Women Rising: Moving Past Organizational Barriers for Leadership Success

There are several areas of organizational psychology that I spend a lot of time thinking about: the lack of women in senior leadership positions and how to promote an inclusive organizational culture for all people, especially women.  These thoughts have been compounded after the string of recent reports about Uber and other such companies not being female-friendly places to work because of issues of rampant sexual harassment embedded in their cultures[1]. While these may seem like different issues, I believe they are simply different sides of the same coin: when women rise, all women are treated better because female leaders can model the behaviors they want from others and the respect they deserve in their organizations.  This phenomenon has been well documented in many cases and contexts, most recently in the book by a former professor of mine, American Hookup.  She compared cultural differences between fraternities that were led only by men, and co-ed fraternities that were led by both male and female leaders.  In these co-ed fraternities, sexual assault occurred at far lesser rates than the male-only fraternities[2] at other universities[3]. 

On the other side of the coin I mentioned, only 17% of executives are female in Fortune 500 companies[4] and 20.4% of executives are female in The Financial Times and Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 companies.[5]  There have been a variety of explanations as to why there are not more women in leadership positions.   One of the explanations for this gender gap in senior leadership positions is that women are excluded from relationships that confer power and resources[6]. Because men are at the top of organizational hierarchies, they oftentimes control coalitions that have access to resources[7]. Developing these relationships that confer power can be more difficult for women than men because their ties to those in power (men) tend to be weaker[8].

Another explanation for why fewer women are in leadership positions than men relates to relationship capital, which is a quid pro quo type of relationship[9].  Relationship capital relates to how women and men have different perceptions about how to advance their careers.  Women tend to feel uncomfortable leveraging relationship capital, because they fear it may be perceived as inauthentic to their senses of self and that it may violate their stance that they should be rewarded for hard work with promotions[10].  Furthermore, they are oftentimes uncomfortable leveraging relationship capital because they think it comes across as “dirty” – instead, they believe they should keep their heads down, do their work, and put all their faith in an organizational and cultural meritocracy that will help them advance.

One way to help women advance has been proposed through various developmental career experiences (DCEs). DCEs are experiences in the workplace that help employees become more successful and may help advance their careers (e.g., coaching, sponsorship, networking).  Women and men are exposed to DCEs that differ from each other on two key dimensions. These dimensions are 1) the amount of access to powerful social networks one has and 2) the need for leveraging relationship capital in order to get work done. With these differences in mind, I conducted research recently to examine two questions.  The first was: which DCEs do men and women perceive as being the most helpful to their careers?  My second question was: which DCEs specifically predict women’s and men’s levels within an organizational hierarchy?

Before I dive into the details of my research findings, let me step back and give more background about some of these DCEs.  Research has shown that having a powerful male sponsor to help show women how to navigate upper levels of an organization is effective in securing promotions for women; however, these relationships are more helpful for men.[11] Other work suggests that it can be more difficult for women to have sponsorship compared to men because sponsorship between a female subordinate and a male boss can look like an affair, so both women and men tend to avoid it. While the career-boosting potential of sponsorship is significant for all individuals, oftentimes, women have not been able to benefit nearly as much as men.  The very act of self-promoting themselves to get results in this type of relationship makes women feel like they have engaged in something “dirty” because the relationship is not based on a leveraging their skills only.

Another important DCE to consider is networking.  Research on professional networks has shown that men’s careers benefit more from networking than women’s[11] in part because men oftentimes have access to more powerful coalitions within organizations that they can leverage for their benefit because of in-group power and affiliation.  Additionally, similar to sponsorship, cross-sex networking is likely to require using relationship capital as a means to get ahead, which may make women feel uncomfortable.

When I analyzed the data in my sample, collected from over 4,000 employees at organizations in the UK, I found a few interesting things: women are more likely than men to find all DCEs I examined (coaching, mentoring, sponsorship, development programs, networking, and peer feedback) as helpful for their careers.  However, for women, only sponsorship was linked to their organizational level.  Specifically, women who had a strong belief that sponsorship had helped their careers also were at a higher level in the organization.  For men, both sponsorship and networking were linked to having a higher organizational level.

So what does this all mean?  What are the implications?  My sense is that pertaining to the first result – that women are more likely than men to find all DCEs helpful for their careers – women may see engaging in DCEs as a way to put their head down and take part in the meritocracy they see as working.  They are able to get their work done and do not take part in the “dirty” work requires them to have access to powerful social networks and to use quid pro quo to get ahead. 

Related to the result for men, this very much makes sense given the previously noted literature and research. Men have more access to social networks, so networking and sponsorship may be something they have access to.  Furthermore, they are more comfortable leveraging relationship capital compared to women. 

