The recent FTSE Women Leaders Review and the FT article, “Why are there still so few women CEOs?” examined the stubbornly low number of female CEOs at the top of business. It’s a mystery that has dogged the corporate world for decades.
Yet if we want to stop being able to count female CEOs on both hands, we need to take a different approach: We need to stop thinking about, well, CEOs.
What the FTSE Women Leaders Review says
The FT article is a well-researched and thoughtful exploration of why the number of female CEOs has remained mostly stagnant since 2021: From 8 in that year, going up to 10 in 2023 …and now back down to 9.
But the lack of female leaders doesn’t suddenly manifest at the boardroom doors or in the hiring committee. It begins much earlier.
It’s all about pipelines and promotions.
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- Midlife female entrepreneurs: What our research shows
- Why senior women matter
Consider some of the elements highlights by the FT:
Women are less visible in the important jobs
The jobs that women get tend to have less visibility and aren’t considered training grounds for top positions, no matter their skills. Recruiters look at a “menu of requirements” rather than capabilities. So if you don’t have a traditional P&L role, you’re simply not in the running.
This “lack” has typically been laid at the door of candidates. They’re just not there in terms of what they can do, they just don’t have the training. So now we know that’s the system and should game it – fighting for the titles that open those doors.
But we also need to urge companies and recruiters to think more creatively about what’s really important for the big roles. That’s not just good for women. More and more people are being laid off, switching tracks and changing industries. Companies need to ditch the lazy AI filtering and tick-box approach…and instead keep an open mind about where they can source the best talent.
Here’s an example: We featured in our newsletter one midlife woman who, after a few rounds of redundancies, wanted a new direction. She knew her CV would be filtered out by AI as “not relevant”. When a company’s hiring manager called her to turn her down for a role (yes, an actual call), she took the news well and it led to a conversation about what she could actually do. That in turn led to her being offered a less-traditional role at the company. Four years and 2 promotions later, she’s still there. All that experience and talent honed at previous jobs is paying off for her new employer because they had an open mind and listened.
Men = the safe choice?
Men are often seen as a “safer choice” according to the FT article report – and this is an attitude that doesn’t just apply when it comes to female CEOs.
As many midlife career women know, the call-out from the boss, the exciting new responsibility, the opportunity to help with a big project – these are all important chances to step up and be recognised, right from the start of your career. Nobody climbs the ladder alone…and if the boss or the organisation feels a little more comfortable with the guy hired at the same time you and automatically think he’s the “natural” choice, that can mean a regular stream of opportunities you just don’t get.
What can we do about this? It’s hard to change the culture as one person, but we can’t be backward about coming forward. If we want something, we have to say it loud and proud.
Good performance doesn’t always mean opportunity
Even women’s performance at work is often overlooked. The FT references research from MIT Sloane showing that even when women received high performance ratings than male employees, they ranked lower on potential. The result: Women were 14% less likely to be promoted.
“This is despite women with equivalent potential [emphasis mine] scores going on to outperform men and being less likely to quit,” according to the FT. (You can see the original research here.)
When I first started out, my parents (who always believed the cream would rise) encouraged me to stay away from office politics and just get things done, be the best I could at my job. Working hard is important…but just being good (or even great) at your job may not always get you there. The politics matter.
The issue with female CEOs isn’t about female CEOs
It’s easy to see that the barriers women face reaching the CEO spot are often less to do with fitness, and more to do with feeling – that vague “feeling” that people at the top have about women just not being, y’know, ready, no matter their performance, skills or talent.
Reading the report, I was reminded of an interview with the controversial psychology professor Jordan Peterson by Channel 4’s Cathy Newman, talking about the gender pay gap.
Peterson, who’s built up a cult YouTube following, maintains that the gender pay gap exists not because of sexism but because women tend to be more “agreeable” (and thus don’t have the desired personality type for top jobs and don’t push as hard for salary raises or promotions). He says that women prioritise other parts of life like caregiving and that they also choose to work in roles or professions that are lower-paid (for example, in the PR and marketing department rather than in high-stress P&L positions that feed into the big jobs).
Peterson maintains that women make less because they simply don’t want these positions or possess the qualities that are sought for higher paying roles – they’re too nice, too ready to ditch it all for motherhood or other priorities or don’t want to devote their lives to the hard graft.
Of course, his analysis is laughingly blind to the structural issues within the business world as well as within society. Women’s work and skills are routinely valued less. People like to hire people who look like them. Nobody wants to think they are biased. And it’s a lot easier to point to the person – “She just wasn’t qualified”; “She wanted to leave” – rather than question the system.
NOON’s award-winning Advisory Board Member Lucy Ryan weighs in
NOON Advisory Board Member and award-winning business author Lucy Ryan has written about why so many senior women leave the jobs in her book Revolting Women (affiliate link).
She addressed the report on her LinkedIn, writing, “I believe organisations lack the will and drive to resolve this issue (or even see it as a major systemic problem?). The solutions are clear and have been highlighted for years, and include strengthening the executive pipeline and succession; increasing access to sponsorship and advocacy; creating visibility for women in revenue generating and strategic roles, and challenging structural barriers that restrict progression….
“Is it little wonder that so many talented women, capable of stepping up, choose instead to step out, carving their own talented path, in their own way, their own time and their own chosen colleagues?”
So how do we change it?
If women are rated highly yet score lower on “potential”, if they are channelled away from profit-and-loss roles that headhunters treat as prerequisites, and if they are even dismissed more quickly once appointed CEO (another finding highlighted in the piece), the issue is not a lack of readiness but a lack of sponsorship and patience.
That means we have to start early, we have to challenge our and others’ preconceptions. We also have to think about not just the senior executive women wanting to stride the hallway to the head office but also the generation below us, who is looking to follow in our footsteps.
We may see all the fruits of our efforts straightaway, but by changing the narrative for ourselves, we can have an effect that’s shapes attitudes overall…and hopefully means more hiring committees look at senior women and think, “Yes!”
– Jennifer Howze
