Women Rising in Corporate Ranks
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post - November 19, 2002
Nancy Pelosi's ascent to the Democratic Party leadership in the House of Representatives (now the new Speaker of the House) reflects the steady progress of women in the political world. According to a new report, women also continue to climb the corporate ladder.
Women now hold 15.7 percent of corporate officer positions at large U.S. public companies, up from 8.7 percent in 1995, according to the report by Catalyst, a New York City-based research group. There are six female chief executives among the Fortune 500 firms, up from two in 1995. And women now make up 5.2 percent of all top-earning executives, up from 1.2 percent seven years ago, when Catalyst first began studying female employment patterns.
"There's progress, however slow, in every dimension year after year," said Sheila Wellington, president of Catalyst. "And this year, despite the poor economy, the number of women executives keeps going up, and that's heartening."
Female leaders in corporate America include Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard Co., S. Marce Fuller of Mirant Corp., Patricia F. Russo of Lucent Technologies Inc., Anne M. Mulcahy of Xerox Corp., Andrea Jung of Avon Products Inc. and Marion O. Sandler of Golden West Financial Corp.
The prospects for ambitious women in the District are brighter than in other regions in the country, according to Catalyst, which reported that at the two Fortune 500 firms based in the nation's capital, the Federal National Mortgage Association (better known as Fannie Mae) and Danaher Corp., more than a third -- 38.6 percent -- of corporate officers are women.
"Corporate America has awakened to the notion that it can't afford to waste talent," said Jamie S. Gorelick, Fannie Mae's vice chairman, one of three female vice chairmen in the United States. "We get a tremendous amount out of women who are senior executives at our company. There's a critical mass of us."
Gorelick said that such "critical mass" is essential for women to have enough of a "comfort level" to move forward aggressively in their own careers. She credited Fannie Mae's chairman, Franklin D. Raines, and former chairman Jim Johnson with instituting recruitment and retention policies targeting women.
"You can't be successful in this arena without the chief executive voicing it and making it clear," Gorelick said. "Otherwise people just give lip service to the concept but you get no results."
In Virginia, about 19.9 percent of top executives are women, and in Maryland 16.7 percent, according to Catalyst. The survey included all company officials who are designated "insiders" to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including chief executive, president, chief operating officer, senior vice presidents and legal counsels.
Having more women in executive positions is better for female workers overall, said Heidi Hartmann, president and chief executive of the D.C.-based Institute for Women's Policy Research. "Women at the top do more for other women," she said.
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Why women are better bosses than men
Jennifer Morrison
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, January 17, 2003
Women make better bosses than men. And it's not just women rallying behind this claim -- men think so too.
This conclusion was reached by University of Leeds management professor Beverley Alimo-Metcalfe and researcher John Alban-Metcalfe, who surveyed 2,000 British men and women in middle to senior management positions.
Respondents were asked to anonymously rate their boss on 14 dimensions of leadership. The topics included: leading individuals, showing genuine concern, being accessible, encouraging change, focusing effort and inspiring others.
The researchers discovered at the middle management level, on almost all of the 14 dimensions, female bosses were rated significantly higher than their male counterparts. The study found women bosses not only inspire others and resolve complex problems better than men, they're also more accessible. "And the surprising thing is, even men prefer women managers," Ms. Alimo-Metcalfe said in an interview yesterday."This is undoubtedly saying that women are much better managers than men."
Such findings are supported by University of Connecticut management professor Laura Graves who has researched gender and management extensively. Although hard evidence does not necessarily suggest a difference in management effectiveness on the basis of sex, she said this is changing.
In today's less hierarchical work environments where teamwork and interpersonal relations are becoming increasingly important, women exhibit qualities that make them better leaders than men. "Women are better at individual consideration, they're better at working with their subordinates, assessing his or her needs and helping them develop," she said. "We know that in these flat, non-hierarchical, team-oriented organizations of today, these are the type of behaviors that are important for effectiveness."
Still, being better bosses isn't translating into more success for women, as they are still largely under represented in management positions. For the past several years Catalyst Canada, a research and advisory organization, has been tracking women in management positions.
