“The question I hear women asking in tough demanding corporate roles is always, “is it worth it?” Is it worth the investment of effort for me to be pushing the boundaries for myself in my life and career whilst also pushing the boundaries for other women in this organization, in this sector, in this boardroom?”
Rachel Short
So says Rachel Short, director of social enterprise Why Women Work that campaigns for more women in corporate leadership. An executive coach working within corporations, Short has also conducted extensive research into the issue, including working with the 30% Club on its seminal Cracking the Code white paper, along with several subsequent updates.
I spoke to her last year in response to The Fawcett Society’s research examining progress towards female representation across politics, business and public life. Their findings show that only 6% of the CEOs of FTSE 100 companies are female, and only 28% of their directors are. Their report is scathing: “Women are still being systematically excluded from the institutions which govern our public and political life and from the most powerful private sector corporations.”
With this in mind I asked Short for suggestions that might help women who are aiming at the top levels of business.
I also provide some advice following this on the best ways for your business to successfully recruit and encourage female executives.
1. “Caring, collaborative, collective and considerate”: Play the power game according to your own values
“Organizations are structures built on power,” said Short. “This means women definitely have to think about how they see themselves having power, using power, and being seen as powerful by others.”
When women first started taking on senior roles within business, they were often labelled with negative stereotypes. Short referred to this as “the b-word – often because they were seen to have compromised their own or a shared value set about female behaviour to achieve a degree of organizational power”.
With more women now in the workplace, she explained, it’s better to really examine your own values, and use them as a foundation for authority.
Quoting the example of Body Shop founder, Anita Roddick, who built a commercially successful and ethically uncompromising business around what really mattered to her, Short added: “There’s something about women being much more able to define how they can use their power in a collective way – in a way that projects, enhances and demonstrates their values and ethics. This personal and professional authenticity makes women appear incredibly powerful.”
And it’s one situation where women can use traditional viewpoints about their gender to their advantage.
“Society still expects women in all walks of life to be caring, collaborative, collective, and considerate,” said Short. “So the more you can link your efforts with a broader collective campaign the better. Women who are seen to be only out for themselves suffer a double whammy of backbiting and criticism from both male and female colleagues.”
2. “Be explicit about what is most worthwhile and valuable“: Encourage evaluation that’s fair to you
A woman consciously leading through her values can bring things to a business that male leaders typically don’t.
“We know from our own research that female leaders are more likely to be transformational than transactional,” commented Short. “This has upsides for the organisation, but it also has some downsides for them.”
These downsides can be experienced whenever narrowly focussed, quantitative performance evaluation occurs within a business – everything from annual pay reviews and promotion boards to organisational restructures and rightsizing. The gender pay gap currently in the headlines is just another example of how women’s qualitative performance, for example their team’s engagement levels, can be overlooked.
For example, when it comes to reducing a workforce research shows women are disproportionately affected compared with men.
“The intangibles of great leadership are so hard to measure but are so easy to experience,” said Short, adding that the typical corporate metrics for measuring performance are “still quite basic” and prone to bias. Focussed on quantifiable outputs, traditional metrics fail to recognise women in leadership who, said Short, often engender “great loyalty, great citizenship, and great levels of commitment”.
“Female leaders need to demonstrate the cultural value they bring to the organisation over and above just delivering results,” she added. “They need to demonstrate how they are contributing to the organisation by being explicit about what they feel is most worthwhile and valuable.”
Short added that she doesn’t claim this is easy, pointing out women repeatedly express their frustration to her, saying, “I just don’t know what else I can do. I’m doing everything I can. I’m pulling all the levers.”
Pointing out that burnout can be common amongst senior female executives, Short summarised: “Be kind to yourself. Be clear about what it is you can and can’t achieve, who can help you, and who you want to be rather than simply how much you need to do.”
3. “A sticky carpet rather than glass ceiling”: Beware the mid-career doldrums
In the boardroom, there is optimism that corporate culture is evolving and that with each new generation the outlook is improving for gender diversity at the top. With more women than ever at entry level, the wisdom goes, eventually there will be more women working their way to the very top. Sadly, research shows this isn’t the case.
There are certainly more women in the workforce but the numbers at very senior levels really haven’t improved much over the past few decades. It remains the case that far fewer women are receiving the experience and development required for very senior positions compared with men.
