What women leaders?

When it comes to who holds leadership positions in The United States, it’s safe to say that it’s an area primarily dominated by men. It’s not a secret. It’s not a little-known tidbit of information. It’s so well-known in fact, so widely talked about, that I feel confident enough to make that statement without even backing it up with a source. (But I won’t do that because this is research. Lots of sources lie ahead.)

What’s the problem?

According to the 2016 Women in the Workplace Study, women make up 46% of professional entry-level jobs; 37% of managers; 29% of vice presidents; and only 19% of C-suite positions.

And, out of 8,400 surveyed U.S.-based women and men with a college degree, women enter the workforce with less confidence and lower aspirations for top management than men, and the gap persists. At mid career, 56% of women aspired to a senior leadership position compared with 64% of men. And just 57% of women said they had the confidence to reach their goal, compared to 66% of men.

I see two issues here:

1. Women who want to climb the corporate ladder are getting stuck, many only a few rungs from the top.
2. Women aren’t applying for these senior positions at the same rate as their male equals.

Research has shown that a woman’s view of leadership begins to take shape early in childhood, starting with the values she learns and her exposure to leadership skills and positive role models.

Here are some facts about kids published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

• Experiments suggest that gender stereotypes about brain power take root at a pivotal point in childhood — around first grade — and can profoundly influence academic and career choices long afterward.
• Six-year-old girls are less likely than boys to think members of their own gender can be “really, really smart” — a change from age 5, when they’re just as likely as boys to think their own gender can be brilliant.
• Girls often outperform boys in school.
• Girls drop out of high school at a lower rate than boys.
• Women are more likely than men to enroll in college, and they earn more college degrees each year than men.

Clearly, women are killing it academically. So why isn’t that academic success crossing over into the working world?

According to a recent women’s leadership study, 86% of the 3,000 professional and college-age women surveyed were taught to be “nice to others” when they were younger and to do well in school. But in this same group, less than 50% were taught fundamental leadership lessons. 74% of these women who were encouraged as children to lead aspired to senior leadership roles later on, while only 48% of those who didn’t receive childhood encouragement felt similarly. Six in 10 women reported that the way they perceive themselves makes it difficult for them to imagine themselves in any leadership position, and the majority of working women said that being a woman has made them more cautious about taking steps towards leadership roles.

The study also showed that 75% of the women wish that they had learned more about leadership while growing up, and that there aren’t many opportunities for them to practice leadership skills. When they felt most like a leader was in school and academics, and professional women identify this time in their lives as when they felt smartest. When asked what training and development skills were needed to help move more women into leadership roles in the future, women cited leadership training (57%), confidence building (56%), decision-making (48%), networking (47%), and critical thinking (46%) most often. Professional working women believe it is critical for companies to support a woman’s development in her 20s (80%) and career advancement in her 30s (61%).

TL; DR: A reason a woman’s academic success doesn’t cross over into the professional working world is because women are less confident and have less opportunities for leadership development than men.

Assumption based on secondary research: Women need more opportunities to develop their leadership skills and build their self confidence.

What I Wanted to Find Out

Our perceived gender roles don’t seem to matter much to elementary-age kids, and for the most part, their innocent minds haven’t been exposed to (corrupted by) the gender bias and stereotypes women face in the professional world. Because of this, I wanted to find out what the kids think. When does the shift in their perceived brilliance occur? What are they learning about in school? Are they learning about positive role models? Who are they? Who do they look up to? What do they want to be when they grow up? And further, I wanted to know about their parents. What did they want to be when they were younger? And did they achieve the things that they wanted to achieve?

I created a survey and sent it out to women who fit my target demographic — professional women with children between the ages of 5–10. They shared it with their networks, and through the magic of the internet, I got a nice sampling of respondents. After about 20 surveys, I realized that my group wasn’t broad enough, and decided to send the survey out to people who aren’t parents. They shared amongst their networks, and I got an even more expansive set of responses.

