‘I always feel listened to’

There are many men in your world – both in the world of research and among the managerial staff at SDU. Is it harder to be a woman in a ‘man’s world’, or is this an outdated mindset?

I do feel different from my male colleagues, but it's probably as much due to my personality as it’s about being a woman. I can see that I do things differently both when I became head of department and also now as a dean. I am very consensus-seeking and listen to people, and some of my male colleagues approach those matters differently.

I like to say that I’ve never played football and been part of a team in that way. There’s another fight where I don’t always understand what's going on. I sometimes find that some of my male colleagues tend to stand their ground without yielding, whereas I’m more consensus-seeking. I pick my fights carefully. But as I said, I don’t think my gender plays a part in that; it’s just who I am as a person.

I also think the differences between men and women in a management team are very much about age. In the past, as a researcher, where my male colleagues were 20-30 years older than me, it was a different matter. But now that we’re the same age, men don’t stay at work until 8 or 9 in the evening, either. They have to pick up their kids or coach a girls handball team and have also been on paternity leave. That didn’t use to be the case. In this way, the structures and gender equality present in most families today have had a positive impact on the differences between men and women in career contexts.

What do you regard as your own strengths as a leader?

I’m quick to make decisions and I’m not afraid to make a management decision. But it's about personal competencies. I find that other women tend to struggle more with these things. To dare to make a decision, even if one isn’t sure it’s tried and tested. In that regard, men are quicker on the trigger. Once the women are ready, things have already happened.

The fact that I propose a slightly different point of view makes people listen. I feel very listened to. A large fraction of our employees at SDU are women, so my views are listened to and taken seriously.

Where do you see the biggest challenges in relation to getting more women in leadership at SDU?

There is a desire for more equality at SDU and more women leaders. This is clearly something we are focusing on. But it's extremely difficult for me when it comes to hiring women leaders at the faculty, because women tend to drop out at various stages in the ‘food chain’, so there are simply fewer to choose from. This is something we are very conscious of at SDU. We haven’t got the final answer yet, but we’re working on it.

The problems at especially the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Science arise already when we admit students in subject areas where there are few women. Here, too, they drop out when they have to apply for a PhD etc., for the pool of women gets smaller and smaller all the time.