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6 Doing it differently? The emergence of women leaders Objectives To look at the recent achievements of women and their current status in organizations. To establish the business case for promoting the interests of women employees in organizations. To define gender and examine the issue of gender stereotypes. To identify attitudinal, structural and cultural barriers that women still encounter in the workplace. To suggest that leader/managers of the future will possess a mixture of ‘male’, ‘neutral’ and ‘female’ qualities, attributes, competencies and skills. To suggest ways in which women can become more powerful leader/managers. To outline briefly some practical strategies for creating gender inclu- sive workplaces. 1 The achievements and status of women in organizations There is no difference in the ability of men and women to work hard. Research by the United Nations has shown that in the world as a whole, women comprise 51 percent of the population, do 66 percent of the work, receive 10 percent of the income and own less than 1 percent of the prop- erty.’ (Michael Simmons, Building an Inclusive Organization, 1996) 224 Until the 1980s, almost all commentators on leadership and manage- ment ignored the simple fact that organizations employed both men and women. As Amanda Sinclair has observed, ‘although there has been passing attention given to men leading women, it has been men leading men that has captured the imagination of researchers and biog- raphers and spawned their fascination with military and sporting exemplars’. She suggests that there are two reasons for this oversight. The first is absence: there were not enough women in senior positions to warrant serious research on female leadership styles. The second is invisibility: there was only one style of leadership and management that merited serious investigation and that was the male style (Sinclair, 1998: 15, 17–26). A third reason is that, until the 1980s, there were hardly any women academics working in the disciplines of organiza- tional leadership and people management. Consequently, women, either as colleagues or as subjects of research, were effectively irrelevant to most male academics in business schools before this time. Despite this invisibility, women have always been an essential labour resource throughout history, and it has been very much the exception, rather than the rule, when women have not been engaged in work outside the home. However, as recently as the beginning of the 20th century, there were almost no suitable professional careers open to women, although many working-class women did work on the land, in factories and in domestic service. A middle-class woman had almost no chance of becoming an engineer, an architect, a politician, a financier or a newspaper journalist. Why? Because it was widely believed that women were, by nature, either unfit for or incapable of working in most occupations. It was not until after World War II, when large numbers of women had been conscripted into many tradi- tionally male jobs and occupations, while their menfolk were away fighting, that things began to change. By the 1970s, increasing numbers of women had started to compete with men in professional career streams, particularly in Australasia, some European countries and North America. Today, there are female doctors, engineers, accountants, architects, politicians, financiers, newspaper journalists, academics, police officers, fire fighters, astronauts and chief execu- tives, as well as a rapidly growing number of successful women entre- preneurs. There are now many more women in the workforce in middle-manage- ment positions and an increasing number are entering previously male-dominated professions such as engineering and science. Women have also made huge advances in winning many of the new jobs created in the past 20 years. They are earning more money than ever before, their presence is growing in every profession and they are THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 225 making inroads into occupations that have until very recent times excluded women. These include front-line combat troops, astronauts, fighter pilots, boxers, wrestlers and extreme sports athletes, and there are even a few Mafia godmothers. In certain sectors, such as finance and banking, women have made remarkable advances. For example, in the mid-1980s, women made up 60 per cent of the workforce of the (then) Abbey National Building Society in the UK. However, only 2.5 per cent of their female employees were branch managers. By the late 1990s, the figures were 60 per cent and 50 per cent respectively, a twenty-fold increase (Parker et al., 1998: 56). Between 1995 and 2000, the annual Cosmopolitan awards for the most ‘women friendly’ compa- nies in the UK went to organizations in the finance sector on four occa- sions. The odd one out was The Body Shop, which, as everyone is aware, was led by a woman at that time. A small number of women have become CEOs of some of the largest companies in the world. When Carly Fiorina was appointed as the first female CEO of Hewlett-Packard in 2000, she received a one million dollar ‘signing-on’ fee, a minimum annual bonus of $US1 250 000, and stock options worth about $US20 million (approximate value after the company’s merger with