Here’s what I found out:

(all quotes are taken as written and no grammatical changes have been made)

Role Models

When asked about who their child’s role models are, most responded with family members, teachers, and coaches — basically people that they interact with on a regular basis. A few of the kids had more unique responses.

Here’s a few that stood out:

• Auggie (the little boy from the book Wonder. I also enjoyed the fact that the mom said this was from the book version, not the movie version.)
• Desmond Doss (an Army Corporal who served as a medic during WWII — this answer belongs to a 14 year old girl)
• Ravenclaw (pretty awesome to see that Harry Potter is still going strong in the younger generations)
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Derek Carr and Drew Brees (both in the NFL)
• Mae Jemison (the first African American woman astronaut to go to outer space)
• Aly Raisman and Simone Biles (US Olympic gymnasts)
• Okoye from Black Panther (she’s my new role model too)
• Junie B. Jones (fictional character — I remember reading a lot of her when I was in elementary school)
• Of all of the superheroes in the media today, the only one mentioned as a role model was Spiderman. (More than once!)

Next I wanted to find out if they’re learning about diversity, women in history, and leadership in school.

In School

• Most kids surveyed (not all, but a very strong majority) aren’t really taught about diversity or the roles that women played in shaping our nation’s history. If they do know about it, they’re learning about it from external sources.
• A couple of parents noted that their child’s school library has books that talk about women leaders and their achievements
• Instead of learning about specific women and their achievements, some children are involved in organizations outside of school that foster leadership (ie band, student council, girl and boy scouts)
• The responsibility to introduce leadership skills to children falls on the parents — whether they’re teaching it at home or making sure their child is involved in groups and activities that encourage it.
• One parent responded, “She (her daughter) learned about Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, and Jane Goodall. They do not often cover women of color.”

Part two of the survey asked questions relating to the adults. What did they want to be when they grew up? What did they end up doing? Do they hold leadership positions in their careers? Do they feel like they would have chosen a different path had they been exposed to more diverse options growing up?

Here’s what I found out:

• Most of the surveys were answered by women.
• No one surveyed wound up working in the profession that they wanted when they were kids. A lot of the women wanted to be veterinarians, but none of them became veterinarians.

When asked about their leadership roles

• Most of the women who described a leadership role they once had are no longer in that role. In fact, they are no longer in professional positions of leadership at all.
• Women have different ideas of what it means to be a leader. They don’t hold C-level positions, but they still consider themselves to be in leadership positions.
• They are teachers
• They participate on school boards
• They spearhead local campaigns to bring technology into schools
• They work in medical administration and juggle lots of moving parts
• They run a household
• They put their families first

A few of the women I interviewed mentioned that, looking back on their lives, they should have chosen a different career. One woman (a lawyer) said, “I think I would have made a great engineer, but back when I was in college, I didn’t even know what engineering was, let alone there was a building for it on campus.” I asked this group of women if they could relate to this scenario and if they would have chosen a different career path. Overall, their responses were pretty balanced between women who feel like they missed out on something and women who are perfectly happy doing what they’re doing.

They said:

