Over the years, we’ve seen women take up leadership positions in some of the biggest organizations in the world and carry out their jobs perfectly. Some of them have taken their companies from the ground to the very top. The typical examples of such successful women are Susan Wojcicki (YouTube CEO), Marilyn Hewson (Lockheed Martin CEO), Mary Barra (GM CEO), and Abigail Johnson ( Fidelity Investments CEO). These women are the poster face for women having a successful business career.
While these women’s hard work and successes must be applauded, it does not take away from the fact that there are multiple times more women with the zeal, ambition, and ability to take up the same position and do well. Unfortunately, however, more women seem to be sidelined from this top position in the business hierarchy than men. It almost appears that women can’t have a good career nowadays.
In the United States, almost half of the workforce at entry-level are women; however, women make up just a fifth of the population at the C-suite. Yet, it will be wrong to assume that the scarcity of women at the pinnacle of business is because they lack ambition, as revealed by a work survey carried out by CNBC and SurveyMonkey.
The survey has 1068 participants, all of whom are women working in the US. 54% of them reported that they are “very ambitious” with their career, while 35% of them claim that they are “somewhat ambitious.” Only 3% of the participating women claim not to have any ambitions for their work or career. This proves that the absence or scarcity of women at the top business positions is not because they lack ambition.
When the participants were asked about their expected job level in 10 years, the response of 15% of the participants aged between 18-44 is the C-suite. Again this proves ambition on the part of women. However, it is disappointing to state that there are female CEOs in only six percent of S&P 500 organizations, according to a report by Catalyst.
According to Noreen Doyle, an ex-finance executive and a contributor at best essay writing service, it is disappointing that progress is slow when it comes to diversifying the senior leadership of business organizations. This indicates some of the subtle ways that men have an undue advantage over women. She also explained how important it is for businesses to retain and promote female talent as being more than just an issue of diversity but of economic importance. Data by McKinsey & Company proves the importance of gender parity as a business issue reporting that the US economy can grow by $4.3 trillion if the country reaches gender parity by 2025.
Currently, women bag almost 60% of all awarded BSc and MSc degrees, and this proves that the problem is not a shortage or lack of qualified women putting in for the jobs. However, when they have to put up with limited support in the workplace and several unconscious biases, it becomes a harder task for them to make it to the top no matter how ambitious they are. This is where the problem lies.
Lack of sponsorship and mentorship
Most women in the US don't have access to any form of support or opportunity. For example, women in the corporate world have a 24% less likelihood of getting advice from their senior leaders. In addition, more than 60% of women of color believe that the absence of mentorship holds back their careers. To worsen the situation, about 60% of senior male managers claim that they’ve become uncomfortable participating in work activities involving women like social outings, one-on-one meetings, and mentoring since the #MeToo social movement.
In reality, men have failed to realize that they play a big part in this problem, especially when they shy away from women because this reduces women’s access to opportunities, mentorship, and sponsorship.
Companies must start setting up plans particularly towards advancing women’s role at work and ensure that they do not lose hope. This includes hiring more women and promoting them, training staff against unconscious bias, providing equal access and opportunities to mentorship and sponsorship. This also means that businesses have to create an environment that allows women to leverage flex time and paid time off. Currently, women are concerned that taking advantage of the flexible work arrangement available to them might stop them from reaching their goals.
To aid the advancement of women, more companies have to adopt practices and policies to allow women to be themselves while at work.
Conclusion
Women can still have a good and successful career at this age. However, for this to happen, the business world has to be put in place to support women more.
Author Bio
His name is Samuel Matthews. He is 33 years old and lives in Manchester. He worked at an essay writer service and as a journalist and wrote his own detective story. He loves to learn something new and meet different people. His hobbies are travel, sports, and drumming.