Sabharwal Sociology Club Jan 2014

8/13/2019 Sabharwal Sociology Club Jan 2014

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W OMEN IN LEADERSHIP

POSITIONS

The dominant paradigm that frames thechallenges women face in attaining upward

mobility has been the glass ceiling metaphor

However, over the last decades women havemade steady progress and are moving topositions of leadership.


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W OMEN IN L EADERSHIP

P OSITIONS

Out of 190 state heads around the world only 9 arewomen

Of all the people in the parliament in the world only 13%

are womenEven in the non-profit world women at the top are about20%

Women currently hold 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOpositions

Currently, women hold 14.6% of senior executivepositions and 16.9% of directorships at Fortune 500companies

In 2010, women comprised 30% of the SES, which morethan doubled from 12.3% in 1992


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Women currently hold 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions and 4.6 percent ofFortune 1000 CEO positions.


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W HO ARE SES?

Members of the SES serve in the key positions just below the top Presidential appointees

They operate and oversee nearly everygovernment activity in approximately 75 Federalagencies.

The Senior Executive Service (SES) is comprisedof the men and women charged with leading thecontinuing transformation of government.


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12.3%

24.9%

28.9%

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

Women in SES Positions Office of Personnel Management


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W HY SO FEW WOMEN ?

The term was first used by Hymowitz andSchellhardt (1986) in a Wall Street Journal report

and later adopted in academic settings byMorrison, White and Velsor (1987) in their booktitled: Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Can WomenReach the top of Americas LargestCorporations? They defined glass ceiling as:

a transparent barrier that kept women from risingabove a certain level in corporations


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W HY SO FEW WOMEN ?

human capital barriers (lack of education, finances,resources, and experience);

gender based stereotypes;

differences in communication styles;

exclusion from informal networks;

limited management support for work/life programs;

lack of mentors and role-models;

occupational sex segregation;

Care giving activities

and attitudinal and organizational biases


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T HEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS

Theories like think -manager-think- male(emotionally stable, aggressive, possessingleadership abilities, self-reliant, competitive, self-confident, objective, ambitious, well informed,and forceful)

Social role theory men being more agentic andwomen demonstrating communal behaviors.

Role incongruity theory - women are considereddisadvantaged in their leadership roles andassessed less favorably when in such positions.


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Leadership is considered a quality mostlyassociated with males, most of the traits cited in

the literature for an effective leader have beenmale traits (risk taking, decisiveness, directive,assertive, aggressive, ambitious, self-reliant, self-confident, forceful in negotiations, independent,dominant)


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G LASS CLIFF

What happens to those women who breakthrough the ceiling?

Forget the glass ceiling. The big threat towomen's success in top roles is now theglass cliff (Ryan and Haslam, 2004)


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FACTORS IMPACTING GLASS

CLIFF

Gendered institutions - Classified agencies infour categories: Distributive, Regulatory,

Constituent, and Redistributive.Influence over Policies

Empowerment

Organizational Equity/Justice

Work/Life balance


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The dependent variable used for this study is asurrogate for glass cliff - intention to leave the

workplace within a year.Glass cliffs are viewed as the failure of women insenior ranking positions, and failure to performoften results in increased turnover


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D ATA

The 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey(formerly the Federal Human Capital Survey)

Survey questions address employees experienceswith their jobs and work environments.

N = 263,475 filtered to select only SES

N = 21,861, Weighted = 177,586

Male = 55.5% ; Female = 44.5%

Minorities 30.2%


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FINDINGS

Overall, employees who are likely to experiencegreater involvement in policies, feel empowered, andexperience organizational justice are less likely toexpress their intent to leave or face the risk of fallingoff the cliff.

Women employed in distributive agencies (which aretypically male dominated) face the greatest risk ofglass cliffs when compared with other agencies.

Interestingly, the odds of leaving are more amongemployees expressing greater satisfaction withwork/life balance.


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FINDINGS

Women in redistributive agencies have fewerprejudices held against them since they haveformed a critical mass at the senior level.

With large numbers of women than men in SESpositions in redistributive agencies, some of thetypical incongruity that exists in leadership rolesand female gender roles might be resolved

Women in these agencies do not have todemonstrate agentic behaviors since communalbehaviors are greatly sought in these agencies


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Women in distributive or male dominatingagencies:

Leadership traits

The lack of support that women receive is alsoexplained by shadow structures, which suggestthat womens networks are less resourceful than

mens network even when they are in similarpositions.


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D EFINITIONS

Glass ceiling refers to the barriers women are confrontedwith in their attempt to rise to leadership positions.

Glass walls are barriers that hold women in certain typesof agencies that are traditionally viewed as feminine innature.

Sticky floors hold women down to low level jobs andprevent them from seeking high management positions.

Glass cliff - women may be preferentially placed inleadership roles that are associated with an increasedrisk of negative consequences. As a result, to the extentthat they are achieving leadership roles, these maybemore precarious than those occupied by men (Ryan andHaslam, 2005)


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T HANK YOU !

[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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C AN WOMEN BE SUCCESSFUL

AND BEAUTIFUL ?

Documents

Sabharwal Sociology Club Jan 2014