I grew up believing women and other underrepresented leaders have to “work twice as hard for half the credit.” I still (mostly) believe it, but have seen it cause too much burnout. This usually well-meaning advice holds women back in other ways, too. So I think it’s time to bust open this trope, see how it’s an indicator of privilege, and develop some healthier strategies to address it.  
~ Dana Theus

I’ve come to see the advice to “work twice as hard” as an indicator of reduced privilege, across gender, race, education, socio-economic status, experience and many other dimensions. Those with privilege on all these scales get the benefit of the doubt, they’re assumed to be competent without having to prove themselves as fully as those with lesser privilege. Those lower on the privilege pole have to work much harder to be seen as competent, and are often denied credit for their hard work.

I think this is just a truth of the human condition, one of many challenges to equitable treatment, that we all must fight against in our effort to reduce bias in ourselves and our workplaces.

To some extent, the “work twice as hard” advice is reasonable guidance for women and other underrepresented leaders, giving us a tangible way to work against the bias in those around us. And it's especially relevant early in our careers when we actually do have to prove ourselves.

But just because it’s a good strategy to counter some natural human biases doesn’t mean it should become our default driving speed. That’s like getting in the car right after we get our license, hitting the pedal to get to 75mph and never lifting our foot until we retire (if we retire).

Unsustainable. Unnecessary.

Isn’t success the result of hard work?

Let me be clear. I don’t believe that “working twice as hard” is the same as “hard work.” I do believe that to get ahead and achieve success (however we define it), we must all do “hard work,” but when we "work hard" we’re judging our effort against whatever feels “easy” to us.

But when we “work harder” we’re comparing ourselves to others. This sets us on a dangerous path because we stop measuring ourselves against our own potential and goals, and leaves us chasing someone else’s. Over time when we chase other people’s standards of success, we inevitably burn out.

“Working harder” and burnout

There are many reasons for burnout when we chase other people’s dreams and visions of success. Primarily we fry ourselves because of this simple truth:

When we own our own goals, the ones that excite us and energize us, we receive energy from our hard work. When we don’t feel that same excitement, chasing other people’s goals, the same kind of effort takes energy and exhausts us.

This is why working hard–towards a goal that lights us up–is less likely to burn us out (though it can happen, for sure). But comparing ourselves to others always leaves us wanting. We can never be “enough,” and the pit we jump into trying to be “enough” is simply bottomless.

“Working smarter”

I remember earlier in my career when I complained about how hard I was working, for little reward it seemed to me, I recall getting the “work smarter” advice and feeling frustrated. Were they implying I was working “dumber?”

With more experience behind me now, I think I get it.

The low hanging fruit in the “work smarter advice” is efficiency. Figuring out how to do something the first time is always hard work, because it costs so much time and energy to run down rabbit holes, learn the hard way and generally mess up because you don’t know any better. But once you understand the work, you should be able to get smarter and work more efficiently.

Yay for efficiency. But frankly there’s a lot more to “working smarter” than just efficiency.

Working smarter is much more impactful when you get clear on your intentions and vision of what success looks like. This is because when you focus on a specific vision of success, validated and committed to, the most effective–smartest–path to it becomes clearer. And sometimes that path includes some inefficiencies (until you figure out how to do new things.)

Here’s the best example of this I wish I’d figured out long ago: commit to a vision and remove all distractions that will take you away from it. This includes being selective and taking on a minimal amount of non-promotable work so you can achieve recognition and advancement in an organization. For entrepreneurs it means you need to stop doing anything that doesn’t produce revenue or improve your ability to bring in revenue.

Other ways to “work smarter,” that took me time to figure out include:

• Take credit and stay in your stretch zone. Be thoughtful about how you take credit for your achievements so you can make the case about why you deserve new challenges instead of continuing to do things you’ve already mastered
• Be selective. Ruthlessly expunge non-priority (i.e., low-impact) activities from your todo list and project plans
• Leverage others’ talent. Leveraging the effort, judgment, resources and motivations of others
• Set boundaries. Limitation is one of the main generators of creativity. Set limits for yourself and others and you’ll soon see natural priorities emerge, as well as innovative ways to achieve them.
• Get out of the weeds, regularly. Taking time regularly to reflect on what success looks like and how to achieve it given current conditions and resources (which can change as often as daily)

So I recommend we all interrogate our assumptions about the need to work twice as hard as the more privileged people around us. Think more deeply and search for strategies to "work smarter." Ask yourself what truly requires “hard work” and what assumptions are just keeping you on the hamster wheel of exhaustion.