What’s wrong with this picture?
Today, women make up 5 percent of CEOs and 17 percent of corporate board members in America's Fortune 500 companies. For the past five years, Bain & Co. has studied how and why women’s career paths differ so markedly from men’s. Surveying more than 1,000 men and women at all career levels, Bain discovered that, as new hires, 43 percent of women aspire to top management.
However, women’s aspirations soon drop more than 60 percent, while men’s goals remain high. I think that’s because women don’t feel the support and encouragement men do.
A Harvard Business Review study of 4,100 MBA students who graduated between 1996 and 2007 revealed that women did not see a path into management.
“Companies have been working on this,” said Jim Turley, the chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young, a sponsor of the research. “The last decade was supposed to be the ‘promised one,’ and it turns out that it wasn’t.”
Indeed, women are still wondering when the promises will be kept.
How is it that a woman can graduate from college and enter the workforce full of enthusiasm, only to have her desire to get into the C-suite plummet after a few years on the job? Could it be a conscious career decision? A confidence gap? A difference in personal values, mission or purpose? Or maybe it’s glass-ceiling obstruction?
All of these may be factors, but the question we must answer is, how can we help women make it to the top?
This is urgent, because when more women lead, company performance improves. According to reports by Strategic Management Journal and American Sociological Review, innovative, sharp and savvy firms with more women in top management are more profitable, and companies with more gender diversity have more revenue, customers, market share and profits. Some of those companies are now headed by women who left corporations and went out on their own. If you want to make more money, it’s time to notice this rapidly growing trend in our nation.
I’ve worked with women in all walks of life for 30 years, including directing a large employee assistance program for a regional hospital. All I can say is, of course a woman loses her enthusiasm if her scramble up the ladder isn’t going to bring more authority, money and satisfaction. Why would she bother? But give her a chance to excel, and watch the company grow.
Research shows the direct supervisor shapes an employee’s corporate experience, but leaders often don’t know how to approach staff development, much less provide the level of support and professional resources that employees need. Support women, give them tools, and get ready for amazing changes.
Let’s train supervisors to:
• Reach out to help new hires, connect and look for ways to work together.
• Provide mentorship opportunities. Relationships enhance and strengthen the workplace.
• Cultivate support networks inside and outside the company; four out of 10 women executives do not do this now (who has the time?), but really, this is absolutely essential.
• Exercise the “power to” rather than “power over.” Focus on what we can accomplish together.
Our responsibility is to help supervisors rethink their approach and redouble their efforts to support new talent. Set clear expectations, provide tools for accomplishment, remove barriers and hold all leaders accountable for encouraging and developing female talent. We must share and recognize all of our employees’ strengths, acknowledge their skills and build on them. This is how we can stop the exodus of women before they reach the C-suite, keep them from losing interest and sustain their drive for success.
Nancy O’Reilly, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of “Leading Women: 20 Influential Women Share Their Secrets to Leadership, Business, and Life.” Through DrNancyOreilly.com and the WC4G Foundation, she urges women to connect to create a better world.
