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Women became 50% of the college graduates in the United States in the early 1980s. Since then, women have slowly and steadily advanced, earning more and more of the college degrees, taking more of the entry-level jobs, and entering more fields previously dominated by men. Despite these gains, the percentage of women at the top of corporate America has barely budged over the past decade. A meager 21 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Women hold about 14% of executive officer positions, 17% of board seats, and constitute 18% of our elected congressional officials.
A 2011 McKinsey report noted that men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments.
In speaking to other women, Sandberg says, “We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives—the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men… I’m also writing this for any man who wants to understand what a woman—a colleague, wife, mother, or daughter—is up against so that he can do his part to build an equal world.”
The Leadership Ambition Gap
There’s no doubt that women have the skills to lead in the workplace. Girls are increasingly outperforming boys in the classroom, earning about 57% of the undergraduate and 60% of the master’s degrees in the United States, but career progression often depends upon taking risks and advocating for oneself—traits that girls are discouraged from exhibiting.
A 2012 McKinsey survey of more than four thousand employees of leading companies found that 36% of the men wanted to reach the C-suite, compared to only 18% of the women. A 2012 Pew study found for the first time that among young people ages 18-34, more young women (66%) than young men (59%) rated “success in a high-paying career or profession” as important to their lives. A recent survey of Millennials found that women were just as likely to describe themselves as ambitious as men.
Consider how our kids grow up. When a girl tries to lead, she is often labeled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of a boss does not surprise or offend.
Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.
Sit at the Table
Women often hold themselves back, literally choosing to watch from the sidelines instead of sitting at the table. And yet as disappointed as I am when women make that choice, I also deeply understand the insecurities that draw them to the side of the room and keep them glued to those chairs.
Dr. Peggy McIntosh from the Wellesley Centers for Women, gave a talk called “Feeling Like a Fraud.” She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can’t seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are—impostors with limited skills or abilities.
Multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their own performance as better than it actually is.
Ask a man to explain his success and he will typically credit his own innate qualities and skills. Ask a woman the same question and she will attribute her success to external factors, insisting she did well because she “worked really hard,” or “got lucky,” or “had help from others.
This plays out in salary negotiations as well. A study that looked at the starting salaries of students graduating with a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University found that 57% of the male students, but only 7% of the female students, tried to negotiate for a higher offer.
If we want a world with greater equality, we need to acknowledge that women are less likely to keep their hands up. We need institutions and individuals to notice and correct for this behavior by encouraging, promoting, and championing more women. And women have to learn to keep their hands up, because when they lower them, even managers with the best intentions might not notice.
Everyone needs to get more comfortable with female leaders—including female leaders themselves.
It’s a Jungle Gym, Not a Ladder
The most common metaphor for careers is a ladder, but this concept no longer applies to most workers. As of 2010, the average American had eleven jobs from the ages of 18 to 46 alone. This means that the days of joining an organization or corporation and staying there to climb that one ladder are long gone. Pattie Sellers conceived a much better metaphor: “Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder.”
Just as I believe everyone should have a long-term dream, I also believe everyone should have an eighteen-month plan. (I say eighteen months because two years seems too long and one year seems too short, but it does not have to be any exact amount of time.) Typically, my eighteen-month plan sets goals on two fronts:
- First and most important, targets for what my team can accomplish.
- Second, personal goals for learning new skills in the next eighteen months.
In my experience, more men look for stretch assignments and take on high-visibility projects, while more women hang back. Research suggests that this is particularly true for women in environments that emphasize individual performance or when women are working closely with men.
An internal report at Hewlett-Packard revealed that women only apply for open jobs if they think they meet 100% of the criteria listed. Men apply if they think they meet 60% of the requirements. This difference has a huge ripple effect. Women need to shift from thinking “I’m not ready to do that” to thinking “I want to do that—and I’ll learn by doing it.”
