For too long now we have experienced a gender imbalance in power.
We’ll look at the
· Gender power gap
· How it developed
· What we can do about it and
· Some reasons why things may be changing.
1. Gender power gap
As women progress in their careers they are less likely to reach senior positions.
According to the Australian Census of Women in leadership:
1. Girls are getting best results at school and universities but this is not reflected in their careers. Half of our graduates are women but only:
· 33% in management positions
· 15% are in executive ranks.
· Only 4% in executive board positions
The Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Agency found that female senior executives identified as top earners by the ASX200 companies are paid 58% of their male counterparts in comparable roles.
2. Eight reasons why the gap developed
The first four of these come from the work of Linda Carli (see the Journal of Social Issues Spring 1999).
1. Reward – Men have more control over resources.
2. Coercive – Men have more senior positions and are more willing to use coercive power & bully.
3. Expert – Men are presumed to have more expertise.
4. Legitimate Power – Men assume power more easily than women.
5. Glass Cliff
Women are more likely to be placed in precarious leadership roles than men. (Women in the Boardroom UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).
6. Sticky Floor.
For some women its choice – they choose not to compete for the senior roles. Lisa Gordon joined the board of Chrystalis at age 28, being the youngest woman ever appointed as director of a FTSE 250 company. She worked fulltime them part time until 2002 when she resigned to spend more time with her family. The following is a link to her story: www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3300296/I-am-choosing-not-to-want-it-all.html
7. Socialisation.
Women are often socialized into not taking power positions. See Deborah Cameron’s (1992) work on studying children in the playground and following the differences in developing leadership, collaboration and leadership styles:
“Boys tend to play in large groups organized hierarchically: thus they learn direct, confrontational speech. Girls play in small groups of “best friends” where they learn to maximize intimacy and mimimise conflict.”
8. Corporate Culture
AIM Survey -63% of respondents said Australian companies are not supportive of women “who seek to achieve seniority equivalent to their male counterparts.”
3. What can we do about it?
The power of influence
When you are influencing others look to understand first and persuade second, and the best understanding is based on values. The three most common values in business are power, security or reward. One model of values is called Spiral Dynamics you can find out more at www.spiraldynamics.org
The power of authenticity
You will be most powerful when you are most yourself and operating from your signature strengths. Strengths are what you love and make you feel good. You can find out your strengths at www.authentichappiness.org and take the VIA signature strengths test.
You will be most powerful when you are happiest and genuine happiness comes from finding a way to contribute your strengths to something bigger than you. For me it’s the local Nippers program.
Authenticity also comes from alignment – aligning who you are with what you do and how you spend time. The best in this area is still Stephen Covey, check out his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or visit him at www.stephencovey.com
Power of resilience
People like Brian Walker from CSIRO are key to the recovery efforts after disasters like the Victorian bush fires earlier this year. He studies how plants, animals and people absorb shock and sustain. The key question is ‘how much can you change without losing your identity?’
Systems have a threshold or a tipping point which is the limit of what you can absorb. This threshold is not fixed.
Resilience is defined as the capacity to absorb disturbance and retain the same features and functions – to have the same identity. The magnitude of the disturbance that can be absorbed is the level of resilience present. The resilience of any system is developed by probing its boundaries
How do you perform at a consistently increasing level?
How much stress can you absorb?
The best work in this area is developed by Dr Herb Benson from the Harvard Medical School Institute of Mind Body Medicine. You can visit him at www.mbmi.org . Herb recommends relaxation and meditation as a way to reset the mind and body (look for the Relaxation Response on his website).
There are great examples of the power of meditation to create profound change for people. One example is Jenny Philips work teaching maximum security prisoners in Alabama how to use meditation to find peace. Have a look at her book East Meets West in The Deep South or the video at www.dhammabrothers.com
For how to eat for high performance look at the work of Professor Jennie Brand-Miller at Sydney University. Her book the New Glucose Revolution is excellent. Low GI eating is linked to high mental function and creates less stress in the body - have a look at http://www.glycemicindex.com/ or find out more on Jennie at www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/people/academics/featured/brand_miller.php
4. Reasons to be hopeful about change
There are five good reasons why things may be about to change in the gender power gap.
1. Economic crisis means reward greed & coercive power are questioned
2. Boards with female members do better than male only boards
· Companies with women as executive directors have delivered average returns of nearly 14% over the past two years, those run by men mustered 10% (UK Cranfield School of Management study 2004).
· Fortune 500 companies with the largest representation of women board directors and corporate officers achieve, on average, higher financial performance. (July 2008 Study by US Catalyst Group).
· At time of great financial downtown in the financial markets companies that appointed a woman executive director experienced a marked increase in share price after the appointment and a period of financial stability. (Women in the Boardroom UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).
3. Wisdom of crowds
A well formed diverse and informed group makes a better decision that its smartest member. See James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds.
4. Neuroplasticity – means we can all change our minds – brains are not fixed machines. Have a look at the work here of Norman Doidge.
5. Rise of goodwill in the catastrophe. See the work here of Adam Philips and Barbara Taylor in their book ‘On Kindness’ where the authors document the value of kindness and its huge increase after a catastrophe.
Here are some additional resources which explore the gender power issue further:
