Where do all the successful women go?
The 2006 EOWA Australian Census of Women in Leadership highlighted the stark gender imbalance in senior roles in leading Australian companies. In Australia’s top 200 publicly listed companies, women held only 6 CEO roles and 12% of executive management positions. Yet we know that women enter most organisations - with the exception perhaps of traditionally skewed industries, like engineering and construction for example - in equal if not greater proportions than men. They make it to first management roles in about equal proportion, and continue to be well represented in middle management roles. But what happens after that?
Perhaps it’s the glass ceiling (I heard one woman comment recently that it was only after she smashed through the glass ceiling that she realised there was another concrete one beyond that!), but the women I know and work with are resourceful enough to find a solution through that obstacle. And likewise parental leave - sure, it is the major off ramp, but I’ve seen too many examples of female leaders successfully balancing parenting with careers to count it as a definitive career breaker.
So what are the other factors that cause this great divide? Male dominated workplace politics? Lack of female role models to build the belief it is possible? Lack of flexibility? Or a lack of drive or ambition to do what it takes to get the top job?
All these factors are probable contributors. But one thing is for sure - women make great leaders, and - for many reasons - we need more of them. So lets use our collective brainpower and passion to collectively come up with solutions that will make a real difference - to employers, employees and women in general.
August 13th, 2007 at 21:08:07
This is such a huge topic! As you said Jen, there are so many contributing factors. To me, the biggest issue I see is that blokes don’t have the babies! Australia, unlike so many European countries, have got things backwards. You do well in business as long as you ignore the fact you have a family and any lifestyle interests.
August 22nd, 2007 at 23:34:48
I think this is an excellent question. Many of the large corporates have introduced great family friendly policies and flexible working initiatives. Of course this is lucky if you work for a large corporate. Those working in smaller organisations may be not be so fortunate.
But regardless of the size of the organisation, my hunch is that these will only go so far to retain talented women. My prediction is that in five years time, corporates will be wondering why the introduction of these fabulous policies (and they are fabulous) are not serving to retain as many women as they thought they might. I think we will continue to see a drain of talented women.
The reason I think this is the question of values and culture compatibility. I rarely see this issue adequately dealt with in the diversity literature (with the excellent exception Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book On-Ramps and Off-Ramps).
I am not talking about a rampant macho culture - many employers would be the first to eschew such a culture - I believe it is a far more subtle proposition, so subtle that I believe much of it is unconscious and unintended. It’s the little things like not valuing certain leadership styles, assuming that she is not ambitious because she does not openly articulate her vision, assuming that she lacks impact because she has a more permissive collaborative gentler (read respectful) style, she does not put her views forward in meetings enough because she likes to listen and weigh up the evidence before speaking.
I am sure we can all add to the list of micro-misinterpretations which ultimately add up [unconsciously] to the conclusion that “she is not really leadership material”. This said, try on masculine behaviours at your peril.
I get tired of reading/hearing comments which masquerade as helpful advice to women which go something like this “women need to do more of…./be more…[insert cliched leadership trait]”. There is even advice on this website which goes exactly like that eg women need to assert themselves more etc.
Ladies, as soon as you hear this advice, stand back and think about it Why exactly do we need to be more assertive/say exactly what we want/have more impact/be more decisive etc etc? Compared to what benchmark or standard?- So we can better fit into the male dominated culture and be seen to be leadership material? The danger is that we end up actually believing that we do indeed need to be more of/do more of [insert development need of choice].
I never hear about what men need to do less of eg men need to be less assertive, or men need to better read the subtle signals, men need to embrace a more permissive communication style etc etc. [Not all men of course, many are fantastic]. I realise that in the real world women DO need to be more assertive etc to fit in and achieve their leadership ambitions - that’s reality. But in being pragmatic, let’s see things for what they really are, and not internalise that we are the ones that somehow need fixing.
In summary, my hunch is that we will not see the drain of talent at more senior levels reversing until there has been a greater shift in the cultures and values of workplaces towards ones in which women can feel fully authentic in their leadership style. It is the accumulation of a 1000 little things, many of which are unconscious and unintended, that wear women down over time. And these things prevail as much in organisations that genuinely espouse diversity as those that don’t. Whilst there are many organisations which do have a macho culture (and wear women down the fastest) my proposition is that most organisations, even the purported female friendly ones, will continue to see an erosion of the female talent until such time as the executive leadership team is fairly equally balanced in terms of gender; and the cultures and values really do truly embrace womens’ (and many men’s) leadership styles.
I would be interested to know whether anyone else looks at the issues in the same way or am I in a minority of one?
August 26th, 2007 at 18:24:28
I couldn’t agree more. I have not only received advice on what behaviours etc should be changed, but also further reaching advice relating to career choices. For example, I attended one women-only networking event where a (female) headhunter gave advice to the effect that to get ahead, women should avoid creative and soft roles such as Marketing and HR, and even Customer Service on the basis that these are not profit generating roles. I get the rationale on this, but if you happen to be an expert in that (and lets face it, women generally are promoted to these roles because of their superior interpersonal and empathy skills) then you’d want to think carefully before switching to say a Sales role for the sake of it. It is about having confidence in yourself and your abilities, and if you are good enough, you can still make it to the top no matter what path you take (a la Geoff Dixon with his marketing background).