Glass ceilings… But what about sticky floors?

Kate Coleman explores the big issues female leaders must tackle to excel in their God-given careers — in conversation with Chris Rolfe

Four years ago, Kate Coleman met a woman at a conference. She had a vision to be the first person to bring palliative care to her country. She was hoping God would bring this about, but as she shared her story Kate sensed the Lord saying, “No, I’m actually calling her to do this.”

As an experienced coach of female leaders and as founding director of Next Leadership, Kate was keen to help and started mentoring the woman, quickly addressing two main issues: her lack of self-belief and her overflowing job list because she said yes to everything. Change came fast as a result.

“Within weeks she had recruited the queen of her country to become a patron of her project. She also spoke to the national bank which agreed to help with finance and to other businesses which began to raise money too,” Kate says.

“Just last week she told us she had been invited to be involved in the strategic plan for her nation for the next five years.”

This is the transformation that’s possible when you address the foundational beliefs and attitudes holding you back in your leadership.

“People talk about glass ceilings, but there are internal barriers too, which act like sticky floors, keeping us stuck down and making it very difficult to be effective,” she says.

Sacred Company

Kate, who attends Elim Life Church Kingstanding, has been supporting people to address these internal challenges for the past 15 years via her book and accompanying resources, The 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership.

In March, she and colleague Cham Kaur-Mann spoke about them at Michelle Nunn’s Sacred Company, an event to amplify women’s voices, where she also launched a multi-part 7 Deadly Sins video study.

Kate gives two reasons why tackling our sticky floors matters.

“We’re seeing more women leaders emerging at entry level and coming into the middle arena, but not as many senior women in decision-making roles. There are external barriers at play there, but a lot is down to internal factors too.”

There’s also the spiritual side. “People often think of sin as humans wanting to throw God off the throne in their lives. That’s certainly one element, but what if sin is also not wanting to step fully into everything God wants us to be?”

In the more than 35 years she has been in leadership, Kate has helped many women tackle beliefs, attitudes and behaviour that hinder their ministry, and then watched them get promoted, become leaders of big institutions or church networks or start their own businesses. It’s something every leader can do, she says. Which “deadly sins” could you tackle in order to become the changemaker God has called you to be?

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.