The below blogpost comes from Forbes' women page, click here to check it out. Why do you think the glass ceiling exists?
Leadership Gap Blamed on Women's Reluctance to Compete
It’s no secret to readers of this blog that women’s reluctance to negotiate has repeatedly been blamed for our inability to crack the glass ceiling or at least get a friggin’ raise.
It’s also no secret that we believe women can improve their work and lives by learning how to negotiate their salaries, bonuses, promotions and work-life balance.
However, we flatly reject the proposition that the persistence of the glass ceiling is due, even in part, to gender-based deficiencies. Yet the social scientists seem intent on finding failings particular to women to explain our pitifully small numbers in positions of power and influence.
Which brings us to the recent coverage by the Guardian of a study that supposedly demonstrates both that women compete better when they are in teams, and that our purported reluctance to compete explains the persistence of the glass ceiling.
We Don’t Compete “Better” on Teams Nor Less Well Individually
Where I come from, “competing better” means winning. Given the Guardian’s headline, you’d expect the referenced study to show that women tend to do worse than men when performing alone and better when working in a team. But that’s not what the study demonstrated. The research quite plainly showed that when the women worked alone, they performed just as well the men.
What the Guardian meant to say was that women are more willing to compete when they work in teams whereas men are eager to compete mano a mano whatever the circumstances. The men didn’t “compete better” than the women, they simply competed more often.
Getting the Job Done Rather than Competing for First Place
What the women studied demonstrated was a greater interest in simply getting the job done (i.e., doing it individually) than in competing for first place. When given the opportunity to work with another, however, they became nearly as willing as were the men to compete for dominance.
Whether the women were willing to compete because it gave them the opportunity to collaborate or were emboldened to compete because they felt the need for a “second,” was neither asked nor answered. But there’s an even more important question to be asked than why women behaved the way they did in response to the researcher’s experiment – whether the desire to compete is sufficiently beneficial to business that women’s disinterest in it could explain our failure to thrive at the highest levels of commerce and governance.
So let’s answer that question here. It is axiomatic that business and the professions require teamwork as much or more than individual excellence. More importantly, one recent meta-study concluded that competition tends to undermine group performance and “groupcentric” goals to enhance it.
The Glass Ceiling Does Not Exist Because We’re Not Competitive Enough
Despite these obvious flaws, the researchers conclude that their presumably neutral “data” suggests that “the continuing lack of women in positions of power” is due to a “competition gender gap.”
Let me re-emphasize the disconnect there.
A business is in business to do business – to make a product that a lot of people want to purchase or to offer a service that a lot of people need. The people who rise to the top should therefore be those best able to deliver a great product or a superior service. Not those who would eagerly engage in a fist fight if given the opportunity.
Unlike my profession – litigation – that requires of its practitioners a near psychopathic desire to prevail over an adversary, most professions and businesses need people who are able to collaborate with one another.
The “Gender Competition Gap” is Really the “Gender Collaboration Gap”
If no one has yet made this suggestion, let me be the first to do so. Whatever “gender competition gap” exists, it cannot be the primary, tertiary or even remote reason for the persistence of the glass ceiling. It is more likely the reason why having at least three women on any Board of Directors immediately positively impacts the bottom line. Because women bring a unique point of view to the proceedings.
If anything, the “gender competition gap” that supposedly inhibits the progress of women is really a “gender collaboration gap” that inhibits the success of any organization.
Beware of social scientists carrying gendered reasons for women’s absence from the seats of power. The academics are people with points of view and their research reflects the same implicit biases that keep the glass ceiling firmly in place.
Who needs women? Goldman Sachs, AIG, and CitiBank need women. The men who brought you the economic meltdown of ’08 need women. It’s 2011 and they’re still in charge.
As Sarah Palin might ask, How’s that workin’ for us?
Leadership Gap Blamed on Women's Reluctance to Compete
It’s no secret to readers of this blog that women’s reluctance to negotiate has repeatedly been blamed for our inability to crack the glass ceiling or at least get a friggin’ raise.
It’s also no secret that we believe women can improve their work and lives by learning how to negotiate their salaries, bonuses, promotions and work-life balance.
However, we flatly reject the proposition that the persistence of the glass ceiling is due, even in part, to gender-based deficiencies. Yet the social scientists seem intent on finding failings particular to women to explain our pitifully small numbers in positions of power and influence.
Which brings us to the recent coverage by the Guardian of a study that supposedly demonstrates both that women compete better when they are in teams, and that our purported reluctance to compete explains the persistence of the glass ceiling.
We Don’t Compete “Better” on Teams Nor Less Well Individually
Where I come from, “competing better” means winning. Given the Guardian’s headline, you’d expect the referenced study to show that women tend to do worse than men when performing alone and better when working in a team. But that’s not what the study demonstrated. The research quite plainly showed that when the women worked alone, they performed just as well the men.
What the Guardian meant to say was that women are more willing to compete when they work in teams whereas men are eager to compete mano a mano whatever the circumstances. The men didn’t “compete better” than the women, they simply competed more often.
Getting the Job Done Rather than Competing for First Place
What the women studied demonstrated was a greater interest in simply getting the job done (i.e., doing it individually) than in competing for first place. When given the opportunity to work with another, however, they became nearly as willing as were the men to compete for dominance.
Whether the women were willing to compete because it gave them the opportunity to collaborate or were emboldened to compete because they felt the need for a “second,” was neither asked nor answered. But there’s an even more important question to be asked than why women behaved the way they did in response to the researcher’s experiment – whether the desire to compete is sufficiently beneficial to business that women’s disinterest in it could explain our failure to thrive at the highest levels of commerce and governance.
So let’s answer that question here. It is axiomatic that business and the professions require teamwork as much or more than individual excellence. More importantly, one recent meta-study concluded that competition tends to undermine group performance and “groupcentric” goals to enhance it.
The Glass Ceiling Does Not Exist Because We’re Not Competitive Enough
Despite these obvious flaws, the researchers conclude that their presumably neutral “data” suggests that “the continuing lack of women in positions of power” is due to a “competition gender gap.”
Let me re-emphasize the disconnect there.
A business is in business to do business – to make a product that a lot of people want to purchase or to offer a service that a lot of people need. The people who rise to the top should therefore be those best able to deliver a great product or a superior service. Not those who would eagerly engage in a fist fight if given the opportunity.
Unlike my profession – litigation – that requires of its practitioners a near psychopathic desire to prevail over an adversary, most professions and businesses need people who are able to collaborate with one another.
The “Gender Competition Gap” is Really the “Gender Collaboration Gap”
If no one has yet made this suggestion, let me be the first to do so. Whatever “gender competition gap” exists, it cannot be the primary, tertiary or even remote reason for the persistence of the glass ceiling. It is more likely the reason why having at least three women on any Board of Directors immediately positively impacts the bottom line. Because women bring a unique point of view to the proceedings.
If anything, the “gender competition gap” that supposedly inhibits the progress of women is really a “gender collaboration gap” that inhibits the success of any organization.
Beware of social scientists carrying gendered reasons for women’s absence from the seats of power. The academics are people with points of view and their research reflects the same implicit biases that keep the glass ceiling firmly in place.
Who needs women? Goldman Sachs, AIG, and CitiBank need women. The men who brought you the economic meltdown of ’08 need women. It’s 2011 and they’re still in charge.
As Sarah Palin might ask, How’s that workin’ for us?
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