As part of their 2001 census, Catalyst looked at women as board members of the Financial Post 500 companies in Canada. "Last year (2001), women made up 9.8 per cent -- which is not a great number," explained vice-president Susan Black. "But the good news is that it's up from 1998 when it was 6.7 per cent. The movement is in the right direction, but there's still a lot of room for improvement."
It's the same story in the United Kingdom, where men comprise 90 per cent of management positions, Ms. Alimo-Metcalfe said. "We've got to somehow crack this. It's not a glass ceiling, it's nuclear or concrete,"she said.
That can't be done, however, until attitudes are changed at senior management levels and more
transformational leadership styles are adopted.
Not everyone agrees that sex makes a difference in a manager's effectiveness. John Challenger, a U.S. executive at an international outplacement consulting firm, said the best managers can be women or men and one sex in not necessarily better than the other.
"Good managers have to create a good group of people who are committed to their work, who support each other, achieve the objectives and create great results for the company," he said.
Catherine Lemire, a manager at Bain & Company in Toronto disagrees."I am convinced there is a significant gap in management capabilities between men and women," she said. "What is key to being a good manager in business includes the ability to prioritize work, taking an objective and logical approach to solving issues or problems, facilitating teamwork and using leadership
skills to get the very best out of the people in your organization."
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Women manage to be best at the office
Staff rate female executives higher than the males
by HELEN PUTTICK
It is the news that the David Brents of office life have secretly been dreading - women make better managers than men.
A ground-breaking survey of 2000 UK workers found female managers were more highly regarded than their male counterparts in a wide range of areas - including taking risks and decision-making.
Out of 14 new criteria for measuring managerial success, women were rated better at men in 11 and equal to men in the remaining three.
Male middle managers felt the opposite sex was significantly more effective at taking charge than their own.
High-flying men and women around Scotland yesterday admitted the survey confirmed their own instincts - although men in particular were reluctant to say so in public.
With about nine out of 10 top business jobs still held by men, it appears the character of David Brent from the hit sitcom The Office - who believes he is enlightened but behaves in a sexist fashion - still thrives in the real world.
Chief executives are being urged by researchers to change their attitude towards leadership and to find the untapped female talent which could breathe new life into their department or firm.
Beverley Alimo-Metcalfe, of Leeds University, who presented her findings to the annual occupational conference of the British Psychological Society in Bournemouth, admitted she was astonished by the strong regard for women bosses.
"I think men need to think seriously about whether the style they have of managing is the appropriate style," she said.
Since 1998, Professor Alimo-Metcalfe and colleagues have been developing a vision of what constitutes a good leader.
After consulting thousands of people of both sex and different races in Britain, her team drew up a list of 14 attributes.
Some 2000 managers working for the NHS and councils were then asked to rate their own bosses in these areas. When it came to valuing individuals, encouraging change, acting with integrity, being decisive, inspiring others, resolving complex problems, networking and achieving, focusing effort, building shared vision, supporting development and facilitating change, women received a significantly better seal of approval from their subordinates.
Professor Alimo-Metcalfe said the survey suggested women were more "transformational" leaders while men were more "transactional".
However, the male chief executives who took part did not believe women had a different management style from their own - perhaps explaining why most chiefs are men.
Professor Alimo-Metcalfe said: "Unfortunately we do not usually ask subordinates who would make the best manager when we promote people. The people who make the decisions are senior people. If they are men who do not value transformational styles of leadership, then they are more likely to promote one of their own."
In Scotland, a number of dynamic women are making their mark. Recent years have seen Eilish Angiolini appointed solicitor general to spearhead reform of the nation's prosecution service, Joan Stringer made Scotland's first university principal, and a number of female entre-preneurs driving prosperous firms.
Ann Rushforth, who set up nursing agency Scotnursing, said the results of the survey reflected her own experience.
She felt that while women managers may make the same decisions as men, they could be better at explaining to staff why they have chosen a particular path, therefore leaving a better impression.
Once a staff nurse herself, she said: "The skills women have in more abundance are people skills and communicating and being able to do a lot of things at one time."
Gordon Fairbrother, senior director of business banking customer relations UK with the Bank of Scotland, was equally unsurprised by the survey.
He admitted men dominated the financial sector, but said: "Of the female managers that I do know, they tend to perform very well. They tend to be able to cope with more things at the one time."
