THE ECONOMIC TIMES 24TH APRIL 2007

MANSI DUTTA REPORTS

They used to say a woman's work is never done in the old ' days. Well, you could say that again. Across cultures, studies in corporate America, Europe, even India are showing that though the glass ceiling has been broken, there are still many pipeline problems. For one, women still get stuck in jobs that involve human resources or public relations posts that rarely lead to the top. And in many cases female managers' strengths have been undervalued, their contributions in the workplace have gone largely unnoticed and unrewarded. Though companies are now saying they want the skills, women typically bring to the job, their rhetoric doesn't always translate into reality. Some businesses view women only as workhorses, well- suited for demanding careers in middle management, and not for prime jobs.

Indeed, a study conducted by Catalyst, a research-based organisation and researchers from the Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland, examined a major barrier to women's advancement in business. And guess what it is? Gender stereotypes. There are still generalisations companies are making about the characteristics of women and men. Conventional wisdom and most business literature tell us that women score high on interpersonal skills, communications etc., but the real truth Laura Kray, professor at the University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business, says is: "Women often use a different leadership style than men, a more democratic and an affiliative one: encouraging participation, sharing power and information. Whereas men use a more directive command-and-control style, relying on the authority of their position." A point of view that has been proposed even by Harvard Business School's Robin J Ely and Stanford University's Debra E Meyerson in the book of essays edited by Debra E Meyerson, The Difference "Difference" Makes. They argue on the notion that the basic organising principles which govern workplace practice, including many of the implicit rules for success, are still closely aliened with idealised masculine interests, attributes and life situations. But this is a hard-sell to most women, who don't function well in that environment. But something will ha ve to give. Says Asha Bhandarkar, professor of organisational behaviour at MDI, in India: "Making the shift in a relatively short span of time (historically speaking) is difficult, for both the genders. The more self-confidence women develop and the bigger roles they take up, the greater will be their capability to become leaders and to be accepted as leaders. Since society also places the nurturer role on the female, she gets stuck in the familial caregiver role. How can then aspiring women challenge this paradox and reclaim their leadership value? They firstly need to understand it takes more than competence and well- honed skills to make it to the top level." In fact, women have to start challenging the concept of leadership which still remains a masculine notion. Says, Deborah Kolb, professor of women & leadership at the Simmon School of Management in Boston, USA: "There are two ways to look at the different leadership styles among men and women -what leaders do, and how these actions are perceived. Women may rely on and value relational skills but these skills are not perceived as leadership competencies when enacted by women. They are, however regarded as value adds when enacted by men since they do not conform to the stereotype, the way they do for women." One factor that surely contributes to the association of masculinity with leadership is that there are more men in leadership positions today than women. "While women make up a significant proportion of the workforce - 47% in the US, for example, and 50% of managerial positions, there are very few at the top of an organisation and among the top earners - less than 10%," she says. And globally, things are unlikely to change much. Catalyst reveals that while the percentage of women in leadership positions has certainly increased over the years, the trend is disconcertingly slow. It predicts that, at the current rate of change, the percentage of women in top leadership positions in the largest companies will not exceed 25% until 2020. Which, as it turns, is actually a skewed perception of women in the corporate world, In reality, they outperform men in many ways. According to Irwin International, a consulting firm specialising in managerial performance evaluation, which did a gender analysis of

their database of 915 executives with performance feedback from over 6,000 observers, the overall pattern of relative strengths and weaknesses in leadership and managerial competencies was the same for men and women. The study showed that women outperformed men in 25 out of 31 of the specific skill areas. Importantly, these include skill areas often perceived as directly linked to the "bottom line," such as maintaining high productivity, producing high quality work, meeting project deadlines and commitments, and generating new ideas. Pointedly, men and women seem to be doing roughly equally effective jobs, but they approach their jobs differently. And certainly, many women managers are keenly aware that they inhabit a different reality at the office than men. Says Kolb: " Our work at the Centre for Gender in Organisations (CGO) shows that there are what we call second generation gender issues (first generation issue being outright discrimination) - organisation cultures and work practices that can create an uneven playing field for women. That means women have to negotiate around issues that men do not - opportunities. Research shows that although women are evaluated positively in terms of skills, they are less likely to be offered leadership opportunities. It falls to women themselves to negotiate for opportunities in line organisations or to integrate work and family. Not just that, women will also have to invest in building relationships with influential advocates who can sponsor them for positions of leadership and make their leadership competencies visible and explicit to others. Once in a leadership position, they also need a constellation of allies who will continue to support them, advertise, and reaffirm their leadership contributions publicly." Understanding how gender norms can mask the value and visibility of women's leadership skills can help women claim their value and make their leadership skills and contributions more visible. And, women will need to work to challenge and interrupt these gender assumptions, not in ways that will set them at odds with their staff, peers, and bosses, but in ways that are thoughtful, deliberate, and constructive. This is not simply self-serving; it can benefit the organisation as well. Adds Kolb: "Women pushing back constructively on organisational norms and assumptions will help organisations bring greater diversity to their leadership pools, cultivate and retain more leadership talent, and give greater recognition and support to leadership competencies that are critical for their success but remain undervalued. At the same time that this helps the organisation be more effective, it also creates more opportunities for women to advance into leadership positions." Amen!