Cracks in the Glass Ceiling?
I recently had the pleasure of spending time with Mike Cassidy, Business Columnist of the San Jose Mercury News where we talked about a myriad of issues including the significance of Hillary’s recent campaign and the lack of women CEO’s in Silicon Valley.
On Monday, Mike also wrote a follow-up post, reflecting the truly ongoing nature of this conversation.
On Saturday, we watched Hillary Clinton suspend her historic campaign. Regardless of your political affiliation or your perspective on race and gender issues in America, there is no denying that this event underscored what an incredible achievement Hillary’s campaign has been for women in America, and that has hopefully smoothed the course somewhat - in one way or another - for more women who deal with a range of barriers to professional success.
Hillary mentioned the glass ceiling in her speech stating: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.”
But, turning to business, the statistics are still very unsettling and there is little progress being seen when it comes to shattering that glass ceiling at the most senior levels. Mike Cassidy alluded to this in his recent article about the lack of Women CEO’s in Tech .
David G.Thomson, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and author of Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth, and upcoming speaker at FWE&E has recently written an article in USA Today where he reports that only 43 women have climbed the traditional ladder to become CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies in the last 35 years, and fresh research from executive women’s organization Catalyst suggests that the pipeline is not exactly filling up with future candidates.
But if 43 seems like a low number, consider how many companies were founded by women, then grew into the Fortune 1000. The total is three. And all were co-founded by men. At USA Today’s request, Thomson re-examined his data and re-interviewed women entrepreneurs to make sure that the early signs of a change weren’t around the corner. He learned two things: There are no signs of change and, “This is a very emotionally charged topic,” he says.
Women who have built big companies don’t know why they remain so rare, but explanations fall largely into two camps: discrimination and nature. They say men have easier access to money from bankers and venture capitalists, the lifeblood of growth. Women also are often more devoted to family, and even those who out-earn their husbands often remain responsible for children and households.
Turning back to Silicon Valley, moving women in to leadership positions in tech lacks the momentum that other industries experience. What does the future hold for women leaders in tech and what are the challenges women face in moving higher up the leadership ladder? Mary O’Hara Devereaux, CEO of Global Foresight and an internationally recognized business forecaster and strategist will be discussing this at an event on June 17th. She has some provocative insight into what women could be doing differently to start to change this picture but also how corporations need to be more conscious of the impact on their future results in not creating intention to change the statistics.
So, why are there not more women in senior management and CEO ranks? What is the critical value to society of having women in CEO and Board positions? Why is female leadership still such an emotionally charged issue? And finally, did Hillary’s campaign help raise awareness or continue to polarize the conscious or unconscious biases and barriers that exist?
June 12th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
All great questions with no obvious answers. . . but perhaps the sub-current of the Clinton campaign begins to suggest why. Media, analysts, and common citizens have been artful in dealing persistent and subtle cuts to Clinton throughout her campaign. We saw blatant sexism very rarely, yet witnessed a relentless stream of questioning, posturing, “analysis,” and criticism that no other (male) candidate endured. Relentless and by and large “acceptable.”
It’s not much different in business, and it is, for the woman executive, exhausting at best and limiting at worst. So why bother? Perhaps smart women find a different path.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 am
I agree that tech has been woefully behind in this area. That said, unlike David Thomson, I have seen some signs that change is afoot, even in historically engineering-driven organizations. I’ll cite Juniper Networks as an example. The Sunnyvale-headquartered S&P 500 leader in high-performance networking solutions now has women in the following key leadership roles: CFO, CIO, CMO, GM of the Infrastructure Products Group and a Board of Directors position.
As for “why” we’re seeing this kind of movement (and why I think it will accelerate substantially over the next 5-10 years), I’ll offer up a few statistics to consider:
- The US workforce is becoming increasingly female. The Department of Education predicts that the future talent pool is disproportionately female…16% growth vs. 1% for men.
- U.S. women are now the “educated majority,” earning 59% of BS degrees and more than 50% of the graduate degrees. Moreover, 60% of new college hires are women.
- The male-dominated Baby Boomer generation is starting to retire from the workforce in waves, and it’s projected that by 2012, the US workforce will be losing 2 workers for every 1 gained.
- Companies with highest representation of women in top management had a 4.6% higher return on equity, and showed an 18-69% higher profit than the median profits posted in their respective sectors. (Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, Sylvia Ann Hewlett )
- The customer is not king, she’s queen. Today, women make 92% of vacation decisions, 80% of health care product purchasing decisions and 50% of auto/electronics purchasing decisions. For companies to be truly market-driven, having women in leadership roles is increasingly vital.
Bottom line: change is hard and it always takes longer than we’d like. Political correctness can get things started, but widespread change is largely driven by economics and self-preservation. I believe this to be true whether we’re talking about women in corporate (or political) leadership roles or changing our behaviors to reverse global warming.
Thoughts/comments?
Disclaimer: I held the positions of acting acting VP of Corporate Communications and acting CMO at Juniper Networks between April 2006 - October 2007, and my company supplies communications services to Juniper Networks at present.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I was appalled at the number of times the media–conservative and liberal–commented on Hillary Clinton’s clothing, make up, and hair style. I don’t remember reading or hearing anything similar about Barack Obama, outside of the American flag lapel pin. And even more appalled to hear a reporter acknowledge his own (bad) behavior. That aside…
I do think we’re making progress; not as much as we’d like, perhaps, but we’re a long way from those awful she-man suits and floppy ties of the 1980’s. I look at my nieces, daughters-in-law, and older granddaughters and am delighted to hear them talk of the many career options they have. No, there are not nearly enough women in C-level positions, but I advise and coach many women who see entrepreneurship as a real career alternative. These are not women who are looking to bring in a few extra bucks to supplement the family income. They are serious businesswomen who have well thought out business plans, solid products, and plenty of grit, brains and determination.
Recently I read an interesting article recently that predicted that 40% of the American workforce will be contingent: temps, consultants, contractors, and others in interim positions. This bears out my anecdotal experience that many men and women are fed up with the corporate lifestyle and are finding other ways to support themselves. If this is true, I wonder what it bodes for women at the C-level? Do we need to be worrying about the Fortune 1000 executives or should we look more broadly at all businesses?
Thoughts/comments?
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