Some women reassess executive status

By Anita Bruzzese
Gannett News Service

You might know a woman at work who seems to be at the top of her game. She's on the executive track, but to your surprise, you learn one day that she's decided to leave the job.

Why, you wonder, would a successful woman earning good money chuck it all and enter the uncertain self-employment world if she doesn't have to? You remain curious, but don't ask too many questions, not wanting to appear nosy.

Not long after that, a friend tells you of another high-placed female manager who is leaving her position. This time the reason is family concerns: The woman plans to stay at home with her children and to help care for an aging parent.

Are female executives leaving the traditional workplace in droves? Hardly.

But there does seem to be a trend in which female executives are taking a hard look at their career paths. Lee Hecht Harrison, an outplacement firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., found in its research that when many executive women look at their future on the job, they decide the personal price is too high.

Maybe they don't want to spend so much time traveling, or working long hours, or being on call 24-7. Maybe they're tired of playing office politics, or feeling the physical toll of working stressful hours.

At the same time, there are many female executives who feel fulfilled and excited by their future, and have no plans to leave the workforce anytime soon. Libby Sartain, chief people officer at Yahoo!, says she believes a key to keeping female talent in the top ranks lies not only in programs that support women at work, but also providing real-life examples of "how it's done."

"We need more female role models in the CEO positions," she says. "The women who are doing it now serve as an inspiration to other women."

Sartain, known as energetic and passionate about her job and the people who work for her, says that to rise through the ranks at any company, a woman must be "incredibly passionate and dedicated," and that can be tough while trying to meet family demands.

"I have only one child, and if I had had more, then I couldn't have done it the way I wanted," she says.

"I was at a conference the other day, and there were three different women on the panel who said they have stay-at-home husbands. Now, that's something new. This is how women are actually making it work for them."

The Leader's Edge, a leadership-development consulting firm in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., found in its study that most women left the workforce because they often felt excluded from important meetings, information and other, informal kinds of interactions that were male-dominated.

Those women didn't go home and give up; research shows that 77 percent of recent businesses were launched by women. Female entrepreneurs often talk about how they can set their own schedules, based on the demands of their personal lives. These women say they remain passionate about what they do for a living, but are equally passionate about meeting family demands without being held to rigid rules set by someone else.

That's an assessment that Sartain backs up.

"I don't think companies can just give a woman a part-time schedule or job share, and think that will solve the problem," Sartain says. "I've always said that I would work just as hard for half the pay. I've always felt it was the flexibility that counts."