54 mn women globally left the workforce in 1st year of the pandemic: Appurva Hooda Bhoker

We, at Adgully, have always saluted and honoured women managers and leaders across diverse fields. W-SUITE is a special initiative from Adgully that has been turning the spotlight on some of the most remarkable women achievers in the M&E, Advertising, Marketing, PR and Communications industry. In the refurbished series, we seek to find out how women leaders have been managing their teams and work as well as how they have been navigating through the toughest and most challenging times brought about by the global pandemic. 

In conversation with Adgully, Appurva Hooda Bhoker, Business and Expansion Head, Dot Media, speaks about how the pandemic changed the very fabric of our work, women leaders being back in the ‘boys club’, how she thrives in chaos, and more. 

How do you think the role and scope of women leaders has widened in the current market ecosystem?

I personally feel there is a huge gap in the current ecosystem, mostly because in the first year of the pandemic alone, 54 million women around the world left the workforce, almost 90 per cent of whom exited the labour force completely. This divide is going to take years to replenish, but on the little upside, it gives aspiring women leaders a lot of scope to step up and scale fast, we’re back in the ‘boys club’, but this time we don’t start at the very bottom of the barrel. 

What has been your major learning from the pandemic period?

When this global pandemic changed the very fabric of our work and irreversibly upended our lives, I had no playbook to fall back on and had to make some truly incredibly hard decisions. I had to navigate myself and my team through waves of uncertainty, anxiety, most of all grief and in this pain one thing I understood clearly was that the only wrong decision is indecision. Also, that compassion and empathy – even in the face of adversity, is probably my strongest suit even if it’s un-leader like. 

What is your mantra for maintaining a successful work life balance in the new normal? According to you, what makes women the best in crisis management?

I don’t think my goal is to achieve balance, I thrive in chaos. I obsess increasingly as we approach deadlines at work and then I relax deeply in my personal time. I spend all my time at the very edge, I enjoy it the most and I’m never off guard that way. 

What makes women so good at crisis management is their ability to do difficult things with a lot of ease and grace, as opposed to shutting themselves down to emotions in the work place. 

What are the five most effective leadership lessons that you have learned?

The most effective lessons I’ve learnt in order of when I learnt them are: 

  1. To always consider hard days as a test of your patience and competence as a leader. 
  2. Let go of control if you really wish to grow and watch your team members grow with you. 
  3. Be the kind of leader you wish you had when you were younger. This will make your team stronger when you fall weak. 
  4. It takes years to build character and less than a moment to watch it crash, be dignified, especially when others are not. 
  5. Never become irreplaceable to an organisation, become valuable. Yours may be big shoes to fill but they should never be impossible to. 

Gender sensitivity and inclusion in the new normal – how can organisations effectively encourage and groom women leaders in challenging times?

At Dot Media, we make huge efforts to make sure our work force is balanced, with 50% women at all time and this is a conscious effort that we’ve taken since day one. We also make it a point to push women in leadership roles to the point that five individual departments are with women in command. These are just a few things specific to our agency, but I do feel organisations at large need to do a better job of encouraging, trusting and promoting women leaders. 

I’ve interviewed over a 100+ people in the last year to know that the top reason for a female employee to leave an organisation is always gender dynamics and apprehension of the ‘boys club’. Let’s try to do better and start now. 

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