From left: Serena Kutchinsky, AL Kennedy, Roger Bolton ©Jessica Woodward
I recently spoke on a thought-provoking panel entitled "Women on Top" at the brilliant HowTheLightGetsIn festival, for which Prospect is a media partner. The topic for debate was the lack of female high-fliers and my fellow speakers were the feisty social scientist Catherine Hakim, the author and stand-up comedian AL Kennedy with the broadcaster Roger Bolton as chair. You can read more on the lively discussion that ensued in our festival review here, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this important issue below on my blog. As a professional woman who is still looking optimistically up at the glass ceiling, I hope I can offer a unique perspective on the issue of women in leadership, or the lack thereof. My first thought was that the title of this discussion should really be “Why women are not on top” (in the business, not the erotic sense) and possibly the more probing “Do women want to be on top?” Are we consciously or even subconsciously holding ourselves back? The answer is wide-ranging, complex and as yet, still partly unknown. The different camps all have their own strident views; quotas are good, quotas are bad, women can have it all, women can’t have it all, we should lean in, we should lean out. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty confused. All I do know is that women still have to work harder, and fight tougher than their male counterparts. I’ll be honest. I’m 34, and I’ve been putting off having children partly for that reason. I’m nervous about what maternity leave might do to the career I have toiled so hard for. I have watched as former high-flying friends have seen their post-baby careers stall—often they struggle to reconnect after maternity leave, or are pushed out during redundancies. Initially they seize the chance to stay home with their children and appease their maternal guilt, finding to their dismay a year or so later that penetrating back into the workforce is trickier than they thought. “People take you seriously until you have children”, a friend said recently. Not exactly a comforting thought. Before we ask why this is happening, let’s get a clear picture of the scale of the problem. There is a scarcity of women in leadership and some surveys suggest the problem is getting worse not better. According to the 2013 Sex and Power report: Just 22.5 per cent of MPs are women, 21.7 per cent of peers and under 17 per cent of the Cabinet. Women are similarly “missing” at the top o other spheres: just 36.4 per cent of public appointments are women, 13.6per cent of the senior judiciary and—the one I find personally disheartening—just 5 per cent of editors of national daily newspapers. It’s the same sorry tale in business: only five CEOs of Britain's top 100 companies are women, and a man who starts his career with one of those companies is four-and-a-half times more likely to reach the executive committee than his female counterpart. There is a glimmer of hope: the actual number of women on boards of FTSE 100 companies has increased - now standing at over 20 per cent (up from 17.4 per cent in 2013) with just one all-male board remaining. But, closer inspection reveals that the majority of these are non-executive roles, and that the likelihood of women being appointed to executive positions is actually decreasing. This superficial surge is the result of pressure to meet the government-backed voluntary target of 25 per cent by 2015. Sadly, this is not a sustainable change. Why is this happening? If women are competent and hardworking enough to outpace men in school, why is it so difficult to keep up later on? The answer could be as simple as women not wanting the top jobs, to quote an article by FT columnist Luke Johnson published last month “ I suspect many smart women opt out at some point, realising that the rat race is mostly a foolish alpha male game that all too often only delivers heart attacks, disappointment and an arid personal life.” I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. That’s just too convenient. Women can be, and often are, just as ambitious as men at the start of their careers. The problem goes deeper. For decades, women have misunderstood an important law of the professional jungle. Simply having talent and working hard isn’t enough; confidence is a huge part of success and if you want to excel its essential. This is a theory voiced by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg in her controversial book, Lean In—which although slammed by feminists—rings true to me. The notion of a gender disparity in confidence, with men overestimating and women underestimating their abilities is not new. “Imposter Syndrome” whereby high-achieving women believe "they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise"—was first written about in 1978. A new book—The Confidence Code by two US-based female journalists lays out the theory that effectively women are responsible, on some level, for holding ourselves back. A whole host of other cultural and institutional factors feed into this – but underpinning it all is an endemic lack of self-belief. Take for example the negative behavioural patterns which women exhibit in the workplace. These include; an unwillingness to ask for more money; holding back in meetings; underestimating