it was significant. It was significant for him. It was significant for the other partners there. But it's also significant, as you would guess, here.

00;29;17;15 - 00;29;34;18
Paul Sullivan
You know, this the junior people in that organization, because certainly they saw that here is a man who is parenting loudly, who wasn't an event, dad, who wasn't saying, hey, I'm going to the ballet. Hey, I'm going to the kindergarten graduation. And and it allowed other people to, to free up and again, not lie, not make excuses.

00;29;34;18 - 00;29;49;07
Paul Sullivan
I mean, one of the things we've talked about at the company dads is we've asked companies to create care days and care days are an additional two days personally vacation days. But it allows people to be honest. And we say it's not just if you're caring for your children, you could be caring for, an aging adult, parent.

00;29;49;07 - 00;30;11;26
Paul Sullivan
You could be caring for your spouse. But but it's it's that level of of honesty, that we need, you know, now, you're not Naval Academy more. You're at a business school, the Johns Hopkins business school. And, you know, I'm sure companies are coming to you, you know, to, to for you to consult for, for them to, you know, ask your, you know, your opinions and learn from your knowledge.

00;30;11;26 - 00;30;30;11
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, I think oftentimes I've had conversations with companies, around what the company of dads can do for, for their parenting groups, what they can do for the fathers. And if we do things for for the fathers is going to help the working mothers. And there's some of them still push back and they say, well, you know, this great idea, like it?

00;30;30;11 - 00;30;50;19
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, our parenting group is, is really focused on on moms. And I will always push back and say, well, you think in doing that, that you're helping women in the workforce, but you're not helping them enough? Because when you get men involved, then it equalizes and some of them get it, some of them then don't.

00;30;50;19 - 00;31;09;19
Paul Sullivan
That's the nature of where we are in 2023. But, you know, I want to delve into this. One of your most recent papers, it men is a missing ingredient in gender equity. And the subtitle is an Allyship Research agenda. And so talk to us about, you know, that agenda. When you go in, you have the standing of being a professor.

00;31;09;19 - 00;31;29;11
Paul Sullivan
You have the stand to be a professor at Harvard Business School. When you work with companies, how do you get them to realize that, including men in this is not just one more benefit for men in the workforce, but actually a benefit for, you know, all of the employees, for the families, for the community, and ultimately for for the company.

00;31;29;14 - 00;31;50;29
David Smith
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think, you know, it it depends. So being a sociologist or social scientist, everything the answer is always it depends. But it depends on some important factors. I think when you look at a company you talk to their leadership or their people. But looking at where we can begin to, to make the biggest difference.

00;31;50;29 - 00;32;20;17
David Smith
And, and one of the things that, you know, it probably no surprise that we certainly find, in some, some companies where, there's, there is they don't have policy related to any of this. And so there can be one one could be, could be a big picture policy issue and understand that, but beyond the policy, sometimes we actually have to go a step further back to that and talking about why why is this important?

00;32;20;19 - 00;32;50;23
David Smith
Because I don't think, the business is completely it always people leaders don't always understand that. And and the why for that can be several reasons that again what resonates with one leader or one group might be different from another. And but it could be everything. Again, understanding that, for example, parental leave, paternity leave, having paid parental leave and not, and not just a week or two weeks, but having significant amount of time.

00;32;50;23 - 00;33;16;25
David Smith
So eight, 12, 16 and or more weeks of leave, and it's fully paid is is critical to getting one people to take it, but also removing the stigma and the expectation that that men need to be taking it. I think too often the companies will create a policy, and they'll celebrate it. But then the take rate, you know, how many men are actually taking the leave is really low, as we know.

00;33;16;25 - 00;33;35;08
David Smith
And or even when they do take it, they don't take all of it. They only take a week or two of it if they have 12 weeks available or 16 weeks available. And we need to set the expectation. And this is a I think it gets back to really it gets back to managers, and frontline managers in many cases.

