The glass ceiling – why companies get it wrong
Contrary to popular belief a woman’s biggest career pain point is not ‘the glass ceiling’. It’s becoming a manager. Or in HR terms: the transition from individual contributor to first-time manager. In order for companies to achieve more gender diversity in higher ranks, they need to shift their focus to the advancement of women in early career.
Where do companies go wrong? Prime attention on the senior segment is a surface level treatment for a problem that starts at the bottom of the organization. It is optimizing an already small and shrinking pool of senior women instead of creating a bigger talent pool to begin with.
Let’s look at the numbers.
Data shows: a woman’s biggest career pain point is at career start
Both quantitative data and my own qualitative research show that the biggest pain point in a woman’s career is getting to the first management level. Quantitative research from the ISS white paper ‚A diverse leadership yields higher earnings‘ (Andersen & Andersen, 2016, p.12 ) shows a gradually decreasing number of women on each level in Denmark: – 25% to Director, -29 % to VP, – 20 % to CXO.
Unfortunately, the entry level numbers are not included. Curious, I looked them up at Danmarks Statistik. Taking the 2015 graduate numbers (Bachelor and Master) for men and women for that year, l landed at a female representation of 55% at entry level. That gives a loss of female talent of 49% to the first management level. Minus 49%! My approach was simplified but for many European countries an equal representation at entry level is plausible. If we assume 50% men and 50% women at entry level for Denmark, the biggest talent loss is still at the transition to manager level (- 44%).
The graphic below is an adaption of the ISS statistics to visualize the loss of female talent per level. On the left you see my calculations for graduates with data from Danmark Statistik, on the right the numbers from the ISS research paper.
The Danish example from 2015 / 2016 is supported by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company. Their report with numbers from 2018 confirms: the biggest pain point for women is at the step up to manager, not the glass ceiling.
“The biggest obstacle women face on the path to senior leadership is at the first step up to manager. (…) This broken rung results in more women getting stuck at the entry level and fewer women becoming managers. Not surprisingly, men end up holding 62 percent of manager-level positions, while women hold just 38 percent. This early inequality has a long-term impact on the talent pipeline. Since men significantly outnumber women at the manager level, there are significantly fewer women to hire or promote to senior managers. The number of women decreases at every subsequent level. So even as hiring and promotion rates improve for women at senior levels, women as a whole can never catch up. There are simply too few women to advance.” (Women in the Workplace, McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org, 2019, p. 11)
Why do women struggle to get to manager level?
Female talent is lost at the bottom of the pyramid for two reasons: 1) lack of talent- or diversity management for women in early career and 2) individual behaviour
While The Women in the Workplace report provides clear evidence that women get stuck prior to the first management level, it provides little rationel as to why. Implicitly it mentions that companies don’t have the same structures and policies in place for advancement at the junior level as they have at senior level. The article further supports a numerical approach: “As more women become managers, there will be more women to promote and hire at each subsequent level.”
I will argue that the numerical argument is valid but incomplete. Individual factors also keep women from advancing. To understand this, we will look at the example of L’Oréal.
In 2017 L’Oréal has been recognized as the global leader in gender diversity with currently 69% women in their total workforce. If female career advancement was purely about having more women in the pipeline, we would expect these numbers to be reflected on the C-level. Yet numbers only show 31% women on the executive board. Despite the majority of employees being women, the numbers are basically reversed at the top level. So, if the pipeline is full and the company has the necessary attention on gender diversity, what else keeps women from advancing? Individual behaviour.
My qualitative research shows that women display strong self-biases or behaviours that keep them from advancing at the same rate as men. That means individual behaviour outweighs organizational efforts in some cases. For example: if a company puts hiring targets and opportunities in place for any given level, but women still don‘t apply.
Let’s take a closer look at what happens on the individual level.
6 individual pain points that keep women from advancing
If women display behaviours that keep them from advancing, companies need to understand individual pain points more intimately. I’d like to discuss 6 common themes from my qualitative research and coaching practice.
Interviews were conducted with 35+ high potential women from global companies like Microsoft, IBM, BCG, Novonordisk, Accenture, Maersk, UBS etc. Questions were open-ended and in-depth. Participants were asked about a) their biggest career pain points, b) aspirations and c) the ideal solution to their career challenges.
The 6 biggest challenges to get to management level are:
1 False belief that over-performance leads to advancement
Women often believe that if they work hard, their performance is recognized and leads to promotion. However, achievements don’t speak for themselves. Literally. Bosses and peers are busy with their own things – achieving their targets, managing a team and dealing with burning business priorities. If we don‘t bring our achievements and strengths to their attention, they won‘t know. Paired with this false belief often comes discomfort to verbalize achievements. Most women would rather run than self-promote.