self-worth; citing luck as the reason for success; failing to put ourselves forward for promotion unless we are a) asked and b) 100% qualified (In my experience men will happily wing it). While we are paranoid about being perceived as “pushy”, men are happy to be seen as “ballsy”. Before I get accused of blaming the victim, let’s look at what can be done to close the confidence gap. We need to show solidarity and support each other, women can sometimes be each other’s fiercest critics - we need to praise those who have a flair for self-promotion and understand the political savvy it takes to get to the top. When other women label me a workaholic I’m aware it’s usually meant as an insult - the suggestion being that there is something inherently unfeminine in having such a single-minded focus. They can talk about their hair, nails and love lives ad infinitum but if I bring up work then I’m being “boring”. This bitchiness has to stop. The quota question still looms large - several European countries; Norway, France, Spain, Italy and now Germany - have gone down this route with govts setting mandatory targets for female representation way above the UK’s “voluntary” 25 per cent. The arguments against quotas are that they are patronising and unhelpful, and encourage the view women are unable to rise on their own merits. But as we have seen here—without them things move slowly. Quotas might be a quick fix but at least they get more women into leadership and in doing so create more female role models at the top. Couple that with a more long-term focus on opening up male-dominated subjects such as tech, engineering and science at an early stage in education and you have a recipe for progress. And what about the pregnancy problem? How much are our maternal instincts holding us back? A powerful new report, commissioned by female CEO Helena Morrissey, aimed at busting myths about women in leadership found that childbearing has a marginal but not significant impact on women’s career progression. While that is just one survey, it is encouraging. Next year sees the advent of shared parental leave, with mothers and fathers able to share their time off. This is a huge leap forward and could be transformative, as long as women are confident enough to take advantage of it. The fear of being labelled a “bad mother” for demonstrating a desire to return to work could hold us back. The tide is changing, we have made progress and this should be celebrated. But there is still work to be done. Women need to commit to not seeing ourselves as the victims, we need to hold our heads up high and push hard against the glass ceiling. Cracking the confidence code is the only real route to boardroom success.
I recently spoke on a thought-provoking panel entitled "Women on Top" at the brilliant HowTheLightGetsIn festival, for which Prospect is a media partner. The topic for debate was the lack of female high-fliers and my fellow speakers were the feisty social scientist Catherine Hakim, the author and stand-up comedian AL Kennedy with the broadcaster Roger Bolton as chair. You can read more on the lively discussion that ensued in our festival review here, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this important issue below on my blog. As a professional woman who is still looking optimistically up at the glass ceiling, I hope I can offer a unique perspective on the issue of women in leadership, or the lack thereof. My first thought was that the title of this discussion should really be “Why women are not on top” (in the business, not the erotic sense) and possibly the more probing “Do women want to be on top?” Are we consciously or even subconsciously holding ourselves back? The answer is wide-ranging, complex and as yet, still partly unknown. The different camps all have their own strident views; quotas are good, quotas are bad, women can have it all, women can’t have it all, we should lean in, we should lean out. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty confused. All I do know is that women still have to work harder, and fight tougher than their male counterparts. I’ll be honest. I’m 34, and I’ve been putting off having children partly for that reason. I’m nervous about what maternity leave might do to the career I have toiled so hard for. I have watched as former high-flying friends have seen their post-baby careers stall—often they struggle to reconnect after maternity leave, or are pushed out during redundancies. Initially they seize the chance to stay home with their children and appease their maternal guilt, finding to their dismay a year or so later that penetrating back into the workforce is trickier than they thought. “People take you seriously until you have children”, a friend said recently. Not exactly a comforting thought. Before we ask why this is happening, let’s get a clear picture of the scale of the problem. There is a scarcity of women in leadership and some surveys suggest the problem is getting worse not better. According to the 2013 Sex and Power report: Just 22.5 per cent of MPs are women, 21.7 per cent of peers and under 17 per cent of the Cabinet. Women are similarly “missing” at the top o other spheres: just 36.4 per cent of public appointments are women, 13.6per cent of the senior judiciary and—the one I find personally disheartening—just 5 per cent of editors