It’s no secret that women are capable leaders. What you may not know is how many structural barriers women can face when trying to access positions of leadership. These barriers are not always obvious. Some are built into organizational culture and workplace systems. Others come from expectations, perceptions, and beliefs about what a leader should look like.
Glass ceiling describes the invisible rules, expectations, and organizational culture that can prevent women from advancing into senior leadership roles.
Leaky pipeline describes how women’s representation can decrease at each stage of professional advancement. Women enter the pipeline, but fewer remain as they move forward in their careers toward senior positions.
Sticky floor refers to barriers that keep women in positions with limited opportunities for career progression.
Crystal escalator describes how men working in traditionally female-dominated professions can sometimes advance more quickly and visibly than women.
Teflon effect describes situations where women’s accomplishments and contributions receive less recognition or fail to “stick.”
Glass cliff describes situations where women are placed into leadership positions characterized by crisis and/or uncertainty.
The review included two studies by Cook & Glass, 2014 and Glass & Cook, 2016 which suggested that women were placed in perilous leadership positions because of signaling mechanisms and organizational perceptions that certain female leadership styles were associated with managing difficult situations. It sounds positive, yet many of these projects pose an elevated risk of failure. It sounds more like hazing than leadership opportunity, but it’s not all doom and gloom.
The research also highlights factors that can increase opportunities for women to rise to leadership roles.
Increasing the number of women on boards helps to create greater representation in organizational leadership.
Diversity/Equity/Inclusion policies and initiatives can create more meaningful opportunities for advancement. Also, the research associated gender diversity in senior leadership with stronger decision-making and organizational sustainability.
I’m struck by this: we know what’s broken, we know what works to address barriers, yet we still lack parity in visible leadership.
What do we call the leadership tier at tech companies? Tech bros. How many women have been elected on a US presidential ticket? One. How many women have been Speaker of the US House? One.
Folks, we can do better. And by do better I mean it’s time to dismantle the barriers that make it harder for women to rise to leadership compared to men.
I’ve worked with visionary women leaders. One, in particular, had an unflinching sense of purpose that drove her work. She had an enormous capacity to get things done, even when she was visibly up to her eyeballs in projects. Fittingly, she kept a Wonder Woman mug on her desk. She’s far from the only inspiring leader who happens to be a woman. So, why don’t we see more women leading big companies?
A recent study in BMC Psychology compared 120 women and 120 men using a computer test that involved switching between tasks involving counting and shape-recognition. In that test, women consistently out-performed men.
The same study also included a second test in which subjects were given 8 minutes to locate restaurants on a map, complete simple math problems, answer a phone call, and decide how they would search for a lost key in a field. The time limit made it impossible to complete all the tasks, so they had to prioritize, think strategically, and maintain calm under pressure. The task that differentiated women from men was the key search. Overwhelmingly, women chose methodical, highly effective search patterns to ensure they covered the entire field. Some of the men’s responses failed to cover the entire field in their search.
Clearly, women are up to the task of leadership. But those structural barriers are stubborn things.
The good news is that you can play a role in making leadership more accessible for women.
Give Women Credit
Listen for the contributions women make in workplace conversations. Highlight their ideas. Recognize their achievements. Make sure their work is visible to the people making promotion and leadership decisions.
Encourage Ambition
When your daughter, niece, colleague, or employee expresses ambition, encourage it. Don’t immediately tell her what is unrealistic. Help her believe that she can pursue the opportunity, then support her as she develops the skills and experience to make it happen.
Challenge Limiting Beliefs
When you hear colleagues diminishing women or notice behaviors that exclude them from important conversations, speak up. Barriers are not going to remove themselves. Sometimes you have to dismantle them.
We already know many of the barriers women face. And we know some of the strategies that can help address them. Yet women remain underrepresented in many of the most visible leadership positions.
I think it is past time to recognize the ways our society has limited women and meaningfully dismantle the barriers that still exist. Making leadership more accessible to women is not about lowering standards. It is about making sure talent, ambition, and leadership potential are recognized fairly. And when more women have access to leadership, the next generation has a broader range of leaders to admire and learn from.
For the record, I support the rise of people of color, LGBTQ+ people, neurodivergent people, and other underrepresented groups as well. This article happens to be focused on women.
The larger principle is simple: We know the barriers exist. Now it is time to break them.
