Women in Leadership: Isn’t It About Time?
At the Academy Awards ceremony, Patricia Arquette gave a controversial thank you speech after winning the Oscar for best supporting actress. Arquette thanked the appropriate people and went on to say, “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality, once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” She received both support and criticism for politicizing the moment. But, was she right? After all, it was fifty years ago that President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. What do the data say?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010, the female-to-male earning ratio for full-time year-round (FTYR) employees was 0.81. Women earn 81 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. The 2012 Catalyst Fortune 500 Census stated that nearly half of the U.S. workforce is made up of women. According to USA Today, the ratio of women to men graduating from college is 60 to 40 (Fortune, March 2013). Yet women hold only 16.6% of board seats and only 14.3% of executive officer positions of the Fortune 500. Women have the education, the presence in the workforce, and the skill set, but are dramatically underrepresented in executive positions—and are significantly underpaid in general.
Is there something fundamentally missing in the female psyche that prevents them from being capable to rise to senior positions in business and earn equal pay? This is not true according to a research study conducted at Spring Arbor University.1 Researchers used a 360-degree feedback tool to examine how 1,546 male and 721 female leaders from 204 for-profits, non-profits, and large and small organizations perceived themselves and were perceived by colleagues, supervisor, employees, and peers. Participants were rated on 10 relational behaviors (including trust, communication, and coaching) and 10 task-oriented behaviors (such as goal setting, planning, strategy, and decisiveness). Female leaders were rated significantly higher than males on most of the skills. Really?!
Women have been successful at leading whole countries (Golda Meir/Israel; Angela Merkel/Germany; Indira Gandhi/India; Margaret Thatcher/United Kingdom and 18 other current female heads of state) and companies (Meg Whitman/Hewlett Packard; Mary Barra/General Motors; Virginia Rometty/IBM and 23 other female CEOs in the Fortune 500). Why are women so underrepresented in leadership positions? Why is there such a widespread discrepancy between men and women in pay and opportunity?
There are several anecdotal reasons given for this underrepresentation in senior executive positions. Many women drop out of the workforce before having the chance to be promoted. Women would rather raise their families than work. Women are less mobile than men. Women do not want the responsibility that goes with these positions. Women are less assertive in asking for raises and promotions. And on and on. There may be a grain of truth to any of these arguments, but, taken as a whole, women would need another 33% representation on board seats and another 35% representation in senior positions to even reach 50%! In any case, there is no way that these reasons account for women being underpaid by 19%.
I subscribe to the hypothesis that there is a bias in the workforce against women moving into senior positions. This bias is evident in how women are characterized. A strong demanding man is referred to as tough. The same behaviors in women are referred to as bitchy. An expressive man is seen as assertive. An expressive woman is seen as overly emotional. Men who demonstrate interest in their employees are compassionate, while women are viewed as soft. A man is considered organized, while a woman is seen as controlling. This bias has become so much a part of the cultural psyche that it is now often accepted as truth and unchallenged, at least not publicly.
The enlightened leader will hire, promote, and compensate on the basis of performance and put biases aside. The enlightened leader will be intentional about a process of self-examination to understand where these biases originate and how to be proactive in dealing with them. As long as there are limits on what women are paid and what they can achieve, we are limiting the potential of our companies, our communities, and, ultimately, our country. We need to be better than that. Don’t you think?
1. Reported in Monitor on Psychology, September 2015 (from Performance Improvement Quarterly, April/May/June 2014).