2 Externalizing success and low self-confidence
Management or reaching for a new opportunity requires confidence. Confidence comes from being aware of our own skills and qualities. We gain more confidence by integrating success. That is, recognizing success as directly related to our own contribution and input. My interviews often revealed some version of “by chance I had a good CV”. We are talking highly accomplished employees that attribute past success to external circumstances like chance, colleagues or a favourable economic situation. Self-confidence is also a recurring theme in my coaching practice. Coachees are hesitant when opportunities come up because they display a strong negative self-bias. For extensive research on women and self-confidence, refer to The Confidence Gap.
3 Extreme personal investment and perfectionism
In all my interviews I found that women were not just strongly committed to their jobs but also displayed an extreme personal investment that I have not seen to the same extent with men. This meant that women would often spend tremendous thought and time considering their next moves, their behaviours, their opinion. In one case a woman working for Maersk, a global shipping and logistics company, said ‘I am not asking my manager for a promotion because I am afraid of embarrassing myself’. Other effects of personal investment and perfectionism are women tiptoeing around when expressing their opinion or not expressing it at all out of fear of backlash or saying something wrong. Being a manager requires making decisions, expressing opinions and the risk of not being liked at times.
4 Getting caught up in operational work
Moving to managerial level also requires strategic work and the ability to prioritize. Women often don’t want to accept that they can’t do everything (perfectly). They are doing all the work, but potentially not the work that is important to get to the next level. Adding to that women are often picking up everyone else’s jobs without really being conscious of it. Firstly, because they say yes to new requests before considering if it is a) their priority or b) their responsibility. Secondly, because they want to be strong team players and thirdly, because they hate if things do not get executed properly (perfectionism) and so they also catch the balls that other people drop (read one example here). All of this leads to getting caught up in operational work, instead of freeing up time to practice or acquire more strategic skills that would qualify them for the next hierarchical level.
5 Humbleness and unclear expectations of what a manager does
Men often already have a clear picture of where they want to go in the hierarchy when they start out their career while women are focussed on the job at hand being motivational. “It’s more important that I am passionate about the job than where in the hierarchy or what I earn”. Side remark here: doing a job you love, doesn’t mean you have to accept a lower salary or position, on the contrary. When I asked women in my interviews about their career aspirations they were often denying wanting a managerial position, but then went on to describe exactly that. They mentioned enjoying managing and motivating a team. Digging deeper, not voicing the desire for a management position was a mix of unclear expectations of what managing a team means, paired with not voicing ambition because it could be seen as displaying ego. For women it’s still socially less acceptable to overtly aspire a position of power, and so we are not explicit in our management ambition.
6 Hesitation to tap into a broader network
Career advancement not only comes with good performance but also requires sponsorship and a strong network. Women often feel they need to have a close relationship before asking for an introduction, a favour or a knowledge exchange. A personal eye-opener from attending a mostly male conference earlier this year: The format for networking was ‘Hi, I am … This is what I am looking for. You? Let’s help each other out’. Contacts, tips, introductions were openly traded without any prior connection. Building relationships remains important but not all cases require a deep and established relationship. On the self-bias side, women sometimes don’t reach out for support because they fear being seen as incompetent.
To sum up, if those 6 individual career pain points are addressed in early career, it can provide women with lessons for an entire career that senior women had to acquire the hard way.
Recommendations for companies to get more female managers
Provide coaching on career ownership and confidence
The 6 individual pain points among women in early career can be summarised as related to limiting assumptions, career ownership and confidence. Those are best addressed with a coaching methodology, because career advancement is behavioural, situational and individual. Individual behaviour is driven by beliefs about ourselves and our environment. If we change those beliefs, we change our behaviour. The essence of coaching is to help individuals change beliefs and with that motivate different behaviours.
Providing individual coaching is effective but costly. Group programs are a great alternative and have the added benefit of providing a network and cross-company (or departmental) learning. Participants get a support network that they can tap into throughout their career and long after the program has ended. This collective learning is further potent because participants profit from the experiences (success and failure) from others. They get relevant insights that may not be accessible in a 1:1 interaction because the situation only occurs later.
What are the benefits?
The main benefits of providing talent management in the form of (group) coaching is that it gives agency to individuals. Women learn early how to acquire leadership skills, build support, confidence and knowledge for their next step and signal ambition in an authentic way. Not only will they be more engaged but also less dependent on functioning HR processes or their manager‘s ability to promote. Learning how to overcome obstacles and reframe situations will not only benefit their career advancement but will ultimately make them more resilient and effective employees and leaders. The benefits of an engaged and effective workforce for companies are stated elsewhere. Important is that by addressing female pain points at the individual level, companies will create more female managers and close the talent leak at the bottom of the pyramid. An individual centric approach additionally comes into effect quicker than changing established organisational structures, hiring and promotion practices.
Summary
A woman’s biggest career pain point is not the glass ceiling – it’s getting to manager level. If companies are serious about advancing more women they need to a) shift talent- and diversity efforts to pre-manager level, b) truly understand pain points at the individual level and c) provide coaching and training to address these pain points that keep women from advancing.
Check Limitless for more information on talent programs for future female leaders.