They were also more aware of the pressures on those working for them, he believed.
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THE FUTURE IS FEMININE:
SURVEY TELLS MEN: BE MORE LIKE WOMEN AT WORK
One of the hottest issues in the workplace is what makes a good boss. Throw in the question of gender and everyone has an opinion, an experience or a horror story. Are men better leaders? Which sex can you trust more? Can women make decisions? Who do you prefer to work for?
Research released today by Management Today magazine finds that after years of having to adopt a masculine identity and hide their emotions and natural behaviour in the workplace, women are the new role models. If men want to be successful at work they must behave more like women. Overall the 1000 men and women surveyed believe that women managers are better with customers, more efficient, more trustworthy, and more generous and understanding with colleagues than their male counterparts.
Rufus Olins, Editor of Management Today, comments:
Businesses need to wake up to the fact that these so-called feminine skills are vital for attracting and keeping the right people. In the past women who aspired to management were encouraged to be more manly - it looks now as if the boot is on the other foot.
Women scaling the career ladder still face considerable prejudice and opposition but there is no doubt that the future of management everywhere just has to be a lot more female.
Management Today magazine surveyed 1000 middle and senior UK managers, split evenly between the genders and the over and under 40s, to uncover the true state of sexual politics in the office. The results were startling:
More than 61% of all respondents say men do not make better bosses than women. While a fifth of men feel that they are better managers, over half the female correspondents disagree.
Over 70% of all respondents think that women use time more effectively than men, many commenting that juggling commitments is a familiar practice for women with a home and family.
When asked to sum up their general experience of managers of the opposite sex it is clear that men and women see each other very differently.
Over 45% of women choose insensitivity as men's top defining characteristic but they also see male managers as decisive team leaders.
43% of men see female bosses as considerate and around 30% find women to be open minded team players.
60% trust a female boss not to take credit for their work compared to just 40% who would trust a male manager.
Over 70% feel that women praise staff more than men.
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Why women make better managers
Marketing Intelligence / Joanna L. Krotz
As women gained traction in the workforce, gender differences among senior and junior staffers turned up in every workplace, from offices to factory floors to fighter planes. Now that women are pulling up chairs at boardroom tables and launching their own companies the number of women-owned firms has increased by 103% in the past 10 years those differences are increasingly playing out in executive suites, too.
Studies show that both male and female styles of leadership can be effective. But when compared side by side, "female" has the edge.
Biology and upbringing
Gender differences stem from nurture and nature alike. It's not only socialization that shapes men and women. It's also biology.
Researchers are discovering physiological variations in the brains of men and women. For example, male brains are about 10% larger than female brains. But women have more nerve cells in certain areas. Women also tend to have a larger corpus collusum the group of nerve fibers that connects left and right hemispheres. That makes women faster at transferring data between the computational, verbal left half and the intuitive, visual right half. Men are usually left-brain oriented.
As girls and boys grow up, of course, they're also molded by differing sets of social rules and expectations. Gender obviously colors behavior, perception and just about everything else.
Gender matters
Typically, when comparing managers, the dialogue is framed as men's command-and-control style versus women's team-building or consensus approach.
"Women managers tend to have more of a desire to build than a desire to win," says Debra Burrell, regional training director of the Mars-Venus Institute in New York. "Women are more willing to explore compromise and to solicit other people's opinions." By contrast, she says, men often think if they ask other people for advice, they'll be perceived as unsure or as a leader who doesn't have answers.
Other female leadership strengths:
Women are better than men at empowering teams and staff.
Women encourage openness and are more accessible.
Women leaders respond more quickly to calls for assistance.
Women are more tolerant of differences, so they're more skilled at managing diversity.
Women identify problems more quickly and more accurately.
Women are better at defining job expectations and providing valuable feedback.
Men tend to be more speedy decision-makers, compared to women. Male managers are also more adept at forming what management psychologist Ken Siegel calls "navigational relationships," or temporary teams set up to achieve short-term goals.
Women are better communicators
Big deal and surprise, surprise, right? So women typically outperform men at communications and interpersonal skills. You're probably thinking: Those are "soft skills," not the hard tools and analysis demanded to grow a business into consistent profitability.
