Good Guys: Award-Winning Male Leaders Stand Up For Women As Allies, Listeners, Doers
W. Brad Johnson, (L) and David Smith, co-founders of Workplace Allies and winners of the 2025 Leading Man award, at a recent conference.
Yes, women hold up more than half of the sky. And male allies can collaborate efficiently and fairly for everyone to benefit under the full sky.
David Smith, PhD, and W. Brad Johnson, PhD, co-authors, co-founders of Workplace Allies since 2018, and co-winners of this year’s Alex Barbanell Leading Man Award from Take The Lead, have spent their professional lives focusing on gender parity in the workplace. And their personal lives have had much to do with their collaborative mindsets.
Both former marines with the U.S. Navy, these leaders will be honored at the Power Up Concert & Conference 2025 in Washington, D.C. on Women’s Equality Day August 25-26, because both men have recognized the necessity for gender equity for most all of their lives.
Learn more about Power Up Concert & Conference 2025
Vada Manager, founder and CEO of Manager Global Holdings, and President and CEO of Manager Global Consulting Group, was the winner of the 2022 Leading Man Award and says, “First, it is a recognition of men who practiced authentic allyship in the workplace, their daily lives and other settings. Next, it is a clear incentive to other men to model the behavior that a superb form of masculinity (and our collective economic success) is supporting women in their career and life ambitions.”
Manager adds, “Alex Barbanell –- for whom this award is named -– embodied that daily. Finally, there is a disturbing shift among the attitudes of young men who need - more than ever – to understand what allyship and masculinity really means.”
Read more from Gloria Feldt on Alex Barbanell
Concerning the award, Johnson says, “The bigger takeaway is often the question for a women’s organization is why are they including men? This feels like a sacred space for women,” says Johnson, a clinical psychologist who served as a psychologist at Bethesda Naval Hospital and the Medical Clinic at Pearl Harbor, where he was division head for psychology.
“The answer is unless we get men engaged, show them the opportunity as collaborators, we will have to wait 150 years to close the pay gap,” says Johnson, who for 20 years was a clinical faculty associate at Johns Hopkins University.
“Unless we get men engaged, show them the opportunity as collaborators, we will have to wait 150 years to close the pay gap,” says W. Brad Johnson, co-founder @WorkplaceAllies @takeleadwomen #powerup2025”
Read more in Take The Lead on women vets
Johnson, co-author with Smith of the 2020 book, Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace, and the 2016, Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women, says he “grew up in an egalitarian home” in Spokane, Wash. With a younger sister and brother. His father was a psychotherapist and his mother was a psychologist, and they opened a practice together.
As for a lifetime of working on cross-gender workplace relationships, Johnson says, “My why connects to my sister.” After he graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary with a PhD in Clinical psychology following graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, both Johnson and his sister, Shannon, both worked in the navy.
Learn more about the 2023 Leading Man Award winner
While Johnson had three combat deployments in 30 years, his sister went into the navy as a psychologist at a time when women were excluded from combat.
Read more in Take The Lead on critiques of women leaders
“We had so many lightbulb moments; she had very different experiences in the workplace. She was told she should smile more. She was told she is abrasive.” Johnson adds that once she “beat all the guys on her team in a race and was made to feel ashamed. I can do exactly what my sister does and never get that pushback.”
Learn more about Leading Man Vada Manager
Certainly, the military has historically dealt with gendered stereotypes, as have many industries and sectors in the workplace.
“I certainly have seen it play out,” says Johnson, who in 2026 has a new book coming out with Smith, Fair Share. “There is a double standard institutionalized. She was always getting the message you’re not a real warrior.”
Learn more about the Leading Man award
It is messaging that is a major problem in the mission for gender parity in leadership, pay, treatment, resources and opportunities, and Johnson says his mission is to shift that.
“Messaging is a major problem in the mission for gender parity in leadership, pay, treatment, resources and opportunities. #leadership #genderparity @takeleadwomen #powerup2025 #couragetolead”
“We have framed it as a women’s issue. You see it in programming; too often they do not include men. The message is women have to fix themselves, rather than you need to work on the system,” says Johnson.
Read more in Take The Lead on women in military
He adds, “For International Women’s Day, they do cookies and a panel. Equity is not embedded in the organization, it is performative. Companies that are really leading make this part of the leadership pipeline and their core business.”