Compaq in April 2002. Forster, 2002: 16). In the USA, 71 per cent of companies have at least one woman member on the board and in the UK the figure is 48 per cent. In Australia one-third of the top 200 companies had a female member on the board in 2002. In 2000, 9.7 per cent of non-executive directors were women, but this had fallen to 8.2 per cent by the end of 2002 (Harris, 2002; Harvey, 2001). A growing number are entering politics, many have reached senior polit- ical office and some have become heads of state. For example, on 15 November 2002, Californian Congresswoman Nancy Pelos became the first woman to be elected as the leader of the US Democrats on Capitol Hill, replacing outgoing house minority leader Richard Gephardt (Reid, 2002). Many more women are now opting for self-employment. In the USA, the number of female-owned small companies quadrupled from two million to eight million between 1982 and 1997, and women established 75 per cent of all new companies set up in the USA in the 1990s. In 1997, for the first time, women-owned businesses employed more people than the Fortune 500 companies (Gollan, 1997). During the 1990s, women started new businesses at a faster rate than men in North America, the UK and Australia. Approximately 1.2 million small busi- nesses in Australia are operated by women – about one-third of all busi- nesses in the country. They also initiate around 70 per cent of all new business start-ups each year, a remarkable statistic. Women under 30 are now the fastest-growing demographic entity in the small business 226 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE sector. This trend is likely to accelerate over the next few years, with 38 per cent of women in Australia planning to establish their own busi- nesses within the next five years (Harcourt, 2003; Blanch and Switzer, 2003; Fox, 2001). This social transformation has been driven, not only by economic and social change and universal education, but also by an irreversible revo- lution in women’s aspirations, driven in large measure by the ‘first wave’ of feminist thinking in the 20th century. This revolution has led to the emergence of workforces that would be unrecognizable to men working in organizations in the 1960s and 1970s. In western industri- alized countries, we may also be witnessing what might be the start of a fundamental power shift from men to women, particularly in the under-30 age group and, perhaps, an historic change in the relation- ships between men and women. This change may represent a shift in power relations and values that could unravel many of the assump- tions of 200 years of industrial and social organization, and millennia of traditions and beliefs about the ‘correct’ roles of men and women in society and the workplace. However, while some women have made major inroads into all profes- sions and occupations, many continue to be employed at the lower levels of organizational hierarchies, and many still encounter discrim- ination at work. In OECD countries, around 40 per cent of women still work part-time, with little job security and no access to sick pay, super- annuation entitlements or holiday pay. They are often concentrated in certain sectors of the labour market, with many still working in ‘caring’ jobs such as human resource management, nursing and childcare, or as secretaries and personal assistants. Very few women have made it into senior management positions in organizations. In the USA, for exam- ple, women occupy 11.9 per cent of CEO positions in the private sector. In the UK the figure is 10.6 per cent and, in Australia, a paltry 1 per cent – down from 2.9 per cent in 2000. Fifty-three per cent of Australia’s top 200 companies had no women in executive positions in 2002, compared to just 14 per cent of US companies (Butterfly, 2002; Casella, 2001). Men still occupy most of the top leadership positions throughout the world, in industry, business, politics, trade unions and in public sector orga- nizations. In western industrialized societies, it is still almost entirely white, Caucasian, able-bodied males who occupy these. As recently as 1995, the US Glass Ceiling Commission commented that ‘America’s vast human resources are not being fully utilized because of glass- ceiling barriers. Over half of all Masters degrees are now awarded to women, yet 95 percent of senior level managers of the top Fortune 1000 and 500 service companies are men. Of them, 97 percent are white’ (Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995: 6). THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 227 In occupations such as academia, inequalities persist, particularly in the UK and Australia (Forster, 2000e). In engineering, only 5.7 per cent of 65 000 Australian engineers are women, although the number of engineering graduates increased from 4 to 13 per cent during the 1990s (cited in The Australian, 21 February 1999). Women still earn less than men. One-third of all working women earn two-thirds of average male earnings, in North America, the UK and Australia. On average, even professional women are still paid less than men, even if they are doing the same job. For all professional occupations in the USA, UK and Australia, women earn about 80–85 per cent of male earnings. In Australia, there were more than one hundred male executives or CEOs who were earning