The High-Potential Ceiling－Mainstream

Women are under-represented not only in the C-suite, but also in the high-potential leadership development programs that would help them get there, according to an analysis of 12,000 leaders in 76 countries by Development Dimensions International. Researchers found 28% more men than women in early-career high-potential programs and 50% more men in executive-level high-potential programs.

Source: Human Resource Executive

Stacking the Deck

A new study finds that it is more than the glass ceiling holding women back from leadership roles. Discrimination is less visible than previously -- but it starts so early in women's careers, that chances for advancement are slimmer. Less female involvement in high-potential programs and international assignments were cited.

By Kristen B. Frasch

Gender discrimination still prevails in organizations around the world, but is now behind closed doors, preventing women from entering executive ranks from the earliest days of their careers, according to new research from Development Dimensions International.

"Holding Women Back: Troubling Discoveries and Best Practices for Helping Female Leaders Succeed" aims to explain gender discrimination in the 21st century and debunk common myths about why women don't make it to the top management roles.

"There is nothing new about women being under-represented in the C-suite," says Ann Howard, chief scientist for Bridgeville, Pa.-based DDI, "but this research reveals what is holding back women who aspire to higher leadership positions -- that discrimination is less visible and starts so early in their career that it cripples their ability to compete with a male colleague who has had more opportunity."

The study -- a special report from DDI's Global Leadership Forecast 2008-2009, the latest in an ongoing bi-annual measurement of the impact of leadership-development initiatives worldwide -- includes data from more than 12,000 leaders from 76 countries.

It finds that women's destinies are locked in long before they reach the glass ceiling, and that female leaders are under-represented in accelerated-development programs early in their careers, which hinders their climb up the ladder.

"If they don't make it into these programs," says Howard," their chances for an executive promotion are slim, and they don't know it until it's too late."

Although the findings don't bode well for women aiming for the C-suite, they do contain one ray of hope, says Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management and director of the Center for Human Resources at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

"The only good news from this study," says Cappelli, "is that the problem seems to be less about rates of promotion once in the talent tracks and more about getting on those tracks in the first place. That should be an easier problem for top management to solve -- should they want to -- because it deals with decisions at lower levels of management."

In studying the primary sources of accelerated development, including high-potential programs and international experience, the researchers found that:

* At the first level of leadership, there were 28 percent more men in high-potential programs;

* At the executive level, there were 50 percent more men than women in high-potential programs; and

* Men were twice as likely as women to have multinational leadership roles.

The study also found a significant decline from the proportion of women in first-level leadership roles to women in executive roles, regardless of the prevalence of women in those former positions.

The percentage decline was less steep in industries where women were better represented -- such as in healthcare -- until women became the majority, at which point the decline worsened, suggesting a backlash.

For example, although women represented 82 percent of first-level leaders in the U.S. healthcare industry, they made up less than half of the executive population. In contrast, men went from less than 20 percent at the first-level ranks in that industry to more than half at the executive level, indicating that the small group of men in leadership roles in healthcare has a much better chance of making it to the top.

"In industries where women are the majority of leaders, the percentage of males in high-potential programs was two-and-a-half times that of females," Howard says. "This practice serves to keep men in the top positions in organizations, even when leadership ranks are primarily female."

Constance E. Helfat, professor of strategy and technology at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business in Hanover, N.H., and co-author of a 2006 study entitled The Pipeline to the Top: Women and Men Executives in U.S. Corporations, says one other notable finding of the study " is that companies with formal policies and procedures regarding succession planning have more women in senior-management positions."

"This is consistent with prior research," says Helfat, "suggesting that the use of formal policies and metrics lead to more objective hiring and promotion decisions.

"By implication," she says, "using formal policies and procedures for the selection of managers into leadership development programs could help to reduce gender disparities in these programs and help more women advance to senior-leadership positions.

"In addition, more companies would benefit by instituting formal policies designed to retain promising women through family-friendly and flexible work options," she says.

In the report's introduction, co-authors Howard and Richard Wellins, DDI's senior vice president, say that, while the discrepancy they found isn't a surprise, "what caught our attention was how the deck is stacked against women from the start of their management careers.

"The sobering results [of the study] suggest that gender discrimination continues to thrive below the surface to the detriment of not just female leaders, but the organizations that employ them.

"Overcoming this persistent and troubling underuse of talent is not simply a moral responsibility in the pursuit of fairness. Particularly in today's sagging global economy, helping women move up the organization ladder could well be one of the best survival strategies that an organization could undertake."

June 9, 2009