http://detnews.com/article/20111020/OPINION03/110200388/Berman--Glass-ceiling-regains-strength
In this article, the bottom line is that to this day, women are still considered a risky business investment. With the turbulent economy and poor job market a rise in conservatism has been evident. One of the most telling facts of this is the statistic about how in 2003 38% of companies in the automotive, technology, and life sciences and services industries had no women on their boards. As of last week, that number is up to 64% of those companies have no women on the board.
The argument for getting more women on the board is the evidence that diversity in the board tens to add to the bottom line. Unfortunately, while research shows that diversity in leadership leads to higher profits there is still a large deficiency in women being placed in those leadership roles. This is clear evidence of uncertainty overriding good judgement. Especially when evidence suggests that a diverse board is far better for improving the bottom line. Also, an improved bottom line is better for companies as it allows them further funds to grow and expand in ways that would be beneficial to the longevity of the company.
It is sad to see that in times of economic turmoil, people will tend to revert to methods they're more comfortable with even though it may not be the best thing for everyone. What needs to happen is for the women who are in those positions of power to start pointing out all the benefits of a diverse leadership group in the different organizations. This lack of unified leadership among women is likely what is holding them back as equal members of the top rung on the corporate ladder. Once an organized group forms and starts to push the research and information about the benefits of a diverse board and executive pool then and only then will people stop viewing the promotion of women to top ranking positions as a "risk".
-Geoffrey Ali
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Women Still Missing From Top Jobs
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2010/gb2010039_514157.htm
The World Economic Forum (WEF) published a report criticizing companies around the world for lacking women in the workforce. In the UK the prime minister comments that it is "unacceptable" that some companies in the UK have no women represented on their boards. He also states that the UK might have to take legal action to correct this problem. Even worse out of the 200 companies researched in this study (spanning over 20 countries) less than 5% had women chief executives. Also, the pay gap between men and women has not gotten any smaller. At an average of 18% difference in pay, and up to 40% difference in pay in senior level positions, women are grossly being under payed. Also, the WEF said that 72% of the companies surveyed did not even track the difference in men and women's pay.
These statistics are appalling. Companies in America and all around the world claim they are making progress, or even that women and men are on an even playing field. If this were true more women would occupy senior level positions, the pay difference would be smaller, and more companies would be aware of these issues.
Most women are concentrated in entry and middle-level jobs and remain limited in senior level positions all over the world and in every industry, with the exception of Norway. Norway has over 40% women occupying board positions, due to regulation. This is a testament that government regulation would help women get those senior level positions.
The article states that more than half of all graduates are women, this being said, companies are missing out on a huge talent pool. Also, looking at this issue from a staffing perspective the workforce does not represent the customer base, which may have adverse impact on business for companies.
I believe business's around the world need to recognize the huge opportunity that women offer. That is, the opportunity to maximize knowledge in the workforce, and maximize profitability. I also think that government needs to take a more active role in allowing women to get those senior level positions.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Shattering Glass Ceilings: Wal-Mart and Novartis Lawsuits
This article talks about the Equal Pay Act that was supposed to end gender discrimination in the workplace. This has obviously not ended gender biases; women continue to earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn on the job. This article talks about the lawsuits filed against Novartis pharmaceutical company. This company had been listed as one of the top 100 companies to work by Working Mother magazine. Novartis had discriminated against its female employees in pay and promotions for at least five years, from 2002-2007. This company was very discriminatory against women due to their motherhood duties. The examples mentioned in this article sadden me that things like this happen in the workplace in the United States.
As mentioned in Chapter 13 in our textbook Leadership, there are a number of reasons on why to remove barriers of ethnics, racial minorities, and women discrimination in the workplace. First, this allows an opportunity for everyone to have equal opportunity in taking on any leadership role. Second, this increases the pool of potential candidates and makes it possible to find the most qualified person for the job. Third, this makes businesses and government more representative. Next, more diversity increases productivity. Last, research has shown that women in leadership roles have increased financial performance (NorthHouse 306). These are some of the many reasons why to focus on decreasing and ultimately eliminating biases in the workplace. Are there any reasons to eliminate biases in the workplace that you can think of, Thoughts?
Back in 1940, Eleanor Roosevelt said, “In government, in business, and in professions there may be a day when women will be looked upon as persons. We are, however, far from that day as yet.” We have certainly made steps in the right direction to recognize women as a knowledgeable, educated individual. These steps are shown through the Equal Pay Act, more and more women having careers beyond being a stay at home