more than one million dollars a year in the late 1990s. There was not a single woman who fell into this category (Sinclair, 1998). In an international context, women also continue to encounter struc- tural, attitudinal and cultural barriers. While there are growing oppor- tunities for women in international careers they are still concentrated largely in junior and some middle management positions. They also work in a narrower range of professions when compared to their male colleagues. They are still less likely to be selected for international assignments (often because of ‘family commitments’), face greater prob- lems with adaptation in traditionally patriarchal cultures and – with the noticeable exception of some US companies – are unlikely to receive company support for their male trailing partners. While there is very little evidence that companies actively discriminate against women, there are indications that women are not considered for postings to what can be broadly described as traditional patriarchal societies in, for example, the Middle East. This is evidence of a solid glass ceiling in an international context at the present time. Women are rarely entrusted with major projects in new markets and they face greater restrictions in terms of the range of countries to which they are posted, although they do seem to have an advantage over their male colleagues in terms of European postings. However, all the evidence from graduate careers advisers in the USA and the UK indicates that growing numbers of well-educated and highly motivated younger women are looking for international job experience as a route to fast-track promotions and senior positions in organizations. In other words, these women want international assignments and all the available research shows that women are as motivated as men to seek international career opportuni- ties, and they will be as successful as their male colleagues if selected for these. As increasing numbers of bright younger women seek interna- tional career opportunities, those companies which do address these issues are more likely to attract the very best global female managerial and professional talent over the next few years (Forster, 1999a, 2000c). 228 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE What all this indicates is that, while women have made substantial progress over the last 20 years, they still have some way to go before they achieve true equality of opportunity with men. In 2000, the Australian Affirmative Action Agency estimated that it would take until 2175 for women to achieve full equality with men in all occupa- tions and professions (Stevens, 2000: 18). The same is true if we look at the international status of women, where they still have a very, very long way to go in many countries. A 2001 UN survey of gender equal- ity in 100 countries highlighted huge disparities in equality of oppor- tunity for women. The top five countries were Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and the USA, with the UK at 13 and Australia coming in at number 18. The bottom 30 consisted entirely of African, Middle-Eastern and Asian countries (cited in Harvey, 2001). As Amanda Sinclair has suggested: A vast management development industry has devoted itself to honing leadership skills. Yet there is little evidence that our notions of corporate leadership are changing to reflect or align with the shifting imperatives of a global marketplace. We are repeatedly told that in these times of unprece- dented change only those who innovate will survive. But our conceptions of leadership are locked in a time warp, constrained by lingering archetypes of heroic warriors and wise but distant fathers. (Sinclair, 1998: 2). The business case for promoting the interests of women employees For the moment, we are going to ignore legal, moral or ethical argu- ments for promoting equal opportunities in the workplace, and evalu- ate the business case for promoting the interests of women employees. As a number of commentators have pointed out, there is a fundamen- tal paradox between the economic rationalism that governs the management of almost all businesses and public sector organizations, and the continuing existence of irrational beliefs and practices that discriminate against some sections of their workforces (Thomas, 1996; Cox and Blake, 1991). While there are marked variations between countries, discrimination usually has a direct effect on a company’s bottom line, with payouts to claimants in the millions of dollars in recent times (discussed below). There can be other direct effects, including the following: • talented and ambitious women will avoid applying for jobs at companies that have a reputation for discrimination; • if organizations do not employ women, they may be less responsive to the needs of women consumers in the markets they operate in; THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 229 • women consumers may boycott their products and services; • their best women staff will leave to join other companies or, as they are doing in increasing numbers throughout the world, establish their own businesses; • workplace diversity will be reduced, leading to lower morale, less creativity, groupthink and, ultimately, lower organizational perfor- mance and productivity. Direct discrimination can be very expensive for