Do Women Create Their Own Glass Ceilings?

By Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

A study from the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management that shows women managers are three times more likely to underrate their bosses’ opinions of them has led to a flurry of articles and blog posts asking “Do women create their own glass ceilings?”.

The study looked at 251 female and male managers from a variety of industries nationwide. It asked the managers to rate themselves on leadership, communication ability, initiative, self-awareness, self-control, empathy, bond-building, teamwork, conflict management and trustworthiness. It also asked participants to predict how others would rate them and then compared the results with actual ratings from supervisors, peers and staff.

The findings: men slightly overestimated how their bosses viewed them, and women underestimated others’ opinions.

That women are holding themselves back is, of course, one way of interpreting the data. According to this MSNBC article, the slant comes from Scott Taylor, assistant professor at the Anderson School of Management, who conducted the study and questions why women impose this glass ceiling on themselves. Is this part of the reason so few women are in the corner office?

There may be some truth to that theory. Ann Perschel, Leadership and Organizational Psychologist And President of Germane Consulting says, “My view is that women err on the negative side and men, in general, err on the positive side when it comes to perceptions of how others, including managers, evaluate them. The positive results of erring on the negative side occur when people work harder to achieve a goal or a positive perception. It is a weakness when it undermines confidence to the point that people, in this case women, may not voice their opinions, raise their hand for a difficult assignment, or advocate on their own behalf (for a raise or promotion) because they think the boss does not value them.”

Taylor’s take seems rather sexist and doesn’t take into account some of the other findings from the research. The fact that women expected lower scores, may speak to why more women don’t ask for raises (and perhaps part of the reasons they earn, on average, only. 77 cents for every dollar a man earns). But it could also indicate how hard women are striving to do their best and receive recognition commensurate to those efforts. That the current system advances men who ask repeatedly for promotions rather than women seeking results versus rewards, could also be part of the reason so few women make it to the board room.

Says one former technology manager, “I was never interested in hearing what I was doing right. I wanted to know where I could improve.”

The other finding from the study was that the discrepancy in opinion versus actual rating is greater with women older than 50 (although there were no distinctions based on management level.) Could this speak to the fact that women lose confidence as they move up the ranks? They may start out with a strong peer base of other women. But as they move into managerial positions, they are more likely to have men as peers, instead of women. According to the Global Leadership Forecast 2008|2009 from DDI, women are more likely to be in lower-level rather than higher-level leadership positions in American businesses.

Or does it speak to their stress related to managing both work life and home life? Women still manage the majority of housework. Some studies show women doing 53 percent more housework than men. And women are more likely to stay home with a sick child. Are they expecting these things to affect their performance? Perhaps they expect their bosses to discriminate against them. Certainly, they have witnessed this among their friends and peers.

“Women have a higher bars for their own performance, but since we’re trying to do so much we know we could do a better job if we weren’t so stretched,” says Lee Caraher, President of marketing firm Double Forte.

Then there is the fact that performance reviews are often inherently biased against women. Perhaps women don’t expect to score well on evaluations that favor stereotypical male attributes.

Regardless of how one interprets the data, this is clear: the gender gap in corporate America continues. The wage gap has widened and women have made very little progress in breaking the glass ceiling. Do some women contribute to their own downfall? Of course, but so do some men. Businesses are better served to look at succession planning, performance reviews, mentoring programs, and work/life programs. Those are the programs that support and promote both women, and men, at work.