Women often let careers slide
By Teresa M. McAleavy
Knight Ridder News Service
One of the reasons women generally aren't occupying the top executive suites of corporations is that they tend not to embrace the art of self-promotion.
Men, however, do quite well at pumping themselves up as assets to a corporation.
These findings come from a study of 2,900 employees in five industries by Chicago-based global employee search and consulting firm ISR. The study unmasked differences in how the sexes function at work.
Executive-level women, those who are vice presidents sitting in boardrooms, for example, place a premium on the "communal" aspects of the workplace.
They value working relationships, customer quality and communication above all else, the study found.
Men in those positions, by contrast, are driven more by what's at stake for them personally, the study found. They tend to rate career development, compensation and a balanced workload as the things that will keep them committed to an organization.
"For women, it's all about what's good for the company," said Kim Morris, project director with ISR. "For men, it's more about strategies for advancement."
Morris recently discussed the study and its implications.
Q. What else did the study find?
Well, for female executives, key drivers are working relationships, things like, "How well do we work together within the department?" and "Are we serving our customers well?" They're also focused on communication across all levels of the organization. "How well-informed am I about the goals and the direction of this organization."
And, they said another key driver is work tools and conditions. "Do I have the resources I need to get the job done?"
Q. What does this imply?
The trap there is there's not enough focus on what women need to do to position themselves to move up. And they've been so focused at the middle-manager level on adding value to the company to move up that they seem to forget to focus on themselves and their own advancement after they do.
Q. Why is that?
Part of what's going on here is that for such a long time women have heard that they have to think about strategic issues related to the company's development. They have to understand line operations and profit and loss and everything about running the company and they forget about their career development.
Q. But don't men have to understand all that, too?
Yes, as men move up they do have to think about the company. But they also think strategically about themselves as well. For some reason, they tend not to lose focus on themselves.
Q. Do you know why?
Part of what happens, it seems, is that male midlevel managers and senior executives see reward and image of the company as key drivers, and that's constant. It's "I have to think of the corporation's image. ... Is it regarded highly?" and "Are they rewarding me fairly?" And that's part of what catapults you to the C-suites in corporate America. But women just aren't thinking about image and reward.
Q. Is it because women tend to be thought of as caretakers and nurturers of others that they don't focus on their own advancement as much as men?
We don't really have the data to tell us why.
Q. So what message should people take from these findings?
Well, we could use more research on why women and men think so differently. But a key takeaway here is related to how empowered women at the executive levels feel. It's often "I have achieved more than most women in corporate America and so now I don't want to rock the boat." You would think women at that level would feel empowered, but data tell us they don't. It's not that there's anything malicious being done. It's more a subtle, unconscious thing that happens. And if women don't feel empowered, they will find it very difficult to be successful.