organizations. The costs are not only financial penalties or damaging publicity for a company. In fact, it is almost passé to talk about discrimination these days; it is better known now as ‘very bad people management’. For example, one study in the United States rated the performance of the Standard and Poor’s 500 companies on equal opportunity factors, including the recruitment and promotion of women and minorities and the companies’ policies on discrimination. It found that companies rated in the bottom 100 for equal opportunities had an average of an 8 per cent return on investment. Companies rating in the top 100 had an average return of 18 per cent. Further evidence, compiled by the 1995 Glass Ceiling Commission, shows that the average annual return on investment of those companies that did not discriminate against women was more than double that of companies with poor records of hiring and promoting women (Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). Other surveys have shown that poor equal-opportunity practices also contribute to high staff turnover and absenteeism (Goward, 1999). Two studies referred to in earlier chapters, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’s Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies and Collins’ Good to Great also add weight to this argument. All the companies they iden- tified have made a major commitment to equality of opportunity and to promoting women into senior management positions. And recall that all of these were among the most visionary, successful and prof- itable companies in the world during the 20th century. Alan Greenspan, the US Federal Reserve Chairman, has argued that discrimination is bad for business, and suggested that evening up pay scales for women and minorities has to be achieved now, not at some indeterminate point in the future. He also made these telling comments: ‘By removing the non-economic distortions that arise as a result of discrimination, we can generate higher returns on both human and physical capital. Discrimination is against the interest of business. Yet, business people often practise it. In the end the costs are higher, less real output is produced and the nation’s wealth-accumula- tion is reduced’ (cited in The Australian Financial Review, 28 July 2000). The message is clear: to be competitive, organizations need to take advantage of the full range of talents of their staff, regardless of their 230 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE gender (or cultural background). Good equal opportunity policies make good business sense. Another compelling reason for promoting the interests of women can be found in research that has emerged from business schools over the last decade, which has clearly demonstrated how beneficial employee diversity can be for organizations. Homogeneous cultures stagnate, and different perspectives are required for creativity and innovation. As the Enterprising Nation Report, on leadership and management in Australia, commented eight years ago, ‘Only by entrenching diversity will employees be optimally equipped to deal with the competitive challenges expected of them by the international marketplace and by the Australian community’ (Industry Taskforce on Leadership and Management Skills, 1995: 69). This report argued that, if Australian companies were to succeed in the future, they would have to develop highly educated and innovative workforces, characterized by gender and cultural diversity and a global focus. To achieve this, they would need to start dismantling the inward-looking, Anglo-Saxon and pater- nalistic views of their male workforces and their antiquated views about the role of women. In some sectors, such as the military, this is precisely what is happen- ing in many countries. This is true of North America, all European countries in the EEC and Australasia. The move to recruit more women has been driven in part by the fact that all countries in these regions have signed up to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. However, in large measure, this move is not driven by legal imperatives or by idealism and altruism, but by self-interest. The armed services of these coun- tries are recruiting more women because fewer young men are joining up and because they want to draw from a wider pool of talent. There is also a growing belief in the military that women have special skills to offer. For example, women are considered to have quicker compre- hension, are better at multi-tasking and have more dexterity and agility when compared to men. These are increasingly important skills as warfare becomes more reliant on technology, computerization, smart weapon systems, robotics and remote warfare capabilities. Consequently, women in the American and Australian armed services now work in 98 per cent of operational categories (Garran, 1998, 2001a; Maddison, 1999). They are still excluded from the infantry, artillery, combat engineering, naval clearance diving and airfield defence guards. Given that women already work as commercial divers and as airport security police in the civilian workforce, it is probable that women will gain entry to these positions in the military in the not too distant future. THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 231 It was noted earlier in this chapter that many more women are