New Report Sheds Light on Canada’s Glass Ceiling
By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)
A new report from the Conference Board of Canada, an independent non-profit applied research organization, has found that the percentage of Canadian women in senior management positions has changed very little and that men are two to three times as likely to hold a senior executive position. Ruth Wright, the Conference Board of Canada’s associate director of leadership and human resources research, oversaw the report Women in Senior Management: Where Are They? And, she said, many were shocked by its findings.
The few women who rise to senior levels often attract substantial media attention, which may give readers the false impression that barriers to women’s advancement are a thing of the past.
“People were very surprised by the findings. I think many assumed that there would have been significant shifts since our original study, Closing the Gap, 14 years ago. This is an example of why this type of research is so important – it starts the conversation that gets people wondering what the problem is and hopefully, this leads to enlightened management,” Wright said.
The Conference Board of Canada based its findings on data spanning two decades, from 1987 to 2009, which revealed that the presence of Canadian women in senior management positions flatlined during that time, despite a major bump in the number of women in the workforce. As of 2009, 48 percent of Canada’s workforce is comprised of women, yet only 0.32 percent (26,000 of more than 8 million working women) held senior management positions. While the absolute number of women in senior management rose from less than 15,000 in 1987, females are still significantly underrepresented at the senior executive level compared to males.
The report found similar results at the middle-management levels – which includes directors and managers – that frequently provide the feeder pool for future executives. Men have consistently been 1.5 times more likely than women to hold middle management positions over the past 22 years. In 2009, 911,000 men were working in middle management positions (over 10 percent of all men employed), compared to 543,000 women (7 percent of all women employed).
Anne Golden, The Conference Board of Canada’s president and chief executive officer, pointed out that between 1987 and 2009, the proportion of women in middle management rose by about 4 percent. “At that rate, it will take approximately 151 years before the proportion of men and women at the management level is equal,” Golden wrote on the Board’s site.
The Labyrinth, The Glass Cliff, & Gender Stereotypes
The lack of advancement for Canadian women has been attributed to the glass ceiling and “the sticky floor” (gender barriers to advancement at lower levels), but Wright took a note from scholars Alice Eagly and Linda Carli, asserting that the better metaphor is the labyrinth. The labyrinth is a more apt description of the various career obstacles women face as a result of conflicting gender and leadership expectations, family responsibilities, and discomfort with self-promotion.
The report also outlines another term coined to describe the obstacles women face in senior management positions: the “glass cliff.” According to the report, women are more likely than men to occupy precarious positions and women in these positions have a higher risk of failure, either because their organization is in crisis or because they do not have the support they need to succeed. When women fail in these precarious positions, the failure is attributed to their gender, rather than to the circumstances or lack of support. This can lead to the assumption that women are inadequate leaders who do not possess the skills required to succeed in senior management positions.
“What we often see is women being put in precarious situations, but they’re not offered the support they need to succeed in these roles,” Wright said. “This can be devastating because not only is it setting these women up for failure, but it’s now allowing them to be the role models they could be to women in lower positions. Whether on a conscious or subconscious level, this affects the career choices they make. It’s critical that we don’t squelch women’s ambitions.”
Lastly, gender stereotypes are a major reason for the lack of progress in Canada. Women in Senior Management cites another study to illustrate how embedded these old stereotypes are in the workplace: a recent Pew Research Center study entitled Men or Women: Who’s the Better Leader?, which revealed that 15 percent of Americans say the scarcity of women in top business positions is primarily due to the fact that women are innately not tough enough for business. The most pervasive of these stereotypes is the “biological truth” that women, who tend to be “collaborative and agreeable,” are directly at odds with masculine leadership stereotypes that make men “innately better leaders.” These characteristics include assertiveness, aggressiveness, and drive.
“Gender research proves that men and women are more alike than not,” Wright said. “Both have very high potential and both have leadership qualities, so the lack of women in upper management has nothing to do with biological differences; it’s an issue that those who hire have with processing, developing, and sourcing talent. Companies have to take a closer look at their culture and be truthful about whether or not it’s really hospitable to women. If they’re lacking job rotation, mentoring, and coaching; if they’re not moving then up and teaching up, they’re never going to retain their female talent.”
Nine Good Practices
The report features nine good practices, a majority of which are being actively employed by the three Canadian companies outlined in the report that are successfully moving women up the ranks. According to Wright, one company in particular even seems to have taken gender out of the equation entirely. That would be the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation, which has developed a comprehensive competency model and leveraged it to drive key changes to their talent systems. Other standouts include the Canadian Pacific Railway, which has instituted a range of female-friendly workplace policies, and TD Bank Financial Group, which has a Women in
Leadership committee and helps women network with and mentor each other.
According to the report, the following practices have the power to increase the proportion of female senior managers:
- Using accountable search techniques, ensuring candidates are on all short lists
- Identifying talent and providing succession planning initiatives
- Setting up mentoring and coaching programs
- Offering job rotation opportunities
- Ensuring ongoing measurement
- Creating an inclusive work environment
- Avoiding putting women in precarious positions without giving them the support and preparation needed to succeed—a woman’s failure in an executive role may be attributed to her gender rather than to the circumstances of the position
- Highlighting role models and communicating success
- Ensuring senior management support
“These practices will help, but major changes still need to be made,” Wright said. “Women will aspire to higher positions and make different career choices if company cultures are hospitable and opportunities are made available. I don’t want to downplay the advances that women have made in the past 20 years, but there’s more work to be done. We’re not quite at the finish line yet.’
