Corporate cultures and behaviors can hinder women's progress toward leadership positions.
"Given that men maintain critical mass in leadership positions, they control the evolution of their organizational structures and the pace at which women will be allowed into leadership," says "Not in the Club" author Janet Pucino. "Statistically women are the extreme exception at the executive level and in boardrooms. Only 16 percent of board positions are held by women and less than 4 percent of Fortune 500 companies have women CEOs."
Pucino cites other data on gender biases, women's experiences and human behaviors and concludes that, despite a prevalence of such findings, there's been virtually no impact on today's corporate structures, labor laws, governmental policies or business programs in the country's top business schools.
There is an abysmal lack of executive coaching and mentorship of emerging women leaders. Coaching and mentoring for women is a key success factor. If you ask male executives if they've mentored women during their careers, most would say they have not done so, but there aren't yet enough women executives to mentor other women. Women don't have the critical mass to do it alone. The solution is to engage a male executive coach to help you understand how male executives think and engineer the best work experiences in more diverse environments.
Career success is really all about having choices and making choices in your current work environment and throughout your career. The higher up you go, the more expectations you have placed on you. It becomes imperative to take control--you don't have to respond to everything. Working your choices through with your coach or mentor can bring clarity to your thought processes. Here is what one executive woman said about her coaching experience, "John has a unique style, a solid set of tools and an approach that will enable an individual to validate the direction they want to pursue both professionally & personally. You will benefit from the breadth, depth and diversity of his knowledge."
Why Gender Matters
The context of a woman's role within a culture directly correlates to how women are accepted and perceived in the workforce by that culture. These different perceptions lead to different inquiries and conclusions. For example, it is common for women executives to feel isolated because they are not socialized in the ways men are. As women move up the corporate ladder, this feeling of isolation occurs because women are held to different standards than men and are not always supported by the people they have brought along with them.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that differences between the sexes are more profound than anyone previously guessed. Right down to the cellular level males and females are different. The sex hormones estrogen in women and testosterone in men have a significant impact on behavior.
Men and women are not only markedly different in the hormones that drive them, but they are also different in the way they think. The brains of men and women are actually wired differently. When we add to this our unique personalities, our cultural upbringing, and the environment in which we live and work, we come to appreciate why the sexes view the world differently.
It is these differences that create interpersonal problems when we have the irrational belief all men, or all women, respond in a similar manner. The truth is that both men and women routinely approach a broad range of personal and business issues quite differently.
Men in business will expect women to behave like them, while women will expect a female counterpart to behave in a more feminine manner. It is a fine pink line that women in leadership roles walk. Men and women tend to respond differently—not better or worse, just differently. Yet women continue to be faulted for their feminine attributes.
As you can imagine, this gender gap can create all sorts of problems when neither side feels valued, inappropriately judged or misunderstood. The key to success will be to recognize that some ingrained behaviors can create natural “gender gaps." We know that the corporate world has vast room for improvement when it comes to incorporating women into top professional positions.
As you know, the culture at most companies has been shaped over centuries by male executives. You also know that the natural outcome of a male-dominated business is that it has the tendency to be conducted like a team sport. Today, more and more women are playing competitive sports, but it is only recently that they have begun to recognize the need to adapt some of these same skills to the workplace. Even then, women can find the rules of the game elusive; they don’t completely understand its approach to power, money, control, and status. Sometimes the elements are more subtle than that.
You know, and we know, that you are skilled and brighter than average. You work hard, you stay late, and yet others who are less dedicated are too often the ones who get recognized and rewarded.
This fact is sad but true: it will be exceptionally difficult to move ahead if you don’t appreciate the unwritten rules of the game. Keep in mind the truism: “Star players don’t become star players on the field. They are merely recognized there.” If you want to understand how someone succeeds, don’t just watch them accept the award. You have to observe their daily preparations closely.
To bridge gender gaps, successful women key into the rules of the game and actively study the culture of their organization. For starters, women must understand what is considered a win, what behaviors and goals will be rewarded, and what qualities are characteristic of a strong team player.
Gender-based differences play out in leadership nearly every day influencing how men and women communicate, act, react, problem-solve, make decisions and work together. One is no more effective than the other; but joined holistically within a balanced leadership team, can lead to a better business outcome.
Sources: Janet Pucino: Not In The Club: An Executive Womans Journey Through the Biased World of Business
John Agno: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women