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The Women’s Leadership Gap in America

Ashley Denison

By Elaine Pfeil

Picture a CEO. The CEO runs a strategic, risk-taking Fortune 500 company. The CEO is personable, highly respected, and always well dressed. What color suit do you picture the CEO wearing? What color tie? Did you picture a man? If so, you are not alone; most people do. To your credit, only 41 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only two of those women are women of color.1 Throughout this article, you will learn more about the current statistical makeup of leadership roles in America, why a gender gap in leadership roles exists, what companies are missing by not having women in leadership roles, and how we can narrow the gap.

What Do the Numbers Say?

Men and women do not equally occupy leadership positions within America.2 In reality, women lag substantially behind men.3 This lag is not due to a lack of eligible female candidates though. Women are more educated and active in the labor force than ever before.4 Currently, women earn 57% of undergraduate degrees, earn 59% of master’s degrees, and make up nearly 52% of the professional workforce in America.5 Yet women hold nowhere near 50% of the leadership positions in said workforce.

Let’s take a deeper, numerical look at the gender gap in leadership positions. As seen in Figure 1, 85% of Public Relations professionals are women, yet only 59% of management positions are held by women;6 45% of legal associates are women, yet only 23% are partners; 40% of all physicians and surgeons are women, yet only 16% are permanent medical school deans; 61% of accountants and auditors, 53% of financial managers, and 37% percent of financial analysts are women, yet only 12.5% are chief financial officers (CFOs) of Fortune 500 companies.7

The leadership gap is even greater amongst women of color. As recently as 2013, over two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies did not have a single woman of color on their board of directors.8 Evidently, the larger a company is the less likely we are to see women, of any race, at the top.9

Why Is There a Gender Gap?

The gender gap in leadership positions is caused by three major factors:

  1. Many companies expect a culture of constant availability, meaning employees are expected to work extra hours, answer calls outside of work, and respond to emails on their days off. In fact, nearly 77% of enterprises agree that a top-level career implies “anytime-anywhere” availability.10 However, within Western culture, women tend to have greater domestic and caretaking responsibilities which hinder their ability to be available 24/7.11 This hindrance in turn leads to women not receiving as many promotions as their male counterparts.
  2. The internal pipeline keeps promoting men because hardly any women hold leadership positions in the first place.12 In other words, promotions tend to be a never-ending cycle of men. Placing women in leadership roles helps break this cycle—women are more likely to hold management roles in companies with a female CEO.13
  3. Women don’t necessarily want to be in leadership positions. At first glance this contributing factor might make you wonder, “Then why does it matter if women are in leadership positions or not if they don’t even want to be leaders?” It matters because that’s not the entire story. A 2019 study performed by Grand Valley State University found that women with more work experience are less likely to aspire to leadership than men, while women with less work experience are more likely to aspire to leadership than men.14 Evidently, something happens to women throughout the course of their careers that discourages them from pursuing leadership positions. Possible explanations include sexism, discouragement, and/or other responsibilities outside of work (i.e., motherhood). On the contrary, men often feel more encouraged to pursue leadership positions throughout their careers. The study also found that when women associate leadership more with negative aspects, the less likely they are to aspire to leadership positions in comparison to their male counterparts.15

 Why Should Companies Care?

Women in leadership positions have consistently proven their value to companies. Companies are nearly 20% more likely to have enhanced business outcomes when their boards are gender balanced.16

Women also specifically impact profit. A survey distributed by the International Labour Organization found that over two-thirds of companies that track the impact of gender diversity in management experience a 5–20% increase in profit.[1]7 In an industry where companies go to great lengths to increase their profits by 2% or 3%, it is a no-brainer to promote women to leadership positions; the returns will be much larger.

How Can We Narrow the Gap?

Narrowing the gender gap in leadership roles is not an issue that can be solved in one day, nor can it be solved from the efforts of one individual or company alone. That being said, here are four steps companies, and individuals, can take to make a change.

  1. Remember that it is not men vs. women.18 In reality, men and women should be working together to implement the changes necessary to narrow the gender gap. Having women in leadership positions benefits the entire company.
  2. Promote work-life balance. Offering more flexible hours and allowing employees to leave work at work will benefit both male and female employees’ work-life balance. This will also likely improve morale and overall productivity. Flexible hours will specifically attract more women to a company.19
  3. Ensure policy buy-in. If managers aren’t on board with promoting women to positions of leadership, promotions likely won’t happen even if the company has policies in place to support women leadership. To ensure that policies turn into reality, managers must be trained on said policies.[2]0
  4. Create opportunities early. Companies need to equalize the playing field from the first day a new employee walks in the door (or joins through Zoom).21 If women don’t receive promotions at the same rate as men at the start of their careers, they’ll never catch up to their male counterparts. And as women fall farther and farther behind, younger male co-workers will start taking the promotions too.

If we all do our part to narrow the gender gap in leadership, businesses will become more successful, and the world will hopefully become a less gender-biased place.

 

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