What about the last result I found – that when women perceive sponsorship as helpful, they are more likely to have a higher level in the organization? These may be women who have gotten over the “dirty” feeling of leveraging relationship capital.  They may have accepted the fact that they need to engage in quid pro quo relationships, rather than being what they see as “authentic”, in order to get work done.  Or, they are negotiating and coming to terms with what authenticity means to them.  In using quid pro quo in workplace relationships, they may have broken into social networks and finally have that access to their benefit.

As I mentioned earlier, one issue women are fearful about is what the perception of sponsorship with a man might look like to other individuals in the organization: it might look like an affair.  So perhaps women are more likely to want to engage in these types of relationships when organizations have made sponsorship look and feel safer.  Some companies do this by creating cohorts of executive women to sponsor other senior women.  The sponsorship oftentimes focuses on the realm work, but can also focus on other areas of commonality, in order to build a sense of safety into the relationship.

What’s clear is that women need solutions that work for them.  Sponsorship appears to do that, when women can get over the “dirty” feeling of using quid pro quo to gain access to social networks.  Some companies have tried, with success, to ease the contextual constraints to make sponsorship feel safer, and if other companies adopt similar techniques to enhance the feeling of safety, women may be more eager utilize sponsorship in the future.  Part of this is creating a “holding environment” where women can compare similar experiences with each other, offer feedback, and serve as references for social comparison in order to surface and understand the gender bias that they have inevitably faced at various points in their careers.

Other solutions hinge on internal work that women themselves can do.  After a safe environment is created, it is imperative that women and women’s leadership programs spend time doing the necessary identity work to understand who they are and what they can become.  It is also important for women to focus on their sense of purpose and goals, which can get lost when they spend so much time thinking about their reputations and how they come across to others.  Women may fear that they do not come across as authentic when they engage in the “dirty” work of leadership and that some of these behaviors come more naturally to men.  They may mistake that learning to become a leader is a complex skill and takes a lot of practice in order to master[12].  This framing of the issue can be helpful for women who seek to become leaders.

Perhaps though focusing on the “holding environment,” and the intense work women can do to hone their unique leadership identities, as well as through working with sponsors, women will be more likely to be elevated to leadership positions at a frequency similar to men.  When that happens, companies are likely to experience shifts in their workplaces cultures that benefit everyone, which is something I will explore in my next post.

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[1] Uber hires Eric Holder (2017). The Washington Post. Retrieved March 2, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/02/21/uber-hires-eric-holder-to-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims/

[2] Princeton’s eating clubs have benefitted from going coed. The New York Times. Retrieved Marc 3, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/09/16/should-college-fraternities-and-sororities-be-coed/princetons-eating-clubs-have-benefitted-from-going-coed

[3] Harvard University task force on the prevention of sexual assault: Final report. (2016, March 7). Retrieved March 3, 2017, from http://sexualassaulttaskforce.harvard.edu/files/taskforce/files/final_report_of_the_task_force_on_the_prevention_of_sexual_assault_16_03_07.pdf?m=1457452164

[4] 2013 WM 50 best companies for executive women. (2013). Working Mother. Retrieved October 3, 2013, from http://www.wmmsurveys.com/NAFE_Executive_Summary_2013.pdf

[5] The 30% Club. (n.d.). 30 Percent Club. Retrieved March 14, 2014, from http://www.30percentclub.org.uk/

[6] Brass, D. J. (1985). Men’s and women’s networks: A study of interaction patterns and influence in an organization. Academy of Management Journal, 28, 327-343.

[7] Ibarra, H. (1992). Homophily and differential returns: Sex differences in network structure and access in an advertising firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37(3): 422-447.

[8] Ibarra, H. (1993). Personal networks of women and minorities in management: A conceptual framework. The Academy of Management Review, 18(1), 56.

[9] Ely, R. J., Ibarra, H., & Kolb, D. M. (2011). Taking gender into account: Theory and design for women's leadership development programs. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10(3), 474-493.

[10] Hewlett, S., Periano, K., Sherbin, L., & Sumberg, K. (2011). The sponsor effect: Breaking through the last glass ceiling - Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review Magazine, Articles, Blogs, Case Studies, Books - Harvard Business Review.

[11] Forret, M. L., & Dougherty, T. W. (2004). Networking behaviors and career outcomes: Differences For men and women?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3), 419-437.

[12] DeRue, D. S., & Ashford, S. J. 2010. Power to the people: Where has personal agency gone in leadership development? Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 3, 24–27.