Beyond The Glass Ceiling

From Mary Barra of General Motors Company to Rosalind Brewer of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., women currently hold 41 (8.2%) of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies. Yet despite study after study showing that women make better leaders than men, particularly in a time of crisis, the glass ceiling remains intact in both business and politics.

After completing a multiyear study of leaders and employees from approximately 5,000 companies in almost 100 countries, the global research and leadership development firm, Potential Project found that 55% of women leaders in their study were ranked as wise and compassionate, compared to only 27% of the men. The study also found that 56% of the men ranked poorly in wisdom and compassion and that by a 2.1 margin, women leaders versus male leaders were able to do hard things in a human way.

“Women leaders exercise behaviors in key competencies that uniquely position them to lead in difficult times,” says Valentine Bruk-Lee, Ph.D., associate professor, Industrial and Organizational Psychology and director of the HealthyWork Lab at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami.

“Handling a crisis requires an emphasis on human relationships and communication, both areas in which women leaders have been shown to display strengths.”

When the going gets tough, Bruk-Lee says many women leaders shine.

“During turmoil, effective leaders must drive high performance while displaying concern for their teams,” she says. “Women leaders are skilled at showing both agency and warmth by facilitating their team’s work and strengths, being strategic and decisive, while also promoting employee engagement and well-being. Ultimately, engendering trust and leading with integrity are key to navigating crises at work.”

Making Cracks In The Glass Ceiling

Despite the strides that women have made in the workplace and evidence showing they are more effective in times of crises, women continue to face challenges.

“Women are just as ambitious as men, but at many companies they face significant obstacles getting into leadership positions,” says Joyce Elam, Ph.D. and Dean Emerita of the College of Business at FIU.

Elam co-chairs The Women Leaders Program at FIU, along with Bruk-Lee, a program that teaches women in business the skills they need to rise to the next level. The program includes six sessions plus executive coaching, with the next program beginning Sept. 18.

According to Bruk-Lee, executive training programs such as The Women Leaders Program at FIU, now in its 20th year, go beyond traditional college classes and the lessons women learn on the job. Instead, they focus on showing them the importance of self-insight and awareness in shaping and understanding their leadership behaviors.

“We teach women how to leverage their personal strengths to add value to their organization, foster personal power to better influence high-level decisions, create and lead healthy work cultures, develop the art of storytelling for impact and influencing and lead change in highly complex environments, among many other essential leadership skills,” Bruk-Lee says.

“Women leaders also receive personalized coaching sessions allowing them to explore their unique leadership challenges and develop strategic action plans to address them.”

Women Leaving The Workplace

The 2022 Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey, in partnership with leanin.org,

reports that women are demanding more from work and are leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it. It also claims that women in leadership are switching jobs at the highest rates ever seen.

The report notes that they are changing positions due to a number of reasons that include battling microagressions and being spread too thin and feeling unrewarded. Women are also seeking companies that value flexibility, employee well-being, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Barbara Kellerman, a world-renowned leadership expert, fellow with the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University and author of “Women & Leadership: The State of Play And Strategies for Change,” says women have grappled for years with the difficulty of being a mother and a leader.

“Differences between men and women impact workplace trajectories and these differences often negatively affect women and they include pregnancy, lactation and parenting,” Kellerman says.

The pandemic hit working mothers hard, according to the McKinsey report, with working mothers juggling a double shift of household and childcare responsibilities. Kellerman says the hybrid work models that resulted from the pandemic benefited many women in leadership positions by easing their work/life balance and offering them increased flexibility.

“Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, and the mother of a young daughter, stepped down from her position this year saying she no longer had enough in her tank to do the job,” Kellerman says.

With many women believing that reaching the top of the corporate ladder involves putting everything else first and putting themselves last, burnout is common among women leaders. The McKinsey report found that, compared with men, senior women leaders report higher rates of burnout, chronic stress and exhaustion, with 43% of women leaders reporting burnout, compared to only 31% of men who work at the same level.

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, who hosts a Know Your Value online community based on the title of her book, “Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth,” recently interviewed wellness experts who led a Women’s Health wellness event for high-ranking executive women.

Jay Shetty, author of the book, “8 Rules of Love,” told Know Your Value that in order to avoid burnout women need to reframe their concept of leadership.

“Leadership isn’t about your resume, it’s about how you make people feel,” Shetty explained in the interview. “If you focus on the things that make people feel safe, that make people feel empowered, that make people feel like they’re seen and heard, then incredible things can happen. But if you’re just trying to check off …everything on a leadership checklist, you run out of energy pretty quickly.”

Shetty also spoke about the importance of committing to a healthy diet, workout routine and getting a good night’s sleep to prevent burnout. And finally, setting clear boundaries between work and personal time.

“Eighty percent of us look at our phones first thing in the morning and last thing at night. When you do that, you’re feeding yourself news, negativity, notifications and noise,” he said. “Make yourself a priority and start the first and last fifteen minutes of your day without your phone.” 

Women And Leadership

Elam says there are many ways women can position themselves as leaders. These include:

• Get comfortable with self-promotion. “Make your contributions visible. Don’t expect others to notice and reward your contributions.”

• Ask for what you want, whether that’s a raise, promotion or assignment. “Don’t assume others can read your mind.”

• Develop an elevator speech that is a clear and concise summary of what you do, what you want to do in the future and why you are the right person to do it.

• Curb your perfectionistic tendencies. “Embrace good enough. Delegate, prioritize and get comfortable taking measured risks.”

• Invest in building and leveraging a wide network of professional relationships both inside and outside the organization.

Elam offers the following recommendations for companies/organizations:

• Implement structured interviews to ensure all candidates are evaluated according to relevant and predetermined criteria related to work performance.

• Ensure that performance review criteria do not reflect stereotypically masculine criteria that can negatively impact women’s opportunities for advancement.

• “Make sure women and men are put up for promotions at similar rates and monitor outcomes to make sure that they are equitable.”

• Base assignments to project on employees’ skills and merit, not stereotypic impressions.

• Offer training to minimize the impact of unconscious gender bias on hiring, promotion and leadership development opportunities.

• Make sure career tracks take into account family considerations and implement family-friendly HR practices.