There is a leadership gap. Women don’t hold as many leadership positions as men. According to Alice Eagly, only 2% of Fortune 500 CEO positions are held by women.There is no clear cause (although there are a whole lot of possible causes). The barriers to women in leadership are cultural, organizational and individual. We hold beliefs about the appropriate behaviour of men and women that limit women. We hold beliefs about ourselves. Organizations develop structures and systems that reward men and limit women. And yes, women make choices that create their own limitations.
Many of the cultural barriers to women’s leadership are derived from implicit beliefs about the appropriateness of certain behaviours that are critical to leadership. For example, powerful women are believed to be unsuited for leadership when they talk more than average, whereas powerful men are believed to be more competent and more suited for leadership. When women get angry in the workplace they are judged as out of control and incompetent, whereas angry men are judged as more competent. Keep in mind that we are not aware of these judgments. In fact if you asked explicitly these same observers would tell you that “of course women make good leaders”. The judgment happens unconsciously.
The comments I received on these more detailed posts were interesting. They highlight the conundrum we face as leaders – do we accept social norms and change our behaviour to more appropriate “female” behaviour, or do we try to enlighten or change the way that culture and organizations see women?
This choice has very real consequences for many women. If we accept social norms, we may achieve some organizational success and acquire lower level leadership positions. However, it is unlikely that we will break through to more senior leadership positions, as they call for more traditional male behaviour, which women are judged as inappropriate and out of control.
If we choose to behave in a more masculine way, more talkative, engaged and action oriented we can, perhaps, be at the vanguard of changing the way both men and women think about what is “appropriate” behaviour by each of the stereotypes. This choice means that we’re investing in long-term gain for all women. It likely means that attainment of even moderate leadership roles might be beyond the reach of this less traditional female.
Many women used to say that you need to behave like a man to achieve leadership roles. In fact, the research suggests that you will be judged incompetent if you behave like a woman, (although people will like you), and judged angry, incompetent and unsuited for leadership if you behave like a man. So even if we could “behave like a man”, as Henry Higgins suggested in My Fair Lady, the result is not likely the acquisition of a leadership position.
So what’s a girl to do? Pick the pragmatic “behave like a girl” option, achieve moderate success and enjoy being liked? Or pick the more idealistic option to try to change how people see these stereotypes, fight through the challenges, take the risk that you might accomplish more, or you might be relegated to the category of “loose cannon”. That answer is personal to each individual. Maybe the question should be “Why Should a Woman be More Like a Man?”
And the beat goes on! Or should I say the gender war.
You present two options to women as if that is it. I would suggest that your thinking is stuck back in the 1950′s and your two options are “June Cleaver” or “Tug Boat Annie”. Not much to look forward to in either case. Lower level management or loose cannon doesn’t give much of an optimistic outlook for the future of women of 2012 and beyond.
Over the past five decades I’ve worked for both women and men and the only difference I’ve found is that one is female and the other is male. Both have been people to respect and both have been tyrants. The similarities, however, run deeper than the differences. Those similarities were simple. The ones I respected did the best that they knew how with every skill and talent that they possessed. The tyrants were no different as they used every back stabbing, under handed, two faced trick in their skill and talent bag to accomplish their goals.
There is one major difference and this is not gender. The difference is that each was an individual with his or her outlook on the job they had to perform. When dealt with as an individual instead of “Just a man” or “Just a woman” then navigating their eccentricities became manageable. It really didn’t matter if they owned, were CEO, managed, supervised or married you, they simply came down to being an individual person who has no other clone to be compared with.
Equality at the top is as desirable as equality at the bottom. We aren’t there yet because we’re too busy dividing ourselves into two enemy camps. When two aren’t sufficient we have organizations that divide us into many other categories to make sure we know who we are not and who should be entitled. Equality at CEO level? Not gonna happen until we lose the ever present, magnified, glorified, propagandized differences.
And the beat goes on.
I believe that skotia407 makes a very solid point, I am a woman who rose from the ranks to a Director in the IT organization whose clients were old oil and gas, and city and state governments. I never wanted to be CEO, so didn’t shoot for that in my goals.
I have certainly seen and been told directly that my bumpy bits lead to misperceptions about my intellect and skills, and some of them were managers in my company. In the early days of my career VP of HR would bring people by my office on the tour and say “This is our woman programmer”. But all in all I find that corporations and my male counterparts have matured and as more women entered IT the socalization about the women in the business evolved. Nothing is perfect but talent is talent.
Actually, the research shows that talent is not talent. Researchers have used identical resumes only changing the name/gender of the applicant. Typically the female applicants are rated as less appropriate for the position, less powerful and at a lower level of compensation than the male candidates with identical resumes. And get this, the people doing the rating are both male and female, and both the men and the women rate the female candidates lower on these attributes.
This bias isn’t one that we are aware of on the surface, but it does exist. I do agree that as more women enter the workforce this should change, but beware, women have been in the workforce in significant numbers for over 30 years. While their are some exceptions, it appears that there are some hardwired biases that may be causing limitations. Check out Alice Egaly’s video on the glass ceiling.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24517
Oh it does exist and I don’t deny that. In the company mentioned that dealt with oil and gas and governmente, I got in a bit of a quandry as a female director (the highest ranked female in the IT department/services) at that time. Several women in the department requested trasfer to my competency center, and if I recommended a woman be hired there were concerns about a bias on my part.
Alasm there was none my group was 80+% men the entire time I was working. I hired on the talent principle.
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