opting for self-employment in North America, the UK and Australasia. Several studies have shown that one of the main reasons given by women for starting up their own businesses is that it enables them to enjoy a better balance between their work and family lives (for exam- ple, Wellington, 1998). The Australian Census on Women in Leadership, released in November 2002, revealed that ‘the inflexibility of some companies made it extremely difficult for women to juggle careers and motherhood. Others had blokey cultures, meaning women worked twice as hard as men to be accepted as equals. As a result, frus- trated women were quitting to run small businesses’ (Harris, 2002). What should really concern organizations that turn a blind eye to this loss of talented staff is the evidence showing that women entrepre- neurs establish small businesses that are more successful and prof- itable than those started by men (Sarney, 1997; Hunter and Reid, 1996). It follows, logically, that not only do many organizations lose good women employees because of outdated employment practices; these are often the people they can least afford to lose these days – their entrepreneurs and innovators. Furthermore, organizations that allow this to happen lose intellectual capital, managerial know-how and experienced mentors for junior staff and they have to expend addi- tional time and resources recruiting new staff to replace those who have left (which, as we saw in Chapter 4, costs about $US60 000 per employee). Another important reason for promoting more women into senior management positions is that they may be less venal and corrupt than men. As Kim Cambell, the former Prime Minister of Canada, has observed: The qualities that are defined as masculine are the same as those defined as the qualities of leadership. There is virtually no overlap between the quali- ties ascribed to femininity and those to leadership. Yet, in several studies, results show that, when you have a critical mass of women in an organiza- tion, you have less corruption. Peru and Mexico have even implemented initiatives based on such thinking. Lest you think that all we aspire to for the world can be accomplished by male dominated organizations, I have only to say to you: Enron, Taliban, Roman Catholic Church. (Cited by Schlosser, 2002: 70) To this list we could also add Tycho, Worldcom, Global Crossing, HIH, One.Tel, Parmalat and others – companies we will return to in Chapter 12. In addition, other research surveys in the UK, the USA and Australasia have consistently shown that about 35 per cent of women have been the victims of some form of discrimination, sexual harassment or unwanted sexual advances at work, while an even higher percentage (around 50 per cent) have been at the receiving end of some form of 232 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE unwelcome sexual ‘overtures’. In professions such as the military and the police this is still an endemic part of their organizational cultures. In the UK, the number of women in the police service actually fell between 1993 and 1998 because of an endemic and deeply based male culture of routine discrimination (Montgomery, 1998). Between May 1995 and May 1997, sexual harassment claims cost the US Federal Government $US267 million. A survey by Working Woman magazine found that sexual harassment costs a typical Fortune 500 company, with 23 000 employees, about $US6.7 million a year. One in ten women in the USA have, at some point in their careers, quit a job because of sexual harassment (surveys cited in Moston and Engelberg-Moston, 1997). Several high-profile males have also had accusations of sexual harassment levelled against them, including several sports stars in the UK and the USA, the former US president, Bill Clinton, and more recently Arnold Schwartzenegger. These allegations featured promi- nently in Garry Trudeau’s Doonsbury cartoon series during 2003–4, with Schwartzenegger being portrayed as the ‘Gropenfuhrer’. While increasing competition, the need to recruit and retain the best staff, and to get the best out of one’s employees are the carrots, litiga- tion is now the stick. In fact, this is often a very large and painful stick. Here are a few examples of this: Today, one in five civil law suits in the US federal courts concerns harass- ment or discrimination, compared to one in twenty a decade ago. (The Economist, 2002c). The finance industry is renowned for its loutish behaviour, so it should come as no surprise that it seems to have more than its fair share of unsavoury practices against women. Last month, American Express agreed to pay $US31 million in a lawsuit for sex and age discrimination filed on behalf of more than 4000 women. Merril Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney, two investment banks, settled two sex discriminations cases in 1999, at a combined cost of $US250 million in damages to 900 former and current female employees. (Abridged from The Economist, 2002c, and Stowell, 1999) This month’s sexual discrimination payout to a Victorian policewoman has sent a timely warning to corporate Australia of the need to evaluate and monitor anti-discrimination policies and training. In many cases, the theory and practice are worlds apart. Policewoman Narelle McKenna received a $A125 000 payout in the Victorian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal after it was found that she had been the victim of sexual harassment, discrimination and victimisation. The tribunal was told that while working night-shift at the Bairnsdale police station, the Senior Constable was groped by a fellow officer, asked for oral sex and dragged kicking and screaming into a cell. (Johns, 1998) The US Unit of Japanese car-maker Mitsubishi has agreed to pay out a record $US34 million to settle a sexual harassment suit filed on behalf of 300 THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 233 [...]