VIEWPOINTS : UP AGAINST A WORKING WOMEN GLASS CEILING

“We’ve made scads of progress,” said a woman who has reached the ranks of upper management in a large corporation. “There are more women in the organization to draw on, and the culture accepts women now. As even more women come in, even more assimilation will occur. My theory is that time will heal all wounds.”

“Yes,” replied her young lunch companion. “But I’ll be dead by then.”

Young women are being encouraged to set their sights on top corporate positions and “go for it.” They are often told that since a few women have reached the general management level, where they are responsible for several functions or units of a business, the road to the top is now paved and ready for them. Unfortunately, that advice is based more on hope, sometimes even hype, than reality. Women are still not contenders for the top jobs in America’s largest corporations.

In a three-year study completed in 1986 by the Center for Creative Leadership, executive women and some of their superiors were interviewed in depth to evaluate their progress toward the top of Fortune 100 companies and other corporations of similar size. The center concluded that there is still a glass ceiling that bars most women from high-level posts involving general management responsibility.

Further, there is also a very sturdy wall that continues to keep all women from the positions at the very top of their companies, positions such as president or executive vice president. In other words, even those who have broken through the glass ceiling face dim prospects for achieving yet higher posts.

The extent of the barriers women face in these large companies became immediately apparent when we began the study and had great difficulty even finding enough female executives to interview. Our goal was to compare these results with those from an earlier study by the center that included interviews with 78 male executives from three Fortune 100 corporations. We finally identified nearly as many women at the same management level, but they were spread over 25 corporations.

The scarcity of women in true executive-level positions concerns many who believe that time should have made more of a difference by now. What about all those women who were brought into their companies in professional and management jobs over the past decades? Some reasonable percentage of those were supposed to advance once a critical mass had been achieved. Why didn’t that happen?

After interviewing 100 executives, a group consisting of women executives and some of their bosses, we found that a larger, tougher set of rules is applied to women climbing the corporate management ladder. We heard from one executive after another--men and women--that the standards for success are higher for women than for men. Senior executives described women who had “better leadership skills than some of the men who make it” or overall were “much better than the guy who was previously in her job.”

It’s not enough to work hard and work smart, according to many executives, because even the most trivial transgression could be perceived as failure and render the lethal blow to a woman’s career. Even being consistently outstanding in performance isn’t enough to ensure a bright future.

Women are expected to be at least as good as men at what are perceived to be male attributes--they must be tough, decisive, independent, risk-taking and goal-driven. At the same time, women also must show competence in attributes stereotypically associated with women. In other words, they must be demure and unassuming, even attractive.

The result of all these rules is a very narrow band of acceptable behavior that is extremely difficult to maintain without being labeled and dismissed as either too macho or too feminine.

While the criteria are stiffer and the pressure is greater for women, the payoff is smaller. Recent salary surveys show that women--even in management posts--are paid less than male peers, and their benefit packages pale in comparison.

Most of the women interviewed believe that they would have moved faster and higher and be paid more if they were men. Also, more than one-third of these women said they had fought distinct acts of discrimination including denial of pay increases, promotions, challenging assignments and educational opportunities.

Is it any wonder that high-ranking women are discouraged, frustrated, even angry?

Most of the female general managers in our study see limits on their career progress. The dues they’ve already paid will not break down the wall between them and the top management circle. Some freely acknowledged their plans to join the increasing number of women who are opting out of the corporate climb to start and run their own businesses.

Some of the best and brightest are abandoning their corporations, leaving a gap that may or may not be filled with other women.

As one executive put it: “I don’t think there will be any women vice presidents at this company in my lifetime. But even if there is--ultimately one woman always gets through--the problem is that 99% don’t.”

The situation is precarious for the women who have already achieved a high level in management and for women who are still working toward the top. Their role models are teetering on the brink of derailment, or opting out, or are too exhausted to give much support.

The government pressure that opened doors for more than half of the women in our study is not taken as seriously anymore, perhaps leaving women to fend for themselves with little better odds than their predecessors had.

The younger men replacing those at retirement age in the top corporate jobs may not be the strong allies for which many women are hoping. They will quite possibly regard talented women as competitors and choose to weaken the competition.

Women need to know that they will be fighting the same battles their predecessors fought, because the world has not changed so much. Rather than wait for a new generation of executives to take care of the problem, those now in charge should ensure that equal opportunities are provided for women.

Programs are needed that help alert and prepare women (and men) for the standards used to judge their potential, along with programs to help women handle the enormous pressure.

Many things need to be done by many people if we are to improve the prospects for the coming generations of women who want to reach the top of corporate America. We must resist the temptation to let time do our work for us.