How do such "female" traits translate into better business management?
In today's lean workplace, when employees have multiple jobs and fleeting loyalty, when technology enables even tiny companies to compete in global marketplaces, the ability to make staff feel charged up, valued and individually recognized is a definite competitive edge.
"Some companies succeed while others don't," says Jeffrey Christian, CEO of Christian & Timbers, a well-known Cleveland search firm. "It's not about production, it's about talent. Whoever has the best team wins."
Money is not the primary reason talented people stay on the job or jump. Rather, they stay predominantly because of relationships. "Women get that," says Christian, whose firm placed Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard, among other high-level hires.
Generally, women delegate more readily and express their appreciation for hard work more often. "Women ask questions, men tend to give answers," says author, consultant and career coach Terri Levine. By communicating company goals more readily and expressing appreciation more often, women tend to be better at making staffers feel valued and rewarded. That translates into cost-effective recruiting and being able to operate with stable, loyal employees or, as Christian puts it, the best talent.
But no drop off in "hard skills"
Besides generally being credited with better communications and relationship skills, women are lately demonstrating higher levels of traditional "hard" or "male" skills as well. Some investigators suggest that many women workers had such skills all along, but that male bosses either overlooked or misperceived them. Others think that the cumulative years of experience for women are broadening their skills.
One influential study in 1996, conducted by management consultant Advanced Teamware (which has since merged with Consulting Tools), analyzed a database of 360-degree assessments for more than 6,000 managers. Such assessments include anonymous reviews from a manager's peers, supervisors and subordinates. The study by Michael R. Perrault and Janet K. Irwin looked at a range of managerial behavior, including problem solving, controlling, leading, managing self, managing relationships and communicating.
The results:
". . . Previous studies showed that women excelled in interpersonal skills (right brain), not in intellectual skills (left brain). Our study demonstrates that women are considered better performers in both right- and left-brain skill areas."
"Women received higher evaluations than men in 28 of the 31 individual behaviors, representing 90% of items."
The upshot for chief executives should be to move over to the "female" side of management, whether you're a thoroughgoing left-brainer or a woman manager who may be trying to manage "male." Turns out, girls do it better.
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The Elite will soon be Female
By Inge Kloepfer, Germany
September 30, 2005, Deutschland
Never have professional women been more successful than they are today. Never before have so many women attended university or gone out to work. And yet despite all these successes there are still very few women at the top. Although there are a lot more women than there used to be in the boss’s chair, the percentage of women in top jobs is still below average. However, scientists believe this is about to change, too: in future it will be impossible to ignore the increasing number of well-educated women used to be relatively alone as a woman,” recalls Inge Rösler and says that the word “exotic” comes to mind.
She began her career as a trainee at Deutsche Bank over 25 years ago. Today at the age of 52 she has come a long way and leads a large team in the bank’s credit-risk management section. “I was one of very few women, sometimes the only woman, in the classical lending business where I began my career,” she says. But “That has changed a lot,” she says. The reason: “Today, many women are much better trained and have good initial qualifications.” And yet, she adds, it has still not become much easier for them to reach management level. Competition for top jobs is hard, she says. And apart from that, even today it is usually left to women to work out how to organize a career and a family – and make the two compatible. Rösler knows; she has a grown-up son.
In fact, women are more successful in their careers today than ever before. Inge Rösler’s generation laid the foundation on which crowds of young women are now building. They are much more self-confident – as well they might be. Never before have so many women attended university or gone out to work – 47% of Germany’s wage earners today are women, and they have never earned as much as they do today either.
Whereas the dominance of the sole-male-earner model was reflected in women’s gross incomes in Germany in 1980, this has changed markedly in the last 25 years. “For childless women at least it has become normal to go out to work,” confirms Nicola Hülskamp, researcher in educational and labour-market policy at the Cologne-based Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft ( Institute of German Private Enterprise, IW). “In the early eighties, women rarely had their own income, whether they had children or not,” she says. This has changed. And yet, things still look quite different for mothers in Germany. The message of the IW’s figures is clear. In contrast to Scandinavian countries, for example, a large proportion of working mothers in Germany are still to be found in low-income groups today. Many of them work part-time, and that alone considerably reduces their average salary.
