A few months ago I gave a presentation on women’s leadership development at the UW-Madison Women in Leadership Symposium. To open the presentation, my collaborator and I gave each participant a notecard for a timed activity.
For the first minute, we asked participants to fill one side of the notecard with all of the instances in which they had encountered bias or discrimination in the workplace because of their gender. We then asked them to flip over the notecard and write down any and all of the resources — books, courses, workshops, individuals, etc. — that had helped them navigate said bias.
In the discussion that followed, the women were nearly unanimous in their reflection: they had little trouble recounting countless instances of gender bias, but many struggled to identify any resources they had encountered that informed their ability to navigate it.
In the discussion that followed, the women were nearly unanimous in their reflection: they had little trouble recounting countless instances of gender bias, but many struggled to identify any resources they had encountered that informed their ability to navigate it.
This anecdotal finding supports a growing body of literature that says despite leadership development being a multibillion dollar industry, most programs are failing to deliver results.
Why Current Women’s Leadership Development Programs Are Missing the Mark
In recent years, the onus for women’s advancement has increasingly shifted from individuals to organizations. Research has shown that “second-generation forms of gender bias” — the invisible barriers and unconscious biases that result from cultural beliefs and the associated workplace structures, practices and norms that inadvertently favor men — play a significant role in hindering women’s advancement.
I agree wholeheartedly that organizations are ultimately responsible and should be held accountable for changing work cultures and policies to foster a diverse and equitable workplace. Unfortunately, however, a 2020 survey conducted by Mercer of 1,150 companies in 54 countries found that only 42 percent of companies have created a plan for achieving gender equality.
Many extraordinary leaders and organizations have dedicated their attention and resources to helping organizations create plans for achieving gender parity and improving workplaces. Problematically, however, this focus has also fostered debate around a false dichotomy — whether efforts related to gender equality are aiming to “fix the organization” or “fix the women.”
Critiques of initiatives that aim to help women behave more like men or change their behaviors are both correct and necessary. Studies have shown that women are rated by their managers and peers as better overall leaders than their male counterparts. They also hold a majority in higher education and the workforce. Women are awarded more bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees than men and constitute a majority of the labor force. As gender consultant Avivah Wittenberg-Cox wrote in her 2014 HBR article:
“..Now that women represent 60% of the educated talent on the planet, and half the incoming recruits of many companies, this argument [that women need ‘fixing’] is wearing thin. Half the population can’t be “wrong.”
Two important questions are overlooked in the current “fixing” dichotomy, however: Do all women’s leadership development programs serve to inadvertently “fix” the women? If the onus is on organizations to change workplace gender inequity, what training or support programs, if any, do women need?
Two important questions are overlooked in the current “fixing” dichotomy, however: Do all women’s leadership development programs serve to inadvertently “fix” the women? If the onus is on organizations to change workplace gender inequity, what training or support programs, if any, do women need?
Challenges Women Leaders Experience in the Workplace
The harsh reality is that achieving gender equality in the workplace is going to take a long time — women are currently underrepresented at every level in the employment pipeline and it’s currently projected to be 257 years before women achieve pay equity — and women are often at the forefront of driving change, often at profound personal and professional cost.
An extensive body of research has documented the “double bind” and success/likeability paradox women must navigate at work. As men have historically dominated leadership roles, masculine-stereotyped or “agentic” traits such as decisiveness, assertiveness, and independence have become associated with leadership behavior. Conversely, women are stereotyped to be “communal” — friendly, unselfish, and relationship-oriented. Women who achieve success and positions of authority are seen as competent but, due to the gender role violation, are less well-liked than equally successful men. If women exhibit traditionally female traits or stereotypes, they tend to be liked but not respected.
Beyond the difficulties posed by these paradoxes, women also experience sexual harassment and microaggressions. According to the Women in the Workplace report, two in five women surveyed have experienced some form of sexual harassment over the course of their career and 73 percent of women have experienced at least one type of microaggression, such as being interrupted or hearing demeaning remarks about themselves or other women. Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience four or more types of microaggression in their workplace.
