Turning Points in a Woman's Path to Leadership
The idea behind the researchIn spite of what may seem like monumental progress for American women over the last century, women remain underrepresented in leadership positions across all sectors. But why? Well, the short answer is: social and cultural constructs of leadership remain highly gendered. But what does that even mean? It means some of our society, men, women, and organizations still see women as inferior or in stereotypical roles. Although women now outpace men in higher education attainment, women's skills and abilities are still seen as different and/or less desirable than a man's in the workplace.
Women’s leadership is a hot topic these days. Countless books and news articles prescribe ways for women to ‘lean in’ to leadership, in the name of enhancing women’s access to leadership positions as well as the status of women as leaders, but where is the research about how to help women access leadership positions and succeed in them? As it turns out, there isn't much, or to be fair, maybe we just didn't find much of it. This led us to ask:
To answer these questions, we decided to do some research of our own. We boldly began a research project using a mixed methods approach surveying women from the public and nonprofit sector about the turning points in their lives that they believe helped them attain their leadership position. We also conducted 7 interviews with key women leaders in the public and nonprofit sector. The Guiding TheoriesMuch literature details barriers to women achieving leadership positions, differences in leadership styles of men and women, and strengths and weaknesses of the traditional male versus female leadership styles.
Is it the glass ceiling that stops some women from obtaining the highest leadership roles in equal numbers, or is there something else happening? Is the floor "sticky" and thus holding women down? Are some job categories just not for women? Are men inherently better leaders? These are just some of the questions implied in our review of existing literature about women and leadership. We did a thorough review of existing research on women in leadership and this is the quick and easy of what we found: The Glass Ceiling Theory: The glass ceiling refers an unseen barrier preventing women from advancing into upper management. The glass ceiling theory identifies significant attitudinal and organizational bias that prevent women and minorities from advancement. Barriers such as inadequate recruitment practices, lack of opportunity to contribute to and participate in corporate development programs and lack of top level ‘ownership’ of EEO principles prevented women from attaining leadership positions. The Labyrinth: Newer than the glass ceiling is the labyrinth metaphor, representing the complexities of a woman’s journey complete with unexpected twists and turns (Eagly & Carli, 2007). Perhaps a better description of the barriers women face, the labyrinth metaphor recognizes the differences in the ways women and men achieve leadership roles, in part created by an unequal balance in power and opportunity (Eagly & Carli, 2007). The various paths to leadership twist and turn, are unpredictable, and have end points often obscured from view. External Barriers: Pervasive external barriers in the form of societal norms and unequal pay exert a significant influence on women’s perceptions. For example, traditional gender roles as applied to occupation tell us nursing and teaching are more traditionally women’s work, while the roles of doctors, lawyers and politicians traditionally fall to men. Further, despite great cultural transformation from women entering the workforce to more egalitarian models of sharing child rearing and domestic chores, women still perform the majority of home and childcare, even in situations where both adults work full time (Caprino, 2013). Internal Barriers: Countless internal barriers emerge to prevent women from leading, too. Due in large part to traditional socialization and ‘typical’ female gender role experiences previously described, many women lack in self-efficacy, (Hackett & Betz, 1981) and just plain lack interest in assuming leadership roles (Lawless & Fox 2010). Among college age women, self-esteem and even fears of negative evaluation limit young women’s leadership aspirations (Boatwright & Egidio, 2003). What we found was - there is not much about what HELPS women! Frustrated by the focus on barriers and seeking a strengths-based approach to the gender disparity in leadership, we began to ask questions. ‘What can be done to empower women leaders, and transform the status of women as leaders?’ ‘How can we mitigate identified barriers to women’s leadership, and improve the leadership experience of women leaders in nonprofit and governmental organizations?’ These questions drove us to conduct research of our own with a transformational intent. Research MethodsWe gathered data online through a 34-question survey by sending the survey to women leaders in nonprofit and government agencies and asking them to send it along to other women leaders. For the purposes of this research, we defined “leader” narrowly: women who supervise one or more staff, or have the authority to hire and release staff. Our survey tool included 34 multiple choice, Likert scale, and open-ended questions. Survey questions sought information on women’s perceptions about gender and access to leadership, gathered demographic information, and asked about social and workplace supports.
A wide variety of women participated in our survey. They ranged in age from 20 to age 69, and have a variety of levels of education, the majority with Bachelor's degrees or higher (80%). Most survey respondents are married or cohabituating, are parents, and over half (51%) are parents of children still living at home.
Nine out of ten (90%) women reported their fathers worked outside of home when they were growing up, compared to just 3 in 5 (60%) reporting their mothers worked outside the home.
We hypothesized that
whether or not a woman’s mother worked outside the home while she was growing
up would be correlated to whether a woman was a leader, however we found no
significant relationship between women who are leaders by our definition and
whether their mothers worked outside of the home.
Research FindingsAlthough we sought to survey women who fit our specific definition of leader (supervisory or hire/fire authority) we ended up with many survey results from women who did not meet that definition. We were able then to divide the survey data into two groups: leaders (by our definition) and not leaders (Huge caveat! We recognize women who are leaders not in the strict organizational sense are extremely important in organizations. For the purpose of this study only we broke the women into these two groups). The other two groups we can naturally divide our data into is women who work in the public sector and women in the nonprofits. By analyzing the 53 factors in our survey for group differences between women leaders (by our definition) and women not in leadership positions we found 9 factors to be statistically significant between the groups, indicating a relationship. By determining those statistically significant factors we were able to paint a picture of the characteristics a woman leader has.