Sociologist Jutta Allmendinger, 48, professor at Munich University and director of the Federal Employment Agency’s Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (Institute for Employment Research, IAB), sees one reason above all others for the success of women: “They have access to education and training opportunities that were completely closed to them a hundred years ago. As far as education is concerned, they have not only caught up with the men, they have overtaken them.” More young women than men are leaving school with the top qualification – Abitur (a general entrance qualification for higher education) – and there are just as many female as male university graduates these days. The gap is also narrowing when it comes to PhDs. Furthermore, “There are now far fewer women than men in the group of people with low-qualifications,” she says. Professor Allmendinger – who is very highly educated and runs an institute and a university department – is one of those who have “made it”. She is also a mother, although she did have her child late and had obtained her professorship long before she became pregnant. Combining a family with a top job was no longer a problem then.
It is looking as though women’s chances on the labour market will improve even further in the coming years. Ulrike Detmers, 49 (mother of three children, professor of business administration at the University of Applied Science in Bielefeld, part-owner and manager of the Mestemacher bakery group in Gütersloh), has long said: “The elite is turning female.” After all, “40% of jobs in Germany will require higher qualifications by 2010.” This is related to the pressure of international competition, she says, so that Germany will increasingly have to create value-added from areas of activity requiring higher qualifications. The demand for well-trained staff is growing and, as far as women are concerned, meeting with an increasing supply, says Detmers. Progress in education can be seen especially among women under the age of 29. “And these women want a reward for the investment they have made in their education.” Ulrike Detmers is very optimistic as regards the future of female social climbers. She herself has succeeded in doing what many people dream of: she has long-since been well-integrated in the male-dominated world of management – after many years of hard work. She also knows that “It is still difficult to get into these networks, especially for young women. There are still prejudices.” This is why she is personally committed to the idea of a “more female” elite in the future, first and foremost in her own company.
After all, despite immense progress in education, the influence of women at the top levels of German business has remained minimal. According to the Federal Statistical Office, only 33% of managerial positions in Germany are occupied by women; the figure among top executives (company directors and CEOs) is only 21%. There are currently only two women on management boards at DAX-listed companies. Christine Stimpel, headhunter and boss of the German branch of Spencer Stuart, a leading international executive search firm, knows the phenomenon:
“Women often choose courses of study that promise them a certain amount of personal freedom. You find a lot of women in self-employed, highly qualified professions, and there are a lot of successful female lawyers, notaries and scientists. There are also a huge number of women in middle and upper management. We sometimes have only female candidates when we are recruiting for a job in human resources, marketing or PR. But that is not reflected at all in general management functions, and certainly not in management boards.” She has come to realize, however, that this is not because companies don’t want women, but that the infrastructure (full-time care for children, household-help services, etc.) still leaves a lot to be desired, so that many women don’t even aim for top jobs. “The companies who approach us virtually always want us to search for a female candidate. They would be delighted if we could present more female top-class people. Women are in demand,” she says.
Professor Desirée Ladwig (40, two children) from Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg points out that women have especially good chances of promotion in companies where over 20% of managers are already female. Dorothee Ritz, director at Microsoft since August 2004, agrees. Her advice to young women is to “look for companies that support women, are open to the idea of equality and say so in their statutes.” According to the 36-year-old manager, executive positions are especially suitable for women with children. “Leading or managing is not the same thing as working,” she explains, “because managing is qualitative, not quantitative work. It depends on how the substructure is organized.”
Programmes for promoting women, the legal obligation to offer equal rights, the Anti-Discrimination Act, quotas for women, better infrastructure – all these are evidently still necessary. Another important aspect is transparency among companies that really want women as specialists and managers. Helmut-Schmidt University and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs have founded a new information platform called Genderdax. Companies can present themselves on the website after verification by the organizers of their active support of career-oriented women. The platform at www.genderdax.de is now open for companies to register. 100 large and 100 medium-sized enterprises now have an opportunity to present themselves there. Companies you would automatically expect to find in such a context are already on the site. They include Volkswagen and Westdeutsche Landesbank, already known for their support of women. But there is still plenty of room for others. And otherwise, too, there remains a lot to be done.