Women are also more reluctant to apply for promotions even when deserved, often believing that good job performance will naturally lead to rewards. Carol Frohlinger and Deborah Kolb, founders of Negotiating Women, Inc., describe this as the “Tiara Syndrome,” where women “expect that if they keep doing their job well someone will notice them and place a tiara on their head.” In a perfect meritocracy, tiaras would be doled out to the deserving, but I have yet to see one floating around an office. Hard work and results should be recognized by others, but when they aren’t, advocating for oneself becomes necessary.
Mentorship & Sponsorship
Mentorship and sponsorship are crucial for career progression. Both men and women with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch assignments and pay raises than their peers of the same gender without sponsors. Unfortunately for women, men often have an easier time acquiring and maintaining these relationships. One recent study shows that men are significantly more likely than women to be sponsored and that those with sponsors are more satisfied with their rates of advancement.
We often send the wrong message to young women. We need to stop telling them, “Get a mentor and you will excel.” Instead, we need to tell them, “Excel and you will get a mentor.”
Men will often gravitate toward sponsoring younger men, with whom they connect more naturally. Since there are so many more men at the top of every industry, the proverbial old-boy network continues to flourish. And since there are already a reduced number of women in leadership roles, it is not possible for the junior women to get enough support unless senior men jump in too. We need to make male leaders aware of this shortage and encourage them to widen their circle. It’s wonderful when senior men mentor women. It’s even better when they champion and sponsor them. Any male leader who is serious about moving toward a more equal world can make this a priority and be part of the solution.
Seek and Speak Your Truth
We are so rarely brave enough to tell the truth. Being honest in the workplace is especially difficult. When psychologists study power dynamics, they find that people in low-power positions are more hesitant to share their views and often hedge their statements when they do. This helps explain why for many women, speaking honestly in a professional environment carries an additional set of fears: Fear of not being considered a team player. Fear of seeming negative or nagging. Humor can be an amazing tool for delivering an honest message in a good-natured way. A recent study even found that “sense of humor” was the phrase most frequently used to describe the most effective leaders.
Most women believe—and research suggests—that it is not a good idea to cry at work. However, Marcus Buckingham and the Gallup organization are challenging traditional notions of leadership. Their research suggests that presenting leadership as a list of carefully defined qualities (like strategic, analytical, and performance-oriented) no longer holds. Instead, true leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed. They believe leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection. This shift is good news for women, who often feel obliged to suppress their emotions in the workplace in an attempt to come across as more stereotypically male. And it’s also good news for men, who may be doing the exact same thing.
Maybe someday shedding tears in the workplace will no longer be viewed as embarrassing or weak, but as a simple display of authentic emotion. And maybe the compassion and sensitivity that have historically held some women back will make them more natural leaders in the future. In the meantime, we can all hasten this change by committing ourselves to both seek—and speak—our truth.
Don’t Leave Before You Leave
When it comes to integrating career and family, planning too far in advance can close doors rather than open them. I have seen this happen over and over. Women rarely make one big decision to leave the workforce. Instead, they make a lot of small decisions along the way, making accommodations and sacrifices that they believe will be required to have a family. Of all the ways women hold themselves back, perhaps the most pervasive is that they leave before they leave.
When they finally have a child, the choice—for those who have one—is between becoming a stay-at-home mother or returning to a less-than-appealing professional situation. 43% of highly qualified women with children are leaving careers, or “off-ramping,” for a period of time.
A 2007 survey of Harvard Business School alumni found that while men’s rates of full-time employment never fell below 91%, only 81% of women who graduated in the early 2000s and 49% of women who graduated in the early 1990s were working full-time. Of Yale alumni who had reached their forties by 2000, only 56% of the women remained in the workforce, compared with 90% of the men. This exodus of highly educated women is a major contributor to the leadership gap.
Women who take time out of the workforce pay a big career penalty. Only 74% of professional women will rejoin the workforce in any capacity, and only 40% will return to full-time jobs. Those who do rejoin will often see their earnings decrease dramatically. Controlling for education and hours worked, women’s average annual earnings decrease by 20% if they are out of the workforce for just one year. Average annual earnings decline by 30% after two to three years, which is the average amount of time that professional women off-ramp from the workforce.