On whether or not their exposure would have changed their paths

• Reator: “Geographic locations/colleges can hinder the ability to explore other career fields that are not in close proximity.”
• Pharmacist: “Probably not. Pharmacy is a great profession for a mom. It allows you to choose a balance between being active at home while your children are young or becoming more involved in the profession if you choose a more career-oriented lifestyle.”
• Medical Administrator: “Yes. I wanted to be an attorney. College was not an option for me, I had to work.”
• Physician’s Assistant: “Yes, it’s not all about money. Being happy with yourself and your career is most important.”
• Stay at home mom: “I can totally relate to that statement, especially with engineering.”
• Firefighter/Medic (male): “No. I had exposure to plenty of options. Wish I had done 4 years Military after high school then come back to fire dept and college. I had a few years of not knowing what direction I wanted to go in and wasted a couple of years at college.”
• U.S. Government: “I can, but realized early on in college that the path I was taking did not provide me potential success. I changed from a history major (passive application) to an anthropology major (active application, with ability to adapt to new information, hypothesis, and theories. And still included history.)”
• Teacher: “I love my job. The only thing I could potentially see myself having gone into — if not classroom teaching — is an environmental activities career; something that would have me outside a lot more, but still with a teaching element.”
• Licensed Professional Counselor: “I would loved to have had some guidance regarding computer engineering. It seems like it would be right up my alley. A series of puzzles hat create a program that can do great things. No one ever introduced the idea.”
• Medical Administrator: “Yes, I would have made different choices but don’t know what they would have been. I had great aptitude for math and science and had nobody encourage me to pursue those subjects. I know two of my kids got the math and science aptitude from me (my husband is an artist — it wasn’t from him LOL!) I had thad aptitude but did not have the opportunity to pursue it.”
• Physician: “Yes and no, I love my field and was exposed to it at a young age. Though it makes me happy now and for the foreseeable future, I wish I had more exposure through my middle and high school years to feel out a second or third or even fourth interest before the overwhelming pressures and accumulation of debt through college. I feel like though college is “supposed to be” where you explore these career options, it is just not as realistic as it once was as the cost of college courses and standard of living rise.”

At the end of the survey, I gave the respondents room to add their own thoughts and opinions. All of these are taken verbatim from the survey. Here’s what some of them said:

Their Thoughts

• “Very interesting topic, especially since there seems to be a shortage of female leaders in the field of Library and Information Science.”
• “I have a theory that part of the problem is that women are mostly relational by nature. To be at the top in many positions, it’s hard to be a relational person.”
• “Despite all the hard work of women, the majority professions are dominated by male leadership. Think about teachers and nurses. I think that men are perceived as natural born leaders. I think that it is even biblical in a sense. Men have been designed to be the leader of the household and that has transferred into the workforce. My mother is a nurse manager and faces this struggle daily. All the higher up administration in her hospital are men despite qualifications of women.”
• “I prefer to work under male leadership. I have seen many store managers come and go. Men are about doing. Women are about being. Men provide stability in the workplace while women can choose to leave work and start a family or focus on nurturing. Women are capable of doing many things and juggling many different titles-manager, mother, wife, friend. For this reason, a woman can be spread thinner because she is so capable and so complex not only from a personality dynamic but also physically. A woman on a mission is a beautiful and fierce creature to behold. She can also be a scary storm to navigate through in the middle of a pregnancy or at a certain time of the month. Granted, not all women will choose to raise a family and so issues of loyalty to career versus family may not even be an issue for some. None of these statements should be a shock to any honest woman who has worked with fellow women in the workplace. None of these truths should keep women from being leaders either. A woman should find her calling and embrace it with full confidence and a determination to never allow complacency to settle in. I find the strongest and most notable leaders, no matter the gender, exhibit passion, confidence, and a sense of divine purpose that cannot be overcome by any obstacle or opposition.”
• “I believe that it is getting better than it was when I was young. There are much more opportunities for women today. It is easier to get loans for education and employers are more likely to ignore a person’s sex today. While we have a long way to go, we have made wonderful strides as a nation. Women and men are equal in many ways, but we are different, as we should be. I am hopeful that someday our country will embrace those differences and realize that it is a good thing, not something to be held against one — female or male.”
• “I have been in leadership positions in my community, church and the arts for decades. I have always had a good work ethic, and hope that I have always been fair in working with others. I like to be organized in whatever position I am in. I hope I can always be counted on to do the very best job possible in whatever endeavors I am working. I have always been goal oriented. I love working in both paid positions and volunteer positions. My faith is very important to me and hope that faith has directed me in a path to be fair and true in with anyone I am working with.”
• “I think most families are struggling due to both parents having to work to support the family. Finding a career that allows both family and work is ideal — being a PA-C has been a blessing. The most important leader a woman can be is a leader and good role model for her family first, work comes 2nd. Life is too short.”
• “I was too scared to put myself out there. I never wanted to piss people off, but I am really good at it. Men usually didn’t take me seriously, just wanted to make sleazy comments #metoo”
• (Man) “I have 6 women in my SpecOps battalion. They lead by being equal to the men they work beside. This creates the leadership dynamic they will use as they move up the ranks in our fire department. One of my Lt’s is a woman and moving to the rank of Captain in a couple of months. I can say without hesitation she is one of the most respected and able officers in Austin FD. Not women officers, any officers. Besides her assigned duties, she is involved in a variety of extra leadership roles; peer fitness trainer, cadet instructor, peer support team, etc.”
• “Capable, relevant female leaders are few and far between in my industry. The best examples, so far, have been women without children who are able to spend extensive time investing themselves in the office and missions. But…female leaders now are a full generation ahead of mine, and as the current junior female cadre advances, they may not feel as (limited?) as the previous and more willing to push back against expectations or perceived limitations due to their sex.”
• “I hadn’t thought about it until now, but we’ve had dress up days to cover just about every one of the historical figures my son has studied in school and they have all been men. Is that because it’s one thing to have a girl dress up like a guy but something different to have a boy dressing up like a girl? Does that say something to the kids, no matter how implicitly? I don’t think the gender bias is blatant or direct, especially now. It’s much more subtle but not any less powerful.”
• “Young women today just do not have knowledge of how the women of the 60s and 70s worked so hard to make sure today’s young women have opportunities!”

