Explore how early challenges shape LGBTQ+ careers and discover strategies for offering more effective support, with insights from Layla McCay
Differences in how LGBTQ+ people engage with learning and development can significantly affect their experiences at work and opportunities for promotion and progression. The personal stories from senior LGBTQ+ leaders that I gathered for my book, Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work, provide fresh insights into these differences, and offer guidance on how learning and development professionals can better support and empower LGBTQ+ people.
Realising you are LGBTQ+ can influence your formative attitudes to learning and your lifetime learning trajectory
The distracting impact of early prejudice and distress
An individual’s personal learning context is important. Realising you are LGBTQ+ can influence your formative attitudes to learning and your lifetime learning trajectory. Concerns about being different, having to conceal part of yourself, experiencing stress, anxiety or bullying, and fearing or experiencing rejection can all affect your confidence, academic focus and aspirations.
Some of us lose our financial, emotional and practical support systems when we come out (the main reason that LGBTQ+ young people are overrepresented in the homeless population). Such experiences can contribute to LGBTQ+ people being less able to focus on academic work at a critical moment, finding ourselves delayed, distracted or diverted in our education journey by issues around sexuality or gender identity.
When we are in a better position to learn, we may have missed key opportunities like internships or development programmes, which often have an age limit; some describe feeling they have missed their chance. This may manifest in a struggle to engage with learning and development later.
The benefits and perils of premature self-sufficiency
Everyone’s experience is different. For some, realising they are LGBTQ+ can have a focusing effect when it comes to learning. Knowing they might not be able to depend on others, some LGBTQ+ people become exceptionally focused, strategic and self-sufficient in their learning and career planning. However, those who have learned to ‘go it alone’ sometimes find it harder to seek support later in their careers.
This self-reliance can result in LGBTQ+ people being less likely to have mentors or sponsors. They might perceive such support as unnecessary, find it challenging to find a mentor due to feeling unwelcome in certain networking circles, or encounter prejudice or lack of awareness from assigned mentors. Alternatively, they might simply believe they’re fine without help – those who have developed a hard shell of independence find it hard to relinquish it.
The exhaustion of maintaining a facade
People who feel unable to come out of the closet at work have to expend significant effort maintaining a facade and worrying that the secret could be exposed. Even when out, well-meaning managers and coaches sometimes encourage LGBTQ+ employees to suppress their authentic selves by offering advice to dress, speak or behave in a more typically heterosexual or gender-congruent manner to be successful, and excluding them from opportunities and networking if they do not conform.
This advice can be surprisingly common and detrimental, undermining confidence, self-esteem and sense of self. It hampers people’s ability to perform at their best and engage authentically with colleagues, clients, managers – and with learning and development professionals.
The impact of imposter syndrome
Most middle-aged LGBTQ+ people in the UK grew up during Section 28, a law that banned discussion of LGBTQ+ matters in schools. As a result, there were few LGBTQ+ leaders thriving at work, few LGBTQ+ people in books, films or on television, and hardly any visible LGBTQ+ role models.
That absence impacted British LGBTQ+ individuals’ self-belief, confidence and aspirations. With no evidence of what they could achieve (and a lot of negative messaging from friends, family, educators and the media about what they could not achieve), many were left with imposter syndrome and feelings of unworthiness, or of not being welcome in certain work settings. This can hold LGBTQ+ people back from seeking and securing development opportunities.
The lack of bespoke support
LGBTQ+ people’s learning and development needs are shaped by their experiences, but this is rarely reflected in the training and coaching opportunities made available. Often, these focus on generic challenges, or those that affect minority groups at large. But now we know many of the root causes of challenges in LGBTQ+ people getting the best from learning and development, there is an opportunity to develop more specific, effective approaches for this cohort.
Layla McCay is Director of Policy at The NHS Confederation and author of Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work