Make Your Partner a Real Partner
According to the most recent analysis, when a husband and wife both are employed full-time, the mother does 40% more child care and about 30% more housework than the father. A 2009 survey found that only 9% of people in dual-earner marriages said that they shared housework, child care, and breadwinning evenly. So while men are taking on more household responsibilities, this increase is happening very slowly, and we are still far from parity.
As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. Of the twenty-eight women who have served as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, twenty-six were married, one was divorced, and only one had never married. Many of these CEOs said they “could not have succeeded without the support of their husbands, helping with the children, the household chores, and showing a willingness to move.”
When asked at a conference what men could do to help advance women’s leadership, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter answered, “The laundry.”
When fathers provide even just routine child care, children have higher levels of educational and economic achievement and lower delinquency rates. Their children even tend to be more empathetic and socially competent. These findings hold true for children from all socioeconomic backgrounds, whether or not the mother is highly involved. We all need to encourage men to lean in to their families.
When husbands do more housework, wives are less depressed, marital conflicts decrease, and satisfaction rises. When women work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.
A recent survey asked participants to rate the importance of various job characteristics found that men in their forties most frequently selected “work which challenges me” as very important, while men in their twenties and thirties most frequently selected having a job with a schedule that “allows me to spend time with my family.” If these trends hold as this group ages, it could signal a promising shift.
As more women lean in to their careers, more men need to lean in to their families. We need to encourage men to be more ambitious in their homes. We need more men to sit at the table … the kitchen table.
The Myth of Doing It All
Sharon Poczter, professor of economics at Cornell, explains, “The antiquated rhetoric of ‘having it all’ disregards the basis of every economic relationship: the idea of trade-offs. All of us are dealing with the constrained optimization that is life, attempting to maximize our utility based on parameters like career, kids, relationships, etc., doing our best to allocate the resource of time. Due to the scarcity of this resource, therefore, none of us can ‘have it all,’ and those who claim to are most likely lying.
Employed mothers and fathers both struggle with multiple responsibilities, but mothers also have to endure the rude questions and accusatory looks that remind us that we’re shortchanging both our jobs and our children.
At McKinsey, leadership implored us to exert more control over our careers. They noted that McKinsey would never stop making demands on our time, so it was up to us to decide what we were willing to do. It was our responsibility to draw the line. The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately—to set limits and stick to them.
If I had to embrace a definition of success, it would be that success is making the best choices we can … and accepting them.
Let’s Start Talking About It
When a woman sits on the side of a room, a man needs to be able to wave her over to the table and explain why so she will know to sit at the table the next time.
One stumbling block is that many people believe that the workplace is largely a meritocracy, which means we look at individuals, not groups, and determine that differences in outcomes must be based on merit, not gender. Men at the top are often unaware of the benefits they enjoy simply because they’re men, and this can make them blind to the disadvantages associated with being a woman.
Most people would agree that gender bias exists … in others. We, however, would never be swayed by such superficial and unenlightened opinions. Except we are.
Working Together Toward Equality
All of us—men and women alike—have to understand and acknowledge how stereotypes and biases cloud our beliefs and perpetuate the status quo. Instead of ignoring our differences, we need to accept and transcend them.
When women voice gender bias, they legitimize it. Obviously, a negative attitude cannot be gender based if it comes from another woman, right? Wrong. Other research suggests that once a woman achieves success, particularly in a gender-biased context, her capacity to see gender discrimination is reduced.
There is hope that this attitude is changing. A recent survey found that “high-potential women” working in business want to “pay it forward,” and 73% have reached out to other women to help them develop their talents.
Men of all ages must commit to changing the leadership ratios. They can start by actively seeking out qualified female candidates to hire and promote. And if qualified candidates cannot be found, then we need to invest in more recruiting, mentoring, and sponsoring so women can get the necessary experience.
I have written this book to encourage women to dream big, forge a path through the obstacles, and achieve their full potential. I am hoping that each woman will set her own goals and reach for them with gusto. And I am hoping that each man will do his part to support women in the workplace and in the home, also with gusto.