Former chair of the American Psychological Association Ethics Committee, Johnson says, “My work focuses on broader company landscape. I see the difficulty in government and corporate work with executive orders and anti-woke claims. Leaders need to show up with genuine courage. Corporate leaders are recognizing this is not political, it is a business issue.”
Manager agrees. “In a world of misinformation, untruths and anecdotes, data is crucial. David Smith and Brad Johnson have harnessed their intellectual firepower via studies and authorship to help men who need hard data to apply to their daily situations so that where we work, live, play and worship can be better for all genders and ages.”
“In a world of misinformation, untruths and anecdotes, data is crucial,” says @VadaManager, founder/ceo of Manager Global Holdings #LeadingManAward @takeleadwomen #genderparity #powerup2025”
Gender fairness is personal for Smith as well. He is co-founder with Johnson of Workplace Allies, and co-director of the Gender & Work Initiative at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, where he is associate professor.
Growing up in a military family, Johnson and his two younger siblings lived around the world including Iceland, Louisiana and Maryland, as his father was in the navy, working in submarines, and his mother worked in radiology.
“Both were great role models and I learned everybody can have careers, so that was always an expectation of mine that my partner would have a career as I do,” Smith says.
Graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy 1987, along with his partner, Erica, the two married after graduation.
“These were challenging times as it was in the early years of integration of women,” Smith says. “My wife was in public affairs for 21 years, limited by law, so there were not a lot of opportunities.”
Read more in Take The Lead on pivoting
Smith flew more than 3,000 hours in 30 years for the navy including combat roles in Iran and Afghanistan. He earned his PhD in sociology and “did all my research in gender, work and family. My dissertation was on dual career families, gendered interaction with the workplace, the decision-making process, how we prioritize different strategies, and what success looks like,” he says. “I wanted to understand the experiences of women in a variety of male-dominated career paths.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women in military
In his research for the books he has co-authored with Johnson, Smith says, “There were some traditional relationships where the man’s career was prioritized, but the majority of people had strategies that were egalitarian.” What that means is there “is not that a particular career that is prioritized, but it is a back and forth, equitable sharing of paid and unpaid work.” He adds, especially since COVID altered the workplace dynamic, “More and more people are expecting to have balance.”
Read more in Take The Lead on caregiving balance
Noting that there is a great deal of progress to achieve in this country due to gender bias and caregiving bias particularly, Smith says, “If we ever get to true gender parity, men have to step into roles as caregivers, as we haven’t completely embraced it.” He adds, “Some companies are helping to fill gaps. People who consider themselves allies have an appreciation and understanding of people’s needs and what helps them to perform.”
“ “If we ever get to true gender parity, men have to step into roles as caregivers, as we haven’t completely embraced it,” says David Smith, co-founder Workplace Allies, author and winner of 2025 #LeadingMan Award @takeleadwomen #leadership #couragetolead ”
Read more in Take The Lead on women in military
What leaders and advocates must do now is critical for shifting the workplace systems. “Listening, learning and looking for meeting those needs. leaders can change the practices that are not allowing people to thrive. When you change the practice and get into the equity mindset, the outcome is good for everyone,” Smith says.
Winning the Leading Man Award in 2025 is an honor, but cannot stop there for all men in the workplace and organizations aiming for gender equity.
“Just do the work,” Smith says. “Be proud of the work, new opportunities to grow and make a difference. Recognition is always nice. Think about how you are role modelling. You’re doing it for the impact.”
Johnson’s advice to all leaders in the workplace –across genders--is similar. “If you do one thing, just work on listening, not talking. Stay humble, keep doing the work. This is a journey.”
““If you do one thing, just work on listening, not talking. Stay humble, keep doing the work. This is a journey,” says @DavidSmith @WorkplaceAllies #LeadingManAward @takeleadwomen #genderparity #equity #Powerup2025”
According to Manager, “Each time I attend a Take The Lead event -– especially the annual Power Up -- I learn how to be more effective within my sphere of influence, what real challenges women face across society and how I can impact the places where I engage. I also annually strengthen relationships – many of the attendees connect with me later on social platforms seeking advice regarding corporate board seats or entrepreneurship.”
