Going up for a position of high responsibility takes courage, and it also takes confidence – however, according to Marsh’s national manager – commercial Carlie Griggs, this is an area where young women in particular have often been under-resourced.
Griggs started out as an insurance broker in her 20s, and says that some of her biggest career regrets hinged around not having the confidence to grab the opportunities that came her way. She says the sales-driven culture of the insurance industry also made this difficult to overcome, though the industry has certainly come a long way since then.
“There were lots of opportunities around when I was younger, but I wasn’t confident enough to put my hand up and say that I want to take it,” Griggs told Insurance Business.
“Either that, or I just waited for the opportunity to come to me because I had the mindset of “well, you won’t get it anyway.” I think that was partly because I was working in a male-dominated role, and because I didn’t have the confidence of the men going up for the same position.”
“They might be happy to walk in knowing they can do about 50% of the role, I’ll be completely honest and say “I can only do 50%, so I think I’ll need to wait until I can do 100%”,” she explained. “That’s so wrong, because often I do have the information and resources necessary to do that job.”
Griggs says the tough culture of the insurance workplace also served as something of a deterrent – but admits that working in the profession also made her a lot stronger and more resilient.
“Closing deals and being yelled at – that’s what you had to be in,” Griggs said. “It’s very different and a lot more politically correct now, but I think that you have to have that in the beginning. You then also learn to laugh, and tell yourself that you’ll be fine – it’s all OK.”
“I think women have worked very hard to be where we are now, and that’s been an important part of our growth as an industry,” she continued. “You certainly have to work hard to be able to prove that we can compete against men for these kinds of roles. But it shouldn’t need to be that way, and there’s obviously still a long way to go.”
“Looking back at my younger self, I have definitely grown a lot and seen a lot,” Griggs concluded. “I just wish I could have had a little bit more confidence at that age. There were a lot of opportunities that I feel that I missed or didn’t go for, or held myself back because of the reasons I mentioned before. I certainly worried about men thinking that I was a failure if I got that role and I messed it up. But having spoken to some of the graduates now, I’ll tell you that I hardly see any difference between the men and the women – they are all full of confidence. I would have loved to have had that attitude back then, to not shy away from things or feel like I wouldn’t be able to achieve. You just have to train yourself well, and be prepared to sink or swim.”
