The Mama Bee

Last week Barbara Kellerman posted a terrific piece at the Harvard Business Review on “The Abiding Tyranny of the Male Leadership Model”.  The title suggests a radical manifesto, but in fact Kellerman simply points out the facts: despite all of the hoopla about how far we have come, women remain significantly underrepresented at the top of nearly every industry, including those traditionally more female-friendly like non-profit management.  Furthermore, Kellerman says, the price of professional success for women is high; over 50% of those in top jobs have no children and more than a third are unmarried.  Kellerman writes:

For various reasons…solutions have fallen short. Some, such as mentoring, networking, simply can’t cut it, at least not to a significant, sufficient degree.  Others, such as family friendly policies, are unlikely in themselves to be effective.  Still others, for example quotas, are socially and politically unpalatable, at least in the U.S.  And, finally, some, including educational reform, public policy, and political action are simply too ambitious if not downright fanciful to have any bearing on the here and now.  Put another way, for all the politically correct hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing, at the macro-level the problem of women and leadership has so far resisted even the best of intentions.

She goes on to advocate for “a different mindset,” suggesting that the core problem is an unwillingness to admit that there are still profound inequities in the workplace.  It should not be acceptable to tolerate corporate cultures that assume women are “less reliable” employees because they may have children; penalize women for motherhood even if they take no more than a few weeks of maternity leave; and characterize women who actively negotiate as whiny or bitchy or a host of other stereotypes — but that is exactly what women experience over and over again.

I agree with Kellerman that mindset is part of the problem.  You have only to look at the comments section of the article to see how little recognition there is of the issues; much of the feedback suggests that women just don’t want to be in power positions and that Kellerman’s “manifesto” is a typical “feminist whine fest.”  However, there’s more to the solution than better acknowledgment.

Many of the corporate programs meant to address the paucity of female executives have reinforced rather than remediated the problem.  Take, for example, programs that seek to keep women in the workforce by offering part-time, flex-time and telecommuting options.  These are very good options for women who wish to off-ramp for a time, but they do nothing to help women who want to see their jobs grow.  (And yes, many mothers — even new mothers — do fall in the ranks of the ambitious.)

Similarly, mentoring programs for women actually imply to the rest of the company that female employees need greater skills support than their male counterparts.  The company is really saying that men can be trusted to build their own networks and professional development opportunities, but women need the institution to provide those structures.  Good intention, bad message.

If we look at the women with children who are advancing, we can learn from their experience.  Take this “Real Mom” profile of Jennifer Scully-Lerner, a Goldman Sachs VP who says that she wants to build her career and isn’t interested in working less than 5 days a week, although she has two small children.  What does she have that allows her to be successful?  Childcare; a supportive spouse; family nearby; a short commute; an office that provides back-up childcare if her sitter is sick; a job with enough autonomy that she can go to the school play or take her child to the doctor.

The question is whether these conditions can be replicated to help other women who want to climb the corporate ladder, the vast majority of whom have significantly fewer resources than a Goldman VP.  I think they can if business and government can come together to provide high-quality childcare options; if  transportation infrastructure can be improved so that parents aren’t sitting in traffic for hours; if companies offer men the same parental benefits as female employees so that women are not the only ones expected to help at home.

Of course, this all remains a pipe dream if women continue to be undervalued.  In every way — salary, benefits, hiring, promotions and pay raises — men are still preferred to women.  That’s where Kellerman’s “mindset” comes in, and I applaud her for a manifesto placed strategically in a bastion of male business that may help change some thinking.

Related links:

• Last week Forbes.com pointed out that just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and that many are paid singificantly less than their male counterparts.
• More from the Harvard Business Review: Why Workplace Equality Initiatives Aren’t Helping Women.
• A good piece from The Economist about why imposing quotas for women on corporate boards doesn’t address the real problem.