... women to fly as front-line fighter pilots? What is Dhammanada Bhikkhuni’s claim to fame? What is Christina Sanchez’s claim to fame? What are Valentina Tereshkova, Dr Sally Rides and Eileen Collins’ claims to fame? What was Babe Zaharias’s claim to fame? Last, and from a rather different angle, what do the following people have in common: former Presidents George W Bush Snr., Ronald Reagan, Franklin... this chapter now needs to be addressed: do the leadership and people management styles of men and women differ in any significant ways? A raft of academic and popular publications that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s made a number of suggestions about women leader/managers First, that they placed less emphasis on hierarchies and status, preferred flatter management structures and put a greater emphasis... month’ and so forth (adapted from Manning and Haddock, 19 95) The following examples illustrate how these attitudinal barriers still affect women in organizations ‘Turning a blind eye’ An independent panel has urged the Pentagon to hold air force leaders accountable for rapes and assaults of female cadets at the US Air Force Academy, blaming them for a decade of inaction and failure at the service’s top... cooperative, consensual, emotionally intelligent team-players and men are individualistic, rational, conflictual and emotionally stunted He argues that career women can be just as manipulative and Machiavellian as men and, if they are to succeed in many organizations, they must adopt these management styles (cited in Fox, 2001)  258 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE While researching this topic during 2001–3, I came across... Vietnam War From medical research to law, politics, civil rights and literature, the contributions of women were systematically devalued and marginalized by male historians during the 20th century Even more remarkable are the rapid inroads that a ‘New 250 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE Wave’ of women have made into traditional male occupations in more recent times, as illustrated below The military As noted earlier,... club at work rather than competency I was outspoken and was seen as aggressive I was politically savvy and networked and I had political clout and that wasn’t seen as attractive for a woman.’ (Cited by Harvey, 2001) ‘Women are not welcome at this airline’ In 1979, the pilots of all the major western commercial airlines were men In Australia, one woman decided to take on Ansett Airlines for the right to. .. household name companies, and many of these had invested significant time and resources in introducing formal policies to combat discrimination and sexual harassment However, what many of these companies failed to realize was that this kind of behaviour will persist as long as it remains an acceptable part of the culture of an organization and acceptable in the minds of male employees Formal policies mean... unless these are embraced by all employees and at all levels of an organization In order for this to happen, these have to be supported by comprehensive educational programmes, THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 2 35 that reveal how ultimately degrading and destructive these entrenched attitudes and behaviours are, and how they can damage both the bottom-line performance of a company and its reputation with... offensive, and yet they are still widespread in many countries This example also shows that attitudes about what women ‘are’, and their capabilities, are shaped by national cultures As we saw in Chapter 3, culture is something that is learnt; we are not genetically hard-wired with this at birth We also know that there are considerable national variations in cultural attitudes about women’s capabilities, as... leaders and in some cases even punished for infractions of duty The air force replaced the academy’s superintendent and other top officers in April in response to the scandal [ ] ‘From 1 January 1993 through 31 December 2002, there were 142 allegations of sexual assault at the academy, for an average of more than 14 allegations a year,’ the report said ‘Academy and air force leaders knew or should have . sexual assault at the academy, for an average of more than 14 allegations a year,’ the report said. ‘Academy and air force leaders knew or should have known this data was an unmistakable warning. discrimination payout to a Victorian policewoman has sent a timely warning to corporate Australia of the need to evaluate and monitor anti-discrimination policies and training. In many cases, the theory. appears that there was a boys’ club at work rather than competency. I was outspoken and was seen as aggressive. I was politically savvy and networked and I had political clout and that wasn’t