Opinion: Ontario is showing the way on breaking the glass ceiling
Corporate culture in Canada just got a little more … feminine. Our neighbours in Ontario are about to lay down the gender law and require public companies to set targets for the number of women in senior roles.
This new provincial decree belies the fact that society as a whole remains unprepared for women to hold positions of power in the workplace. Despite decades of fighting for gender equality, women’s representation in senior management positions remains nearly unchanged in today’s business environment.
The numbers are damning. According to Canada’s Financial Post 500, women hold only 14 per cent of director positions in this country. Nearly 45 per cent of public companies have no female directors on their boards.
Other recent studies have revealed that only three per cent of top executives among Fortune 500 firms are women, and that only a sixth of women in the workforce are top earners.
Here at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business, I recently teamed up with a group of female MBA students to investigate why gender continues to play such a significant role when it comes to attaining leadership positions. We reviewed a wide array of published works on gender and leadership and focused on four specific aspects: gender leadership styles, gender effectiveness, leadership perceptions and the challenges women face. Our study was published in the journal Industrial and Commercial Training last month.
We found that gender inequality in the boardroom is not a purely North American problem; the lack of significant proportions of women in leadership and senior management positions is a worldwide phenomenon. And that holds throughout the commercial, industrial, military and public sectors. In the United Kingdom, a 2010 report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission noted that, at the current rate, it would take until 2081 for women to outnumber men in the boardroom. What does that say about our current corporate culture?
What about merit? Shouldn’t assessments prove that women deserve those promotions to positions of real power? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Although the picture has gradually improved in terms of female representation in top leadership positions, gender bias in managerial assessment, far from becoming a remnant of the past, has become more subtle and more complex. It even appears that resistance to change by male leaders regarding their potential female successors has made this bias practically ironclad.
Research has illustrated that the most effective leadership style is transformational leadership — the kind of leadership that is most often associated with female leaders. Women possess qualities that are preferred by subordinates — men and women alike. But women are still widely perceived as inferior leaders when compared to men.
Nowadays, we are seeing gradual changes in how organizations expand their female representation — something that is reflected in the new legislation in Ontario. Modern organizations seem to recognize the need for a new leadership style that is characterized by more stereotypically female qualities, like concern for others. And yet despite persuasive evidence of their positive effect on profitability, there are very few women in leadership positions.
When will the barriers that women face when trying to climb to the top echelons of the corporate world disappear?
Will Quebec follow Ontario in enacting legislation that will even out the managerial playing field and give women a real shot at breaking through that infamous glass ceiling?
Will women eventually have an equal shot at being promoted to CEO?
For the sake of my bright young MBA students, I certainly hope so.
Related links:
• John Molson School of Business
• Steven Appelbaum's departmental profile
• Appelbaum's Research @ Concordia profile