Some of us on the committee in Tasmania have been reading a truly thought provoking article from the Harvard Business Review – “Leadership : A new picture emerges for why women don’t make it into the C-suite. It’s not the glass ceiling but the sum of many obstacles along the way”. [1]
The authors propose that instead of thinking of a single barrier to women’s progression to the highest level jobs (CEO, CFO, Chair, etc), we should recognise a labyrinth. Not a single absolute obstacle, that is invisible until you get up close, but a complex maze with twists, turns and distractions which it is possible to negotiate.
The key obstructions indentified in the article are:
- Vestiges of prejudice
- Resistance to women’s leadership
- Issues of leadership style
- Demands of family life, and
- Underinvestment in social capital.
The studies referenced in the article found that there are still people who are prejudiced – and making decisions which affect women’s careers: “a general bias against women appears to operate with approximately equal strength at all levels”. That’s you and me being affected, not just those women getting close to the corner office.
They also found that the qualities people expect to see in women are not consistent with those qualities people expect to see in leaders – thus resistance to female leadership and issues with leadership style. For example, leaders “should” be aggressive, ambitious, dominant, self-confident, foreceful, self-reliant and individualistic. Women “should” be affectionate, friendly, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, gentle and softly spoken.
One of the many confronting aspects of this is that it’s people who are resisting female leaders and confused about whether women can be “good” leaders and “good” women at the same time. It’s not just Brian Harradine carrying on about Julia Gillard not being a mother – it’s all, or many, of us. You, me, our co-workers, our friends, our family members. People we know, and generally like and respect.
So, what about for the next month, we all think – and talk – really carefully about leadership? What it is, what it takes and who has got it? And really carefully notice our own thoughts, challenge our own underlying assumptions. And those of others around us.
We can’t all implement the changes recommended in the article (change the long hours norm[2], reduce the subjectivity of performance evaluation, use open recruitment tools, ensure a critical mass of women in executive positions, avoid having a sole female member of any team[3], help shore up social capital, prepare women for line management, allow employees more time to prove themselves worthy of promotion, welcome women back and encourage male participation in family-friendly benefits), but we can all start changing the little bit of world around us – starting with our own minds.
[1] Alice H Eagly and Linda L Carly, Harvard Business Review, September 2007, p 63-71
[2] More on that another time, maybe
[3] Better delve more deeply into this one too!
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