of national daily newspapers. It’s the same sorry tale in business: only five CEOs of Britain's top 100 companies are women, and a man who starts his career with one of those companies is four-and-a-half times more likely to reach the executive committee than his female counterpart. There is a glimmer of hope: the actual number of women on boards of FTSE 100 companies has increased - now standing at over 20 per cent (up from 17.4 per cent in 2013) with just one all-male board remaining. But, closer inspection reveals that the majority of these are non-executive roles, and that the likelihood of women being appointed to executive positions is actually decreasing. This superficial surge is the result of pressure to meet the government-backed voluntary target of 25 per cent by 2015. Sadly, this is not a sustainable change. Why is this happening? If women are competent and hardworking enough to outpace men in school, why is it so difficult to keep up later on? The answer could be as simple as women not wanting the top jobs, to quote an article by FT columnist Luke Johnson published last month “ I suspect many smart women opt out at some point, realising that the rat race is mostly a foolish alpha male game that all too often only delivers heart attacks, disappointment and an arid personal life.” I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. That’s just too convenient. Women can be, and often are, just as ambitious as men at the start of their careers. The problem goes deeper. For decades, women have misunderstood an important law of the professional jungle. Simply having talent and working hard isn’t enough; confidence is a huge part of success and if you want to excel its essential. This is a theory voiced by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg in her controversial book, Lean In—which although slammed by feminists—rings true to me. The notion of a gender disparity in confidence, with men overestimating and women underestimating their abilities is not new. “Imposter Syndrome” whereby high-achieving women believe "they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise"—was first written about in 1978. A new book—The Confidence Code by two US-based female journalists lays out the theory that effectively women are responsible, on some level, for holding ourselves back. A whole host of other cultural and institutional factors feed into this – but underpinning it all is an endemic lack of self-belief. Take for example the negative behavioural patterns which women exhibit in the workplace. These include; an unwillingness to ask for more money; holding back in meetings; underestimating self-worth; citing luck as the reason for success; failing to put ourselves forward for promotion unless we are a) asked and b) 100% qualified (In my experience men will happily wing it). While we are paranoid about being perceived as “pushy”, men are happy to be seen as “ballsy”. Before I get accused of blaming the victim, let’s look at what can be done to close the confidence gap. We need to show solidarity and support each other, women can sometimes be each other’s fiercest critics - we need to praise those who have a flair for self-promotion and understand the political savvy it takes to get to the top. When other women label me a workaholic I’m aware it’s usually meant as an insult - the suggestion being that there is something inherently unfeminine in having such a single-minded focus. They can talk about their hair, nails and love lives ad infinitum but if I bring up work then I’m being “boring”. This bitchiness has to stop. The quota question still looms large - several European countries; Norway, France, Spain, Italy and now Germany - have gone down this route with govts setting mandatory targets for female representation way above the UK’s “voluntary” 25 per cent. The arguments against quotas are that they are patronising and unhelpful, and encourage the view women are unable to rise on their own merits. But as we have seen here—without them things move slowly. Quotas might be a quick fix but at least they get more women into leadership and in doing so create more female role models at the top. Couple that with a more long-term focus on opening up male-dominated subjects such as tech, engineering and science at an early stage in education and you have a recipe for progress. And what about the pregnancy problem? How much are our maternal instincts holding us back? A powerful new report, commissioned by female CEO Helena Morrissey, aimed at busting myths about women in leadership found that childbearing has a marginal but not significant impact on women’s career progression. While that is just one survey, it is encouraging. Next year sees the advent of shared parental leave, with mothers and fathers able to share their time off. This is a huge leap forward and could be transformative, as long as women are confident enough to take advantage of it. The fear of being labelled a “bad mother” for demonstrating a desire to return to work could hold us back. The tide is changing, we have made progress and this should be celebrated. But there is still work to be done. Women need to commit to not seeing ourselves as the victims, we need to hold our heads up high and push hard against the glass ceiling. Cracking the confidence code is the only real route to boardroom success.
