Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Tips for Executive Women

Why Women Aren't Making it to the C-Suite

by John Agno
Tips for Boomer Women
Tips for Women Executives

There is a scarcity of women in top leadership within Corporate America.

Despite years of progress in the workforce, only 6% of women hold titles of chairman, president, chief executive officer and chief operating officer in Fortune 500 companies...and...only 15% of the seats on the boards of directors are held by women.

Resistance to Women's Leadership
Study after study has affirmed that people associate women and men with different traits and link men with more of the traits that connote leadership.  Many female leaders struggle to reconcile qualities people prefer in women (compassion for others) with qualities people think leaders need to succeed (assertion and control).

Kim Campbell, who briefly served as the prime minister of Canada in 1993, described the tension that results:

"I don't have a traditionally female way of speaking...I'm quite assertive.  If I didn't speak the way I do, I wouldn't have been seen as a leader.  But my way of speaking may have grated on people who were not used to hearing it from a woman.  It was the right way for a leader to speak, but it wasn't the right way for a woman to speak.  It goes against type."

People view successful female managers as more deceitful, pushy, selfish, and abrasive than successful male managers.  Men are associated with qualities which convey assertion and control.  They include being especially aggressive, ambitious, dominant, self-confident, and forceful, as well as self-reliant and individualistic.  These traits are also associated in most people's minds with effective leadership--perhaps because a long history of male domination of leadership roles has made it difficult to separate the leader associations from the male associations.  As a result, women leaders find themselves in a bind.

Studies have gauged reactions to men and women engaging in various types of dominant behavior.  The findings are quite consistent.  Verbally intimidating others can undermine a woman's influence, and assertive behavior can reduce her chances of getting a job or advancing in her career.  Simply disagreeing can sometimes get women into trouble.  Men who disagree or otherwise act dominant get away with it more often than women do.  Men can use bluster to get themselves noticed but modesty is expected even of highly accomplished women.

It all amounts to a clash of leadership assumptions when the average person confronts a woman in management.  Female leaders often struggle to cultivate an appropriate and effective leadership style--one that reconciles qualities people prefer in women with the qualities people think leaders need to succeed.  In the words of a female leader, "I think that there is a real penalty for a woman who behaves like a man.  The men don't like her and the women don't either."

Women leaders worry a lot about these things....because leaders must establish themselves as role models by gaining followers' trust and confidence.   They state future goals, and innovate, even when their organizations are generally successful.  Such leaders mentor and empower followers, encouraging them to develop their full potential and thus to contribute more effectively to their organizations.  Such leaders manage to clarify subordinates' responsibilities, rewarding them for meeting objectives, and correcting them for failing to meet objectives.  This takes a lot of face time on-the-job and off-the-job.

Building Relationships and Social Capital
In contrast, women are still the ones who interrupt their careers to handle work/family trade-offs.  Overloaded, they lack time to engage in the social networking essential to advancement.  Perhaps, the most destructive result of the work/family balancing act is that it leaves very little time for socializing with colleagues and building professional networks.

The social capital that accrues from such "nonessential" parts of work turns out to be quite essential indeed.  One study yielded the following description of managers who advanced rapidly in hierarchies: Fast-track managers "spent relatively more time and effort socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders than did their less successful counterparts...[and]...did not give much time or attention to the traditional management activities of planning, decision making, and controlling or to the human resource management activities of motivating/reinforcing, staffing, training/developing, and managing conflict."  This suggests that social capital is even more necessary to managers' advancement than skillful performance of traditional managerial tasks.

The call of family responsibilities is mainly to blame for women's underinvestment in networking.  When time is scarce, this social activity is the first thing to go by the wayside.  Women can gain from strong and supportive mentoring and coaching relationships and connections with powerful networks.  When a well-placed individual who possesses greater legitimacy (often a man) takes an interest in a woman's career, her efforts to build social capital can proceed far more efficiently.

Source: Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership by Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli in the Harvard Business Review, September 2007

Is Your Management Style Killing Your Career?

by Barb McEwen
Leadership Tips

You don't want to come across as attempting to be too masculine -- heavy-handed, aggressive and tough. Nor do you want to come across as overly feminine -- someone doesn't initiate, a person who requires group consensus, or someone who is over-emotional. Style is definitely a dilemma for most women executives. The goal is not to change your entire your personality but rather to modify certain behaviors that are creating problems for you.

In their book The Managerial Woman, Margaret Henning and Anne Jardim question, "How do you set standards for the quality of relationships you expect subordinates to meet if you are uncertain about the style you should adopt for yourself? How many conflicting signals will you send? How much uncertainty will you convey?

Their answer, "Often extremely competent women must develop a style that emphasizes competence and task achievement early in their careers for reasons of work related relationships. When working with men -- a boss, peer or subordinate -- women continue to be challenged about their right to be there. Men often unwittingly attempt to force the woman into traditional masculine/feminine roles. He's the leader; she's the helper. She is a woman and her ability as a manager is questioned. When this happens the best strategy you can use is to keep bringing the issue back to the job to be done. Present yourself as someone whose central priority is the highest level of task achievement."

As an executive woman you need to keep close guard on your emotions. Don't expose your anger. Don't waste energy getting stressed about male and female inequities. There is no to need to ask why. You know the reasons and they stem from early training and cultural values.

If these incidents typically occur in groups, anticipate they will happen and practice deflecting the comments. If you do react, hoping for support from the other men in the group, typically you won't get it. At best you will get silence from others. At worst your group will feel uncomfortable with the tension and subsequently you will have given them reason to question your leadership.

TIP: If you want support from both men and women, you will not get it by asking for it, you will get it by proving you can weather the strain of leadership.