I’ve got a lot invested in this issue. It’s not just the many clients of the female gender whom I’ve coached over the years or my background in gender communication. But three beloved daughters, all professionals. So Joann Barsh and Lareina Yee’s article in the September McKinsey Quarterly struck a chord with me. Their article sets out to change companies’ minds about women. And they’ve done a swell job.
Despite the Arianna Huffington’s of the world and corporate commitment to women’s career advancement, progress appears to be stalled. The stats are telling:
- Women account for 53% of entry-level employees
- Women hold only 37% of middle-management positions
- Women hold only 28% of vice-president and senior management roles
- Women hold only 14% of seats on executive committees
[This week’s Newsweek reports that women in the U.S. seriously outpace men in college degrees: 36% of women and only 28% of men in the age group of 25 to 29 hold bachelor’s degrees. (The U.S. is tops in the world for educated women. That includes education level, literacy and gender parity in schools. Who says government legislation and campaigns can’t impact problems from the mid-twentieth century? Those statistics are a far cry from my generation of septuagenarians.The flip side of that issue is that the educational attainment of men is of tragic proportion.)]
As the authors of the McKinsey research point out, corporations have trouble retaining promising women or promoting them into top jobs. The real issue is the “invisible, but powerful beliefs” held by managers. These mindsets subtlely and unintentionally hold back women.
Long term, this is an important issue for corporate America. Systematic research shows that companies gain very solid business benefits from a more diverse senior team. Consumer products firms take this issue seriously.
The McKinsey study digs deeply into the problem, finding that at every point in the U.S. talent pipeline, the odds of advancement for men are twice those of women. When it comes to the big leap, from executive committee to CEO, nearly four times as many men as women succeed.
So why do men hold back women? This is what surfaced in their research:
- “She’s too aggressive” (or “too passive”) I can’t imagine a man getting the feedback. Furthermore, women won’t receive that info directly. In my interviewing for women clients I’ve picked it up, but in every instance the client told me she had never received that feedback. They quickly set out to remedy the problem in constructive fashion.
- “I don’t want to tell Bob he didn’t get that job.” Leaders are not comfortable telling their male protégés, whom they have groomed for years, that someone else is getting that job. What McKinsey didn’t point out is that that response is the remnant of the “boys club.”
- “I don’t know how to talk or mentor her.” Men tend to sponsor men. They gravitate to the sex with whom they find more common interests. There’s also plenty of nervousness about mixed gender relationships in the workplace.
- “If I put a woman in that role and she fails, it’ll set back all women.” This is an inadvertent mind-set that treats women as representative of their whole gender. I can’t imagine men being treated as other than individuals.
- “A woman isn’t right for that job.” Those stereotypes are still there, though vestigial. One of the upsides of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is the placement of women in the front.
This is a vicious cycle for women, difficult to deal with primarily because the statements are deeply held. They can be resolved one-on-one, but that approach is unfair to women. It’ll be the 22nd century before the change takes place.