Business
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The issues of gender equality, glass ceiling and female leadership for a tight knot of problems which is faced by the business community both in the USA and abroad. Civil rights movement and incentives towards feminization of various aspect of public life resulted in official recognition of equal rights and opportunities for female professionals, however, in many cases such recognition takes purely formal forms. In too many cases women get professionally discriminated at work place. They get paid less, have less opportunities for promotion, and in case of financial calamities are often considered the first to be purged from the company. The number of female CEOs in companies, both in America and abroad, remains very low, although there is a certain tendency for improvement in this regard. It is indeed a certain kind of paradox, as in other areas of professional life, be it in governmental institutions or even the military, there seems to be far less discrimination, although a sort of glass ceiling also remains.
So, what are the main concepts witch are to be analyzed in this work? First of all, it is an issue of gender equality at workplace. It may be defined as intentional and sustainable non-discriminating policy of employer and peers aimed at provision of equal opportunities and prohibition of discrimination of a female person, adequate recognition of her professional qualities and consideration of such person for promotions and career advancement within the same terms and conditions as applied for the male colleagues of hers. Glass ceiling is a phenomenon which originated within the past few decades and may be defined as lack of promotion opportunities for female professionals at an executive level. It is true that excessive discrimination by gender is punishable by law in vast majority of developed democratic nations, however many companies find loopholes of various nature in order to prevent appointment of women to executive positions. This is the semantic meaning of glass ceiling in this regard – the target is theoretically achievable and may be seen by a female professional, but she cannot reach it due to some informal oppression and inequality. In my opinion, this is one of the most outrageous acts of sexism imaginable. It is proved by various examples worldwide that women are no less capable of making efficient executive decisions and provide proper strategic guidance to their companies.
Although it would be highly inappropriate to define female leadership style as inferior to the male one, there are certain differences in perception of career and professional duties between the two genders, and it has to be kept into account. Although it does not of course signify the inability of female professionals to provide efficient professional services and strategic guidance, this factor nevertheless should not be neglected.
It is commonly acknowledged that there is a discrepancy even at the general emotional and intuitive level between male and female professionals. It is widely believed that male employees are more concentrated on a purely logical, quantifiable aspects of work, while females are capable of intuitive methods and have strong social intelligence. While these observations may be true at a general psychological level, how well are they justified in specific reality? It is not at all a difficult task to master a range of logical, narrow concepts which are required to get the job done, and there is no contemporary researcher who would dare to claim that women are inferior in terms of intellectual capabilities. Original differences in perception are being successfully overcome during the educational process, be it school or college, as well as through obtaining and executing respectively appropriate social skills. So I would say that this observation is somewhat outdated if not obsolete. Emotional intelligence and effective and efficient implementation of social skills only contributes to professional growth and proper networking.
It would be tempting for some observers to state that female professionals are less reliable or even less loyal to the employer merely due to certain physiological factors. Women are supposed to take care of their families, give birth to children and bring them up. So it is believed that these activities may compromise professional duties and therefore lead to lack of efficiency and so forth. In my opinion, nothing may be further from the truth. Males forget that the concept of work-life balance appeared long before it became fashionable among middle-level managers and corporate ideologists. Maternity leave is not such a serious issue in countries like the USA, as its duration is comparable to that of vacation of some senior executives. If the latter does not prevent companies from collapsing, why should the God given right of women to give birth do so? All other adjacent technical issues as flexible hours or child care may be easily solved at the corporate level, and care and attention for such details from company management would undoubtedly contribute to the level of loyalty and labor productivity of female professionals. Furthermore, successful careers of female politicians and executives all over the world prove that it is not only possible to maintain work-life balance, but also take proper care of both the company (or official entity and even the entire nation) and the family as well.
There is another feature that makes female professionals even more fit for leadership roles. It is believed that men are by nature career-makers, the essence of their lives is in competition, domination and superiority. They desperately strive to follow those goals (which may be perceived differently by various individuals and therefore even turn out to be inappropriate and destructive) and consider themselves losers if they fail to do so. In pursuit of their ambitions male employees are capable of violation of ethics and even harming the strategic interests of their companies for the sake of their own recognition and promotion. Female perception of career appears to be different and in many cases far more beneficial to the corporate sustainable growth and development.
Female professionals tend to concentrate on the current duties and carry them out in the best and most efficient manner. Career aspirations are considered a personal issue in this regard. Here comes the largest loophole in proper understanding of female professional aspirations and ambitions – the fact that they do not openly share their plans makes their male colleagues think that they don’t have any! Male coworkers and supervisors tent to be blind to the true reasons that motivate female professionals and shape their daily behavioral pattern. It is impossible to calculate precisely how many lives, both personal and professional, were broken due to this neglect and how many revenues were lost merely due to the fact that corporate leaders failed to identify the fittest professional for the job due to gender-relater bias and general misunderstanding.
Female professionals, especially in managerial and executive positions also has a very strong psychological weapon which shaped throughout millennia of biological and social evolution. While males perceive the system of business risks (which are inevitable in every single enterprise and are a normal part of daily professional landscape) as a system of gains and losses which they tend to disbalance in favor of the former, females have a different point of view. Women tend to be capable of a combination of intuitive and logical analysis of financial performance and may identify the threats which jeopardize the entire company although may seem minor and insignificant at first sight. They do not limit their analysis with formal quantitative criteria, but assess the problem from various possible points of view, as short-term gains may lead to catastrophic long-term results, and vise versa.
Apart from this, there are also specific mechanisms which allow female professionals to contribute to their professional duties in an efficient manner. The system of values relevant to professional life of females differs considerably from that of males. While men, as it was mentioned before, often tend to be competitive and belligerent just for their own sake and sometimes try to compensate issues with self-esteem by executing their power at workplace, female professionals are concentrated on financial, moral and compensatory mechanisms. The first one means that professional duties allow women to be financially and strategically independent. The significance of this element of the system of values tends to get stronger with professional advancement. Apart from that, from the moral point of view, proper execution of professional duties allows females to feel the significance of their impact on the corporate development, which is quite different from the male perception of the respective mechanism, which allows them to feel their own importance and power over others. Thirdly, compensatory mechanism allows female professionals work harder in order to enhance socializing and networking, while at home the same mechanism allows them to make up for the time spent at work. This is an efficient system of checks and balances, and it is very surprising that modern corporations haven’t found proper use for it, yet.
The soft leadership style of female professionals is in many cases more efficient than the male quest for domination. Being concentrated on getting the job done, women do not tend to exaggerate stressful situations and avoid unnecessary confrontations. Due to the nature of the male perception formed evolutionarily, this is often considers a weakness. They view conferences and meetings as an opportunity for “young Vikings” to win the debates by means of personal charisma and louder shouts, while female professionals, who are often more insightful and prepared, suffer from the syndrome of Cassandra’s prophecy – although they tell the truth and make accurate and concise predictions, they fail to be heard due to various factors, primarily – sexism and other gender-related biases.
The final aspect of female leadership that I would like to mention within this research is the hierarchical status of male and female managers and executives. Male supervisors in most cases stick to the system of formal domination and power. Tey appear to be enjoying their ability to make orders, bend others and punish for wrongdoing (or what they perceive as such). In case of female leaders the system, although formally also hierarchical, is different. Due to better developed social intelligence, intuition and communication skills, as well as due to understanding a bigger picture of events, female leaders tend to be more personality-oriented. They implement a paradigm of partnership based relations. This by no means should be perceived as a sign of weakness, although it differs considerably from the commonly acknowledged system “supervisor-employee”. Proper humane approach, understanding of needs and capabilities of people under command allows to solve a wide range of problems without even increasing the level of stress significantly.
One could say that all these qualities are extremely interesting, but can hardly be detected in many of the contemporary female leaders, both in business and politics. There is a public belief that in order to succeed or even survive in the tough world of men, female professionals are forced to borrow the behavioral apparatus from the male counterparts and behave accordingly. Some would even say that in order to reach high social, professional and financial status, women have to adopt the male system of values. In my understanding, nothing can be further from the truth. It is possible to change (or it would be better to say – imitate) some elements of male behavior, but it is indeed impossible to replace own values and motivations with those of males. It would be both artificial and shallow. It is true, however, that females tend to be more flexible and artistic by nature, and it may be helpful in order to appear to be tough and masculine, while in reality it is not so.
At the same time, certain companies are already turning towards their female employees. More and more major corporations appoint distinguished and prominent female professionals as their CEOs. Such companies as DuPont, United Health, WalMart Sam’s Club reached the sufficient level of integrity and sustainability to do so. While there is no direct detected correlation or causation between gender of the CEO and overall corporate performance, it is obvious that female chief executives did not cause any harm to the financial indicators of the companies whatsoever.
It may be said that the humankind has walked a long way towards recognition of equal rights of men and women. Although the process of recognition of fair professional and advancement opportunities is time-consuming and not always flexible, I strongly believe that even in the foreseeable future there will be no such thing as gender inequality and glass ceiling.
References
1. Albrecht, J. (2003). Is there is glass ceiling for women in Sweden? Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 21, No.1 (2003), p. 145-175
2. Pelled, L.H.(1999). Exploring the black box: an analysis of work group diversity, conflict and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44, No.1 (1999), p. 3-28.
3. Lublin, J.S. (2012). Companies are grooming more women for the corner office.Forbes, May 22, 2012.
4. Hoenig, C.(2013). Supreme Court Redefines Workplace Discrimination. DiversityInc. Web. Retrieved from http://www.diversityinc.com/diversity-and-inclusion/supreme-court-redefines-workplace-discrimination/ on December 11, 2013