Short’s research shows that women often reach the middle levels of management and go no further (“a sticky carpet rather than glass ceiling”). The reasons are multiple, she said. Some are disheartened by workplace politics and leave for their own wellbeing or to go somewhere they can make a real difference. Often it takes them longer than men to realise their external market value.
Some are derailed by family pressures, such as caring for elderly relatives, children, or supporting their spouse’s careers. Women taking a break from work temporarily for child rearing is now broadly accepted as an early to mid-career event that can be planned for, said Short, but “we’re only just getting our heads around the consequences for subsequent career stages and the multi-generational caring demands that women face in later life”.
However, there are significant professional biases that make it hard, if not impossible, for all women, including those without care-giving responsibilities, to advance to the next level of challenge.
“Women tend to get labelled as lacking experience,” said Short. ”When ‘lacking experience” is actually code for ‘hasn’t got a CV that looks like mine.’
Organisations often claim their talent pool at very senior levels simply has more eligible male candidates than female. This is rarely down to women having taken maternity leave years beforehand but much more likely to be due to women not having been undertaken a commercially crucial management role in mid-career.
Women tend to stay longer in the same role‚ ”broadening and deepening,” said Short, ”making sure the legacy, the structures, the culture and team is fit for purpose and better than they found it.”
In contrast, men tend to move between roles more frequently, adopting a ”stepping stone” approach and also delegating and devolving more frequently. This creates a very different set of ”CV experiences” but, said Short, ”you could also argue that this means men are not actually learning about some core leadership tenets urgently needed in socially-responsible boardrooms.”
However, while there’s a danger that ”women moving up towards the senior executive level can get side-lined into focusing on interpersonal or influencing behaviours as part of their development – really aimed at making them look and sound like a middle-aged man,” there are some things that can be done to overcome what might be seen as an experience gap. Backed by the government, the recently launched cross-company Board Apprentice scheme aims to increase gender diversity in the boardroom by providing one-year apprenticeships. Women can also take non-executive roles on non-profit or governmental bodies to broaden their understanding of boardroom dynamics.
All of this will help to demonstrate their “readiness for mainstream executive responsibilities”, said Short.
4. “Assumptions still grounded in the 1950s”: Society lags behind the workplace
When discussing women in work there’s naturally a tendency to focus on improving workplace values and those of senior management. But society’s values feed directly into the workplace. And as mentioned above we’re only just seeing a nascent debate about the role of women caring for relatives and the impact on this on the workplace.
Yet another necessary debate needs to be had, said Short: “We still haven’t quite adjusted our expectations around men and women’s roles in terms of actually putting food on the table. Our assumptions about who works, who earns the money and who looks after the kids is still grounded in the 1950s – even though the world of work has changed so dramatically.”
Research shows that the number of households dependent on dual incomes, or on a single female earner, have significantly increased in recent times. Yet the often-tough decisions within companies about who goes in mergers or restructuring favour men – and that’s before the gender pay gap is considered.
“Somehow there’s an assumption a woman has got an earnings back up,” said Short. “That it’s not quite as relevant or as important for her – that it’s the men that somehow get seen as having more dire consequences if they lose their role than if the woman does.”
There’s also an assumption within society that caregiving is in opposition to working and earning a salary.
Again, said Short, outside of promoting positive values within society at large, the solution in the workplace comes back to women identifying the value they bring to the workplace “in a way that projects and enhances and demonstrates their value set.”
Recruiting female executives
If you’re a business looking to encourage recruitment of female executives then the advice above remains potent. All you need do is invert it from a recruitment perspective and in your candidate questions. For example:
- As Short mentions, a path many female executives pursue is to use their values as a foundation for authority. During the interview, consider focussing on the values candidates have developed and fostered during their professional experience. Enquire how these helped the business.
- Short mentions that the measures for leadership are still basic, so you may need to focus on more than the traditional metrics. Focus on how the candidate believes they worked with their team and the benefits they think this work brought to the business—as well as their colleagues.
- Research shows female executives tend to be transformational rather than transactional. When focussing on the achievements of the candidate, encourage them to talk about transformational opportunities they experienced and generated, rather than focussing solely on measures such as KPI results.
- Realise that a female executive’s career progression on their CV might take a different shape compared to male colleagues. As Short mentions above, women tend to spend longer in roles adding value, rather than taking the “stepping stone” approach of many male colleagues. A process of viewing all CVs blind stripped of all identifying details may be one that accidentally but effectively discriminates against female candidates.
Diversity in business 