We asked the women to rate the impact various turning points had on their career path. Three factors registered as correlated to whether the survey respondents were leaders by our definition: workplace training opportunities, the organization had a need the respondent was able to fill, and work experiences positioned them to become a leader. In addition, women leaders by our definition were more likely to indicate a support network of friends and family had a major impact on their ability to obtain a leadership position than women not in leadership positions.
When we compared the women who work in government and nonprofits in the same categories of turning points in their careers, the factors that had relationships were: changing fields/career trajectory (an aha! moment) and again, workplace training opportunities. Those working for nonprofits were both more likely to say “workplace training opportunities” had an influence on their careers and that having an aha! moment had a major impact on their career trajectories. Women leaders were more likely to say having a female supervisor was definitely or somewhat helpful in them obtaining a leadership role, although whether or not they had ever had a female supervisor was not a statistically significant relationship. This finding leads us to think about those female supervisors - what made some of them so significant in women leader’s career paths and some of them not in the lives of women who are not leaders? Looking at more organizationally focused factors, women leaders were more likely to say the culture of their organization supports women to become leaders. And women leaders were more likely to have been promoted or applied from within vs. being hired from outside the organization. These significant factors together suggest an organization that works to support women in obtaining leadership positions are successful in their pursuits. We looked closer at the role mentors may have played in these women’s careers and asked if they had had a mentor, (if yes) whether it was a female and if they have had a female supervisor. There is no significant relationship between whether a woman is a leader (by our definition) and whether they had a mentor, but there is a relationship between women leaders and whether they had a female mentor. We asked more personal questions of our survey respondents as well about family life and attitudes about their career paths. The women leaders in our survey were more likely to say that being a woman positively affected their ability to obtain a leadership role. Although there was no statistically significant relationship between whether women indicated they had turned down a job or took time off due to family care responsibilities, women leaders who took our survey were less likely to have regular family care responsibilities other than children than the non-leader women who took our survey. Our qualitative data included open-ended questions from 225 applicable survey responses as well as extended interviews with seven women leaders in government or nonprofits. Three big themes arose from this data:
Opportunities Make The Difference. A theme of women needing opportunities was mentioned in our survey 50% of the time. Certainly anyone who would like to be a leader needs opportunities to get there, but perhaps those opportunities that are so available for men are not so readily available for women. Although the opportunities women said were needed varied, the concept of needing opportunities in general speaks to a greater need to help women. These include opportunities to observe women leaders (role models), opportunities for internships, opportunities for training, etc. That women need help to succeed and get leadership positions was one of the assumptions we had going into the survey and interviews. Working hard at what you love pays off. Another theme that became clear in our interviews and survey data was to succeed women needed to do what they love and work hard at it. A lot of the women also mentioned that when you’re doing what you love, you had to stop apologizing for it. The importance of having role models and mentors. All the women we interviewed and 40% of the women we surveyed mentioned mentors as either something they believed helped them achieve leadership positions and/or something women need to become leaders. Many of the responses indicated they didn’t have formal mentor relationships with women, but that at some point in their careers someone believed in them. In addition, all the women we surveyed had a belief that as leaders who had mentors who helped them they needed to help other women achieve success as well. An organization can capitalize on this important finding by encouraging and allowing current women leaders to take time from their schedules to mentor the younger women in the organization. Perhaps the organization could facilitate a time set aside for women to meet together to meet each other. DiscussionWe surveyed 259 women in the public and nonprofit sector. We divided the women into two categories, women with supervisory and/or with hire/fire authority (leader) and women without (non-leaders) and found two categories of factors the women leaders had that set them apart (statistically) from the non-leaders.
1. Organizational: The women leaders were more likely to say the culture of their organizations supported women in becoming leaders and that being a woman positively impacted their ability to get a leadership position. Of several impactful turning points in their careers women leaders were more likely to say they were able to fill a need their organization had, they had access to workplace training and their work experiences positioned them to become a leader. In addition women leaders were more likely to have applied and/or been hired from within their organization for their current leadership position and indicate they have had a direct career path than the non-leaders. The women leaders were not more likely to have or have had a mentor (most women did), but were much more likely to have had a female mentor, an idea that was echoed in our interviews. These factors speak to the importance of having a supportive work environment for women and for having opportunities for women to lead as well as creating mentorship opportunities for women whether they be formal job shadowing, intern programs, formal mentorships or more informal methods such as encouraging/allowing women to take time from their days to reach out to younger women in the organization. In addition, to encourage women leaders organizations should look internally for candidates when filling leadership positions. In addition, women who are seeking leadership positions need to be encouraged to seek out opportunities for leadership and to observe leadership. Young women who are seeking to be leaders can seek to position themselves in organizations that support women and have training opportunities and the ability for upward mobility. 2. Individual: The women leaders we surveyed indicated a support network of friends and family had a major positive impact on their abilities to obtain their leadership position, while the non-leaders did not indicate such a strong positive impact. They also believed that being a woman positively impacted their ability to get their leadership position. All the women we interviewed indicated the importance of working hard at something you love and not apologizing for your passion and hard work. In addition, the women leaders were less likely to have family care responsibilities at home other than children (such as aging parents). The lessons we can learn from these factors are that women need support. One solution is to create a space for women to be around other women leaders, such as this blog. Another is to encourage women to seek support in their friends and families. Women need to believe in themselves and work hard at what they care about. Women need to be encouraged and supported in their dreams. |
Read our full report here:
“The only way you can repay (women who have helped you) is by doing the same for someone else." - Director of a Higher Education institution |