BACKGROUND

Normally, we all expect to be judged by our skills, talents, insights, our work style and
merits at the work place. But does that actually happen? A variety of recent research by business,
psychology, and sociology scholars offers a window into womens collective experiences in the
workplace, confirming some intuitive notions such as men get the better assignments. Journalists
and authors of trade books increasingly assert a female advantage in leadership, whereby women
are more likely than men to lead in a style that is effective under contemporary conditions.
Managerial work is undergoing such enormous and rapid change that many managers are
reinventing their profession as they go. With little precedent to guide them, they are watching
hierarchy fade away and the clear distinctions of title, task, department, even corporation, blur.
Faced with extraordinary levels of complexity and interdependency, they watch traditional
sources of power erode and the old motivational tools lose their magic.
Social scientists have often emphasized the prejudicial disadvantages that women face
because of the construal of leadership in masculine terms. To the extent that modern
characterizations of effective leadership have become more consonant with the female gender
role, this female disadvantage may be eroding.
The gradual erosion of female disadvantage would be consonant with the emphasis of
many popular mass-market management books on traditionally feminine communal behavior,
involving creating a sense of community, empowering subordinates, and communicating and
listening effectively.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

We first turn to the question of whether women and men differ in leadership style, an
issue that many researchers have addressed, primarily with organizational studies. Job
candidates' leadership styles are surely among the attributes given special scrutiny in interviews
of candidates for managerial positions, and managers fired from their positions are often
critiqued for their leadership styles. Moreover, the impetus of this research was, in some cases, to
investigate whether the dearth of women in high-level positions could be explained by their
leading with styles that are less effective than those of their male counterparts, and in other cases,
to investigate whether women possessed superior leadership styles. To shed light on these issues
as well as to participate in wider scholarly debates about the magnitude and implications of sex
differences in behavior, many investigators have compared the leadership styles.
If high-potential women are leaving their careers to care for their families, theyre not
doing it on purpose. Thats the conclusion Hunter College professor Pamela Stone drew from a
study of 54 female high achievers, recruited mostly from alumnae of four selective colleges and
universities. The women pursued their careers an average of 11 years; 60% worked well past the
birth of their second child. None was pushed out. Fully 90% left not to care for their families but
because of workplace problems, chiefly frustration and long hours. Two-thirds of those who left
tried part-time work but found it problematic; since theyd been putting in long weeks, part-time
tended to mean 40 hours of work for 20 hours worth of pay. Factoring even more into decisions
to opt out entirely, though, was the inability to work part-time without being marginalized.

RESEARCH INFORMATION
Based on a plethora of previous research showing that women are often discriminated
against in the workplace for simply being women, the University of Michigan and Carthage
College researchers wanted to find out if women who exhibited a masculine appearance and took
on stereotypically masculine behaviors (aggression and self-reliance) would fare better.
Despite self-help books preaching the contrary, the authors hypothesized that countering
gender norms would actually work against women. To test this theory, researchers surveyed 425
women in the workplace, aged 22 to 67 years old, representing an array of work fields such as
education, health care, law, and construction. The participants were randomly selected from a
pool of 3,622 women.
There is a growing consensus among top executives that gender diversity is both an
ethical and a business imperative. Yet progress is painfully slow. Despite modest improvements,
women are underrepresented at every level of todays corporations, especially in senior positions.
Were quite cognizant of how difficult it is to make progress. Women now represent about 39
percent of McKinseys entry-level hires, but occupy just 11 percent of the senior-leadership roles
within the firm. There are currently four women (including Judith Hazelwood, one of this
articles coauthors) on our 30-member Shareholders Council.
These numbers are certainly up from a decade ago, but less than we would like. Our
ability to help our clients with their toughest problems depends on attracting and retaining the
worlds best people, who can offer the diverse perspectives that enhance creative problem
solving. Through the United Nations HeForShe initiative and the 30% Club, to some ambitious
gender goals for our firm over the next five yearsones that wont be trivial to achieve.

LEADING ORGANIZATIONS DO
Fifty-three percent of all participants said they had experienced harassment in the past yearthat
means if youre in an office right now sitting next to two women, one of them has felt harassed
in the last year. And women who both appeared more masculine and acted more masculine were
the biggest targets of all, experiencing more sexist remarks and gender policing than women who
exhibited one or the other.

Gender diversity remains an issue in technology organizations. The number of young

women completing engineering and technology programs has dropped significantly over the past
30 years, and a report from the National Center for Women & Information Technology suggests
that a little more than half of all US women who do enter technology fields leave their employers
midcareer.
The first part of solving the gender-diversity problem is to normalize technology as a
career path for women, say the leaders of Girls Who Code (GWC), a nonprofit organization
founded several years ago to provide computer-science education and training to girls in grades 6
to 12. But thats just the beginning, they say. GWCs after-school and summer-immersion

programs can help build a robust pipeline of young women who are curious about science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, but once they graduate universities
and formally enter industry, companies have a big role to play in keeping these women in the
fold.
As a member of the 30% Club, our global managing director Dominic Barton (also a
coauthor here) is one of 47 US chairpersons and CEO members who have publicly committed to
better gender equality at all levels. This commitment reinforces efforts we have under way to
challenge fundamental mind-sets and behaviors inside the firm while setting (or continuing) in
motion a number of initiatives in support of gender diversity. A new diagnostic were piloting,
for instance, aims to create transparency in the sponsorship arrangements among all our
consultants, many of whom we have found to be unsure what good sponsorship entails or how to
create it when its lacking. To help make all this happen, we now have a global team of managers
fully dedicated to this issue, and a network of deeply passionate leaders actively driving this
topic throughout the firm.
Were acutely aware that there will be surprises along the way. Heres one: so far, a
higher percentage of men than women have been taking advantage of some of our flexibility
programs. Do some women at McKinsey, like their counterparts at many companies, worry that
participating in such programs will raise questions about how committed they are to their
careers? We hope not, but we are exploring ways to dispel any concernsfor example, by
refining our up or out promotion system to ensure people can stay in the same roles for longer
periods of time with no impact on their eventual advancement if they are at a stage in life where
they need that flexibility. As a project-based organization, we think were reasonably well
positioned to pull this off.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

From entry level to the C-suite, women are underrepresented at US corporations, less likely to
advance than men, and face more barriers to senior leadership. In fact, at the rate of progress of
the past three years, it will take more than 100 years for the upper reaches of US corporations to
achieve gender parity.
Clearly, we dont have all the answers. Gender inequality is a multifaceted, entrenched global
issue. But our commitment to diversity and inclusion is an abiding part of our firms history and
daily practice. That we have yet to achieve it only further strengthens our determination to do so.
A male is a boss, while a female is bossy. A man is persuasive, while a woman is pushy.
A man who neglects his family to pull an all-nighter is dedicated, while a woman is selfish.
You get the idea.
Women make up half the human population. Isnt it about time we treat them like it?

References:
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/gender_equality_taking_stock_of_where_we_are
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/women_in_the_workplace
http://fusion.net/story/138761/women-workplace-harassment-study/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/women-at-work-a-guide-for-men-1418418595?alg=y
http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/organization/latest_thinking/women_at_work