Why Women Are Devalued In Leadership Roles
The realm of commerce is a curious and bitter thing, where the worth of a house is judged not by its full coffers but by the gender of the lord who holds the seal. The maesters of the Citadel of Management have looked at the scrolls, scoured the ledgers of nearly 160 studies, and found a truth as cold as the winds of winter.
Though a queen may take the same risks and reap the same harvest as a king, the coin counters of the Exchange will value her golden dragons as if they were lead. This is the heart of the matter. The ledgers do not lie. The profits are the same. Yet investors, those lords of finance who play the great game from afar, harbor a deep and stubborn doubt, devaluing a house simply for having a woman upon its throne.
A woman is rarely granted a prosperous and peaceful kingdom.
Instead, the lords of the board offer her the poisoned chalice. They give her the crown only when the castle is already besieged, when the banners are tattered and the treasury is empty. Look to the annals. Mary Barra was handed the keys to the great House of Motors when its walls were already crumbling from recall and ruin.
Carly Fiorina was asked to unite the twin keeps of Hewlett and Packard, a house long engaged in a bitter civil war with itself. Marissa Mayer was made queen of the fading Yahoo! realm, a kingdom whose sun had long set, tasked with commanding the ghosts of a forgotten age. A man is given a thriving port to grow richer; a woman is given a burning fleet and told to quench the flames.
* A queen's profit is a king's profit, yet the coin counters of the Exchange weigh her gold as if it were lead. * To the woman they offer the broken throne, the crown of thorns, the command of a siege already lost. * For every twenty lords in the high council chambers, only one is a lady. The disparity is a song of long ages. * The climb is steep for all, but for a woman, the rungs of the ladder are greased with an ancient, unspoken mistrust.The numbers are a cold reckoning. The smallfolk are near evenly split, with half the banners in the field carried by women. Yet look to the high councils, the command tents where strategy is forged, and you will find the lords vastly outnumber the ladies. Barely a quarter of senior commands are held by women.
And the highest seat of all? The Iron Throne of the Chief Executive? In the great tourney of the S&P 500, only one in twenty competitors for that prize is a woman. The path to power is a perilous road for any who walk it, fraught with betrayal and sharp knives in the dark. But for a woman, that road is steeper still, and she must prove her worth a hundred times over, only to be handed a broken sword and a losing cause when she finally reaches the top.
In the realm of leadership, a chasm of disparity yawns wide, a gulf that separates the governed from those who govern, and one that is often bridged by the few who dare to challenge the status quo. The numbers are stark: women hold a mere 27% of leadership positions worldwide, a figure that has remained stubbornly static for years.
According to a report by the Parker Pioneer, this dearth of female representation in leadership roles is not merely a matter of equality, but of economic sense, as companies with more women in leadership positions tend to outperform their peers.
The reasons for this disparity are complex and multifaceted, a tangled web of societal norms, cultural biases, and institutional barriers that prevent women from ascending to leadership roles.
In many societies, women are socialized to prioritize family and caregiving responsibilities over professional ambitions, a choice that can limit their opportunities for advancement.
Women who do reach leadership positions often face a unique set of challenges, from sexism and harassment to scrutiny and skepticism.
As the Parker Pioneer notes, these obstacles can be daunting, but they also present an opportunity for organizations to rethink their approach to leadership and create a more inclusive and equitable environment.
Find other details related to this topic: Check hereWomen comprise about 47% of the U.S. workforce, yet they make up barely a quarter of all senior executives at large U.S. public companies.• • • •