These experiences are more pronounced for women who are the “only” woman in a room or workplace situation —35 percent of women in senior roles and one-in-five women overall —and women of color.
From the 2019 Women in the Workplace Report:
“Women who are Onlys are having a notably difficult experience at work. They’re far more likely to experience microaggressions than women who work with other women. They are more than twice as likely to be asked to prove their competence, over three times more likely to be mistaken for someone more junior, and about twice as likely to be subjected to demeaning or disrespectful remarks. Moreover, they are twice as likely to have been sexually harassed at some point in their career.”
“Women of color, lesbian and bisexual women, and women with disabilities are having distinct — and by and large worse — experiences than women overall. Most notably, Black women and women with disabilities face more barriers to advancement, get less support from managers, and receive less sponsorship than other groups of women.”
These workplaces experiences have tremendous consequences. “Stereotype threat” — a term coined by psychologist Dr. Claude Steele to describe a fear of confirming negative stereotypes associated with one’s identity (such as gender or race) — has been found to create feelings of anxiety and hinder performance and microaggressions have been found to contribute to higher rates of mortality and depression.
Proven strategies for overcoming the negative effects of stereotype threat include achieving critical mass, removing situational triggers, helping to shape the narrative that stereotyped individuals use to interpret their experiences, and dispelling beliefs in perceived “gender differences” on task performance. While research related to responding to microaggressions is limited, particularly for women, confronting the microaggressor is one suggested strategy.
The Role of Women’s Leadership Development Programs in Advancing Gender Equity
Achieving a critical mass of female employees and working to remove situational triggers of bias are organization-dependent variables, but women’s leadership development programs are uniquely positioned to help women 1) shape the narrative they use to interpret their experiences, 2) dispel beliefs in perceived “gender differences” using empirical evidence, and 3) help women build confidence in their abilities to navigate crucial career moments during which women are most likely to encounter bias, such as confronting a microaggressor, by providing a supportive, feedback-rich environment.
There is very little research on the best practices in design and delivery of women’s leadership development programs and even less related to assessment of participant outcomes. In her 2011 article, Taking Gender Into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs, foremost scholar on women in leadership Dr. Robin Ely states:
“Leadership development programs that provide women with a framework for understanding how second-generation bias can derail their leadership transitions and a holding environment in which to discover, recover, and sustain a sense of agency and purpose in their ongoing exercise of leadership occupy an important space in the portfolio of developmental experiences that will help women advance into more senior leadership roles.”
In order to maximize outcomes for participants in women’s leadership development programs, we must transition from the predominate model of leadership development that entails providing a series of speakers who speak on a topic for 40 minutes followed by a brief opportunity for participant questions. Instead, programs aiming to foster women’s leadership should invest their time and resources into crafting learning experiences that are informed by empirical research and provide participants with opportunities to role play, gain feedback, and build confidence.
Paid executive education certificate programs for women leaders such as those offered by Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford, serve as useful templates for designing women’s leadership development programs that increase bias literacy and provide opportunities for building confidence. However, the high cost of the programs and enrollment caps serve as a barrier to participation for many.
The future of women’s leadership development programs relies on our ability to broadly implement a theoretical framework of women’s leadership development that does not aim to “fix women” but helps them to contextualize the bias they experience and build confidence in their abilities to counter the negative messages they receive.
The research and anecdotal evidence is clear — the workplace is still a perilous place for women. “Fixing” organizations to be more gender equitable is projected to take time. Women’s leadership programs must serve as a space where women on the frontlines of driving organizational change can gather, bolster their confidence in their innate abilities, and reorient themselves with evidence-based strategies for navigating the challenges they encounter.
The most effective women’s leadership programs do not aim to “fix” women, but instead provide supportive, active learning environments within which women can reaffirm, celebrate, and strengthen their innate leadership abilities.
The most effective women’s leadership programs do not aim to “fix” women, but instead provide supportive, active learning environments within which women can reaffirm, celebrate, and strengthen their innate leadership abilities.