My primary research uncovered a whole other side to this argument. On one hand, there’s a real issue of women wanting the job, being qualified for the job, and losing out on the job to a man.

On the other hand, not every little girl or woman wants to grow up to be leaders in the corporate world.

I took these findings and did a bit more secondary research. In this next phase, I found interviews and articles addressing another issue: The expectation that all girls have to be Supergirls.

There’s a lot of pressure to be perfect. Teenage girls are one group that is feeling this immense pressure to “do it all” — make perfect grades, be involved in multiple extracurriculars, excel in every activity, and cram their schedules so full that they have little to no time for themselves.

Martinez, California’s Alhambra High senior Jordan Wight said, “Society is more expecting of girls to be better than boys to compete for jobs, schools, and honors, especially with the media, the ‘homecoming queen’ image, and constant pressures to get into the top universities,” she says. “Other people are working just as hard as I am.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, teen suicide, depression, cutting, and eating disorder rates are soaring. In 2004–05 suicide rates jumped 76% for tweens and 32% for teenage girls ages 15–18. Some experts say that this is partly due to the extreme pressures and expectations that society puts on teenage girls.

Stephen Hinshaw is a UC Berkeley psychology professor and author of “The Triple Bind: Saving our Teenage Girls from Today’s Pressures.” The triple bind, he explains, is the expectation to, “Be pretty, sweet and nice. Be athletic, competitive and get straight A’s. Be impossibly perfect. — It’s an epidemic among teen girls that can’t be correlated with economic or racial divides. It’s happening in every town.”

Liz Funk is the 20-year-old author of “Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls.” She’s encountered girls across the nation who are on a constant cocktail of Redbull and Aderall, often mentally and/or physically breaking down from the pressure.

To recap, research has revealed three main points:

1. There’s a real issue of women wanting the job, being qualified for the job, and losing out on the job to a man.
2. Not every little girl or woman wants to grow up to be leaders in the corporate world.
3. Societal expectations of the “Supergirl” are creating too much pressure on teens.

I propose we take action, especially on #2 and #3, with the creation of something that helps young, ambitious girls who want to eventually get hired for the jobs that make them fulfilled and excited by introducing them to a wide variety of industries at an early age and guiding them through the different steps to achieve their goals in a realistic, healthy way.

To be continued…