00;33;35;10 - 00;34;00;26
David Smith
I don't think they're quite as equipped as they need to be. And I don't blame the managers. But I do think that we can support them better. We can provide them with the tools, the understanding of what implementation of policies like parental leave, for example, looks like. But this goes beyond that. I mean, just looking at work schedules, flex work, remote work, and understanding about how we can employ that in a way that works best for our people.

00;34;00;28 - 00;34;19;15
David Smith
They need to also understand managers. They often look at this. There's this kind of, I think, assumption that people are lazy or people are trying to get out of work. And it's like, you know, actually most people want to, they want to contribute, they want to be productive. They want to be, you know, seen as valuable members of the organization no matter what you do.

00;34;19;17 - 00;34;46;01
David Smith
And if we could approach them that way and recognize that, hey, how can we help you meet your needs and help you to be more productive and understanding that, I think for men, in the same way as we do for women as caregivers, helps us to achieve some of that. And so again, how do we support them? And I think educating, training managers, working with managers, showing them where the where the the range of options they have available to them and what they can actually implement.

00;34;46;03 - 00;35;13;06
David Smith
In terms of their, their people, would go a long ways in terms of beginning to shift and change that. But we also need leadership support, of course. Right. And so again, hopefully we're getting called into an organization. We already have some leadership support, but making sure that it's it's not just having the leaders thinking they they're providing support, but they're actually being very vocal about it and transparent about it and, and actually measuring some of this as well.

00;35;13;09 - 00;35;21;24
David Smith
How are you doing on parental leave take rates, how are we doing? And people using these different programs that help us to become more productive in the workplace.

00;35;21;26 - 00;35;39;22
Paul Sullivan
And it's interesting too, because, you know, managers are to you know, they've had some success. They've they've they've achieved that in a certain path. And, I find that too often, you know, not the best ones, but, but a lot of them suffer from confirmation bias. And they think, well, I got here this way. And you can too.

00;35;39;22 - 00;35;58;25
Paul Sullivan
And you talk about being, you know, vocal in, in parenting out loudly. But I've heard some of these managers can be vocal in a very detrimental way of like, wow, I you know, it passive aggressive. I wish I could have taken that leave or I never took that leave or, you know, you kind of wearing it as a badge of honor, like I took a week, you know, my kids are born and of course, the world that that's not good.

00;35;58;25 - 00;36;23;13
Paul Sullivan
Like, that's not something to to, to brag about. But, you know, I mean, last question. Are you hopeful did you see companies, you know, moving in, in the right direction, as has Covid, the post-Covid world being a a sort of you bump to certain companies, to sort of think differently or think more proactively about their, their policies around gender equality.

00;36;23;16 - 00;36;52;29
David Smith
I do I see again, I think we learned a lot from, from Covid, both individuals and employees, but also company leadership, and companies thinking about different ways that we can operate and, and become more efficient, or have more capacity or support our people better. And I think we heard lots of stories about how different practices have shifted and changed or been added, in, in terms of what we think we can do and how we can do that.

00;36;52;29 - 00;37;14;06
David Smith
So I am hopeful in that sense. I do see, a lot more. Again, you see more women in leadership today. And I think that that's a that's a good thing. I'm a little concerned about, the fact that in many cases, we see women in senior leadership when they're leaving their senior leadership positions, it's not to move up or to go to a different company.

00;37;14;06 - 00;37;34;11
David Smith
It's to go start their own, which is great. But I think there in many ways we see the same thing with men where they're not finding the workplace that they're looking for, the workplace culture, the place that allows them to be who they want to be. And if people continue to leave and that's that's obviously not helpful in that way.

00;37;34;11 - 00;37;40;02
David Smith
But starting their own companies that they're creating something different and new than that, that might be helpful.

00;37;40;05 - 00;37;46;01
Paul Sullivan
David Smith, thank you so much for being my guest on the Company of Dads podcast. If thoroughly enjoyed.

00;37;46;04 - 00;37;49;15
David Smith
Thank you Paul. Great to be here with everyone.

00;37;49;17 - 00;38;14;28
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company of dads possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker hand is all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition. Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;38;14;28 - 00;38;32;18
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.