How to get more women into leadership at work

Leadership

Jun 14

Episode 354 | Author: Emilie Aries

So many women I work with come to Bossed Up saying something along these lines: “I’m the only woman in middle management in my company,” or, “I don’t know what it’s going to take to get into management in my company.”

Organizations approach us and ask, “How do we get more women into leadership roles here? We’ve got a lot of women at the entry level, but once you look above, to that first promotion into management or any senior leadership position, women become few and far between.”

At the start of 2020, the gap between men and women in leadership in America was slowly but steadily closing - especially among the very highest ranks of leaders in SVP and C-Suite roles. Women were still dramatically underrepresented - making up only 28% of SVPs and 21% of C-suite roles, respectively - and women of color were particularly left behind, but at least the numbers were trending in the right direction.

So what can we do to get more women into leadership at our workplaces?

Here are three research-backed strategies that I've seen work time and again in our work with organizations that are looking to bring more women leaders into the fold.

CREATE A SAFE IDENTITY WORKSPACE WHERE WOMEN CAN COME TOGETHER

Courage is derived from community. Simply coming into work every day as one of the only women or women of color requires a reservoir of resilience that’s not always appreciated by those in their comfort zone at the office.

That’s why it’s especially important in male-dominated workplaces to create a safe space - through the creation of Employee Resource Groups, intranets, or separate communication channels - for the important work of identity expansion, as mentioned in my book, Bossed Up: A Grown Woman's Guide to Getting your Sh*t Together. Identity expansion means giving yourself the opportunity to take risks outside of your comfort zone and stretch your abilities to become even more courageous and even more of a boss than you thought you could be.

Together, women share common challenges so they can identify that they’re not alone in facing them, develop skills to get outside their comfort zone and grow, and connect to foster a sense of trust and belonging, which is hard to come by, especially in a very virtual decentralized workplace. This kind of safe space only becomes more important as women leaders rise in the ranks. As Herminia Ibarra, Robin Ely, and Deborah Kolb put it in the Harvard Business Review:

“In the upper tiers of organizations, women become increasingly scarce, which heightens the visibility and scrutiny of those near the top, who may become risk-averse and overly focused on details and lose their sense of purpose. (In general, people are less apt to try out unfamiliar behaviors or roles if they feel threatened.) Thus a safe space for learning, experimentation, and community is critical in leadership development programs for women.”

CLARIFY THE PATHWAY TO PROMOTION

There’s a widely-cited statistic that women only apply for positions when they’re 100% qualified, whereas men set a much lower threshold for themselves. The conclusion we’re left to draw is that women lack confidence and need extra encouragement.

In fact, this often-discussed statistic comes from an unpublished, unscientific, internal study conducted at Hewlett Packard, and broader replication studies demonstrate a very different take-away: women more than men tend to value “following the guidelines” when it comes to navigating the hiring and promotion process.

In other words: women aren’t holding themselves back due to a false perception of themselves, they’re choosing not to throw their hat in the ring for raises, promotions, and job opportunities due to a false perception of what qualifications are actually required of candidates.

Many companies still include a laundry list of nice-to-have traits and characteristics as “requirements” for new hires, regardless of how accurate they may be.

To level the playing field for all workers, companies must make the pathway to promotion as explicit as possible - differentiating between what’s truly “required” versus what’s ideally “desired.” When this is the case, we see folks from across the gender spectrum apply for new opportunities at equal rates.

IDENTIFY, NURTURE, AND DEVELOP EMERGING WOMEN LEADERS

Despite recent gains for women in the highest levels of leadership, a “broken rung” in promotions at the very first step up to manager continues to pose a major barrier:

“For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 85 women were promoted—and this gap was even larger for some women: Only 58 Black women and 71 Latinas were promoted. As a result, women remained significantly outnumbered at the manager level at the beginning of 2020—they held just 38 percent of manager positions, while men held 62 percent.” (McKinsey & Company x Lean In)

Companies committed to retaining and developing women - especially in the first 10 years of their careers - must take a proactive approach to identify and invest in emerging women leaders to close this gap.

We often see with the companies that we work with that a lot of senior managers and directors and C-Suiters get training, executive coaches, access to conferences, and other leadership development opportunities, but I implore everyone to advocate for professional development resources for yourself and for individual contributors who are looking to grow right from the get-go. From entry level to first-time managers, these are the folks who need the most manager training.

Have you ever experienced being managed by someone who was a great individual contributor, but has no idea what they're doing as a people manager? It's something I've certainly experienced.

It's at that stage in the game where we can make the biggest impact, especially, for companies that are wondering why women keep leaving and why they can't hold on to any women.

When it comes to women leaders and their professional development, we have to provide training and development programs designed specifically to address the systemic inequities that exist in our world. You have to equip people, especially women, with the tools and training that will set them up for success.

At Bossed Up we work with organizations to give structure to the development of their pipeline of women leaders by customizing our signature leadership development program, Level Up, to meet their team’s specific needs.

If you’re part of a women’s ERG or simply looking for more support for you and your organization in designing the kinds of custom leadership development programs that help retain and develop women, get in touch with us here at Bossed Up and let us know how we can be of service.

Does your workplace have leadership development opportunities available for women?

What does your organization do to lift up women and invest in their learning and development?

We’re your partner in providing interactive, customized, and data-driven skill-building workshops and leadership accelerators for women on the rise - and colleagues of any gender who want to become active allies in the quest for equality!