There are many arguments why there is a lack of women in management posts. If we look back in time we can see that historically when a company was set up it was usually a family run business typically run by one man, the male head of house. This has obviously had an impact of the culture of modern organisations. It would often be an independent retailer, employing relatives or staff. This is bound to have implications today as many people both male and female will have a stereotype that a manger should be male. Virginia Schien first identified this stereotype in 1973 and it continues to be held by men and women (Schein 1989). Women such as Anita Roddick and Sophie Mirman have changed this historical tradition of a man setting up his own business. Anita Roddick set up ‘The Body Shop’ after travelling throughout the world. She claims it wasn’t for financial reasons but to provide environmentally friendly, natural, health and skincare products. Whatever her reasoning it is becoming apparent that women are noticing gaps in the market and more and more women are starting their own business, which could maybe change this stereotype held by so many.
Women often have to face a dilemma in their lives, it concerns whether or not they are going to have children. The majority of women have career breaks so they can start a family whereas few decide they are going to pursue a career within the organisation. A barrier preventing women entering senior management is that their life cycles conflict with a career in management. The career stage when they would have to be work hardest and be highly committed to the organisation conflicts with a woman’s life cycle as it is then when women are in their peak childrearing years. Because women take maternity leave and take a break form the organisation they are ‘rendered not just different but deficient’. Evatts (1996) argues that ‘activities other than paid work do not contribute positively to their promotion prospects. Indeed they damage them’.
You could argue women could take advantage of ‘family friendly’ policies that would help them balance work and family so that they could pursue a career as well. However few women actually make use of these arrangements because they know that they would be seen as ‘less committed to their jobs and the company, and therefore less suitable management material’ (Wajcman 1998). Women therefore cannot win, they could try and balance work and family, but they would be viewed negatively or they could choose not to use ‘family friendly’ policies. However this would mean they wouldn’t have time to enter management. In the case of men, marriage and fatherhood have not created any career problems.
Women view the prejudice of colleagues and the ‘clubbiness’ of senior management as barriers preventing them from obtaining management posts. Coe (1972) found that the ‘men’s club’ is the greatest barrier for women and it was confirmed by a survey from the British Institute of Management. This is because it is hard for women to enter this club and become friends with senior management. For example, men find it easier as they could play golf with them on weekends and they generally converse better as often the conversation is meant for men’s ears only. Both men and women use the old boy’s network, however men have better access to power.
One of the main barriers preventing women entering senior management is that there are faults in the recruitment and selection process. As I mentioned earlier, men and women have differing management styles. Male’s management style is described as ‘transactional leadership’ and is concerned with getting the best performance by means such as rewards or punishments. The fact that the different sexes have different management styles indicates there may be a gender bias in the recruitment and selection process. When studies have been carried out to find what makes a good manager, because so many managers are male, transactional management style characteristics are likely to be seen as the best. When selecting potential staff out of a recruitment pool it is therefore no surprise that those people with a transactional management style are favoured. This is because it is more than likely males will be choosing whom to select, and they are more likely to choose a transactional leadership style as that is what they would think is best. It is a vicious circle, a lack of women are entering management level and so male leadership styles are preferred, and until there are women in management helping to select new recruits it is unlikely people who favour a transformational leadership style will be favoured. Brockbank and Traves carried out further research based on Morgan’s work in 1986. They adapted a list of male and female characteristics and asked managers to identify which characteristics were best without them knowing which sex they belonged too. They found that both male and female characteristics were valued. Therefore organisations should try and increase the level of women in management to get a balance of those characteristics. Indeed ‘most successful organisations adopt a managerial combination of male/female’, the so-called ‘Androgynous Manager’ described by Alice Sargent.
Gate keepers to management are likely to be men and research in the 1970’s found men held a stereotyped view of women as dependent, passive, non competitive, illogical, less competent and less objective than men. Until these stereotypes can be changed, it is not looking good for women. Women seem to have a problem entering senior management that they can do little about. Gaining ‘entry is dependent on implicit criteria of visibility and acceptability that are, in turn, a function of the men’s network. Although only some men benefit from these networks, all women are excluded’. This creates a problem for women as when they try to be visible and perform the same way it is interpreted differently. For example women who a visible and adopt a high profile are seen as ‘pushy’. Also because there are few women, they are unlikely to draw attention to themselves.
In the UK, there are a lot of women with part-time jobs. In the retail industry 81% of part-time workers are female (Department of Employment, 1993). The actual number of women gaining jobs is increasing however this is at the expense of less full time jobs and more part-time as organisations strive to be more flexible. Even in industries where women dominate the workforce, males hold the majority of management positions. For the retail industry, men consist of only 28% of the workforce however they dominate all the top management positions except in personnel. Also in the 20 largest retail companies only 3 board members were women. Howe et al quoted ‘Retailing is an industry dominated by women and managed by men’. It appears to be a very accurate statement. Because there are increasing levels of female part-time workers it makes it more unlikely they will gain promotion, as management is a full time job. It is no surprise therefore if there are more male full time employees; there will be more male managers, as they are more likely to be promoted.
The amount of household work carried out differs between sexes. The differences are greater for parents than those with dependent children. Those without dependent children work shorter hours than men. Men with dependant children work longer hours and women with dependent children work shorter hours. The differences in household work are reinforced when women have lower pay, lower social status and longer working hours. Even if men and women had equivalent pay, class and working hours women would still do more household work than men. Therefore the fact that women have more household work to do coupled with long working hours associated with management puts women off pursuing a management career.
Research by Anne Brockbank and Joanne Traves identified another reason why women might be under-represented at management level. It concerns customer attitudes and what they expect a manager should be. The research observed the degree of negative feeling displayed by customers when they meet a woman store manager. A lot of customers were surprised to see a woman manger, they ‘expect a store manager to be a man’ and ‘think the store manager should be male’. This research confirmed what Virginia Schein reported in 1973.
It is clear there are many barriers preventing women entering management, in fact some women compare it to a ‘glass ceiling’ with invisible barriers preventing them from reaching management. Some women have likened it to more like a concrete ceiling as it appears impossible to breach the ceiling. So what can be done to remove some of these barriers?
Most organisations now employee personnel to implement an equal opportunities program. Most organisations provide equal opportunities training although few have formal systems for monitoring equal opportunities. Due to threats of litigation many organisations are revising policies viewed to be indirectly discriminating such as marital or parental criteria for selection as trainees.
Opportunity 2000 was set up in 1991, it was funded by Business in the Community and its aim was to encourage more women into business and promote equality and diversity in business. The Women’s Economic Target Team, chaired by Lady Howee and directed by Liz Bargh, developed the campaign. It was renamed Opportunity Now in 1999. Companies that sign up to Opportunity Now will all implement highly visible policies to increase the number of women at all levels of their organisation however management level being the main objective. Some of the policies include providing women only training courses, a tough stance against sexual harassment, flexible work arrangements, childcare and career break options, maternity leave, and unbiased recruitment and selection processes
Some organisations have implemented positive discrimination, and set targets for how many women they want working in management. For example in Norway, there is a quota of 40% for company boardrooms. This had led to ‘grab a girly’ tactics where any women will do as long as the target is met, allowing financial incentives to be gained. I don’t think positive discrimination is right or beneficial. This is because the women recruited are not selected on their ability, a man may be much better suited to the job but the women selected purely because she is a woman. I also don’t think it is fair to women, if it was me I would want to be selected for my skills and attitudes not just because they want more workers of my sex. If they selected purely for gender issues, women may be more unhappy as they are not suited to the job, they may not have the necessary skills and experience leading them to be dissatisfied and quit. This has negative affects for the organisation as there is no stability and it will be expensive to keep recruiting. Also it takes time for people to settle in and thus if people keep starting they won’t be working at full potential.
Women in middle and senior management have stated that there doesn’t exist a clearly defined criterion for promotion, which is a sign of discriminatory procedures (Collinson, Knights and Collinson, 1990). Therefore to help increase the representation of women in management, there needs to be a set criterion that is communicated and consistently applied. The best chance women have got at promotion is to find a company they want to work for and ‘stay where they are known and accepted, rather than attempting to start again elsewhere’ (Marshall, 1984).
After much consideration there appears to be many reasons as to why women are under-represented at management level. Some corporations such as those in retail currently enjoying high performance and high profits why they should change a winning team. They might be worried that trying to encourage more female managers might not be necessary. Although there is a high management labour turnover in the retail industry and coupled with demographic changes it could result in fewer high calibre entrants. Therefore it might be in an organisations interest to recruit more female managers.
In my opinion I would say the main barrier to women entering management is because of natural history, and attitudes formed because of it. In the past men have always been the ‘breadwinner’ and women stayed at home looking after the family and doing housework. Even before this, males were the ones that went hunting for food to provide for women. It is inbred in most people that men should be the ones in charge, as mentioned earlier; customers expect the manager to be male and were surprised when the store manager was female. It is only until recently that the male breadwinner model is not so popular and more and more women are working. It will take time for attitudes to change and once they do I feel that women will be better represented in managerial posts. I don’t think organisations should use policies such as positive discrimination as the best person often won’t get chosen for the job. I also don’t think there should be legislation stating how many women must work. I believe that organisations should chose who they want to work for them and if women do provide benefits, it is up to those firms to provide policies attracting more female mangers and let them reap the rewards.
I would say that there is no need to panic; there is evidence to show that a transformational leadership style is well suited to the conditions of some work environments and can help an organisation survive in today’s ever uncertain world. The fact that women have their own leadership style is in my opinion a big plus, as it will bring companies a competitive advantage. I would say to women just to sit back and get prepare themselves for senior management as I predict in a few years, they will be hot property providing companies with fresh management approaches and ideas.
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Bibliography
Wajcman, Judy (1998) Managing like a man (Cambridge: Polity Press), ‘It’s hard to be soft’
Wajcman, Judy (1998) Managing like a man (Cambridge: Polity Press), ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man’
Aimo-Metcalfe, Beverly (1995) ‘Leadership and Assessment, in Vinnicombe, Susan and Colwill, Nina L. (eds) The Essence of women in Management (London: Prentice Hall)
Brockbank, Anne, and Traves, Joanne (1996) ‘Career aspirations – women managers in retailing’, in Ledwith, Sue and Colgan, Fiona (eds) Women in Organisations (Basingstoke: Macmillan) pp 78-98
Rubin, Jenifer (1997) ‘Gender, Equality and the culture of organisational assessment’, Gender, work and organisation, 4 (1), pp 24-34
