Harvard Business Review Online | What’s Holding Women Back?

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What’s Holding Women Back?

As barriers shift, lack of line experience has become a chief

obstacle.

by Sheila Wellington, Marcia Brumit Kropf, and Paulette R. Gerkovich

Sheila Wellington is president of Catalyst, a nonprofit research and advisory organization based in New York.

Marcia Brumit Kropf is vice president of research and information services, and Paulette R. Gerkovich is

director of research at Catalyst.

Women are moving into the senior executive ranks. Consider Fortune 500 CEOs Carly Fiorina,

Anne Mulcahy, Patricia Russo, Marce Fuller, Andrea Jung, Eileen Scott, and Marion Sandler. The

problem is, these women are the only female Fortune 500 CEOs. Three years into the new

millennium, women make up more than half of the managerial and professional labor pool but

account for just over 1% of all Fortune 500 chief executives. What’s holding them back?

At Catalyst, a research and advisory organization committed to advancing women in business,

we track the representation of women in Fortune 500 corporate officer positions. According to

our annual census, women held just 8.7% of Fortune 500 corporate officer positions in 1995. By

2002, the percentage had nearly doubled to 15.7% – an increase, yes, though still a very small

number.

To understand the reasons for this slow progress, Catalyst recently surveyed Fortune 1000 CEOs

and women executives at the vice president level and above about the challenges women face in

advancing to the highest levels of corporate leadership. Clearly, the problem isn’t lack of

ambition. Less than one-third of the 120 CEOs (almost all male) and the 705 female executives

who responded consider a lack of desire to advance to senior levels a barrier to women’s

advancement. Of those executive women not already at the very top, 55% said they aspire to

the most senior leadership levels.

Our survey did show that executive women and CEOs tend to perceive the barriers to

advancement differently. But on one measure they plainly agree: Lack of general management

or line experience is the primary obstacle, cited by 79% of women and 90% of CEOs. (See the

exhibit “Barriers to Advancement: The Perception Gap.”) CEOs consistently tell us that when

seeking successors – particularly for chairman and CEO slots – they look for people with high-

level profit-and-loss experience.

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Harvard Business Review Online | What’s Holding Women Back?

Catalyst’s 2002 census indicates that men still dominate these senior line positions. Although

the number of women corporate officers holding line positions increased from 20% in 1997 to

nearly 30% in 2002, men still hold nine out of ten of these jobs in the Fortune 500. (See the pie

chart “Lagging in Line Positions.”) Thus, in 2003, the pool from which a CEO might draw

successors is overwhelmingly male.

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Harvard Business Review Online | What’s Holding Women Back?

Of course, many women move into powerful staff positions to meet their personal career

aspirations. However, we believe that many women don’t rise into senior line positions because

they aren’t aware that such positions are open to them, or if they are, they may be discouraged

from pursuing these roles by colleagues and superiors who don’t feel that women can perform

well in them. Or, they simply aren’t on the slate when succession decisions are made.

Catalyst’s recent survey suggests a multitude of individual, cultural, and organizational factors

that executive women feel block their advancement. And it exposes some of the deep disparities

between female executives’ and CEOs’ perceptions about the barriers to women’s advancement.

A clear majority of the female executives surveyed cite numerous barriers: exclusion from

informal networks, stereotyping, lack of mentoring, shortage of role models, commitment to

personal or family responsibilities, lack of accountability on the part of senior leadership, and

limited opportunities for visibility. CEOs also acknowledge these obstacles but in many cases

seem less convinced of their significance. CEOs also appear to put substantially more weight

than female executives do on these barriers in particular: women’s ineffective leadership style

and their lack of skills to reach senior levels. (See again the exhibit “Barriers to Advancement:

The Perception Gap.”) These differences are especially noteworthy because although three-

quarters of the women respondents are within two reporting levels of the CEO, stereotypes

about women’s abilities still persist.

Such data remind us that the glass-ceiling metaphor, though often used, is oversimplified. Our

studies suggest there are glass walls as well – lateral barriers that limit women’s job potential

almost from the beginning of their careers. The pipeline no longer seems to be the primary

problem. The main issue appears to be top leadership’s failure to ensure that women get the

profit-and-loss experience that would qualify them for the most senior positions. About two-

thirds of women and more than half of the CEOs surveyed agree that the failure of senior

leadership to assume accountability for women’s advancement is a key barrier.

Some companies stand out in their aggressive and effective efforts to change business-culture

norms and move women into leadership roles. (To see a list of these Catalyst Award winners, go

to www.catalystwomen.org.) Though these companies have varying strategies, they share a

commitment from the very top. The enlightened CEO builds a strategic vision and business case

for gender diversity, sets concrete goals to meet those commitments, holds management

accountable for achieving diversity goals, reports on progress, participates visibly in diversity

events, and takes every opportunity to communicate these commitments down through the

ranks. He (and it is still usually he) uses the bully pulpit to its full advantage. The key to

women’s advancement rests squarely with him.

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Harvard Business Review Online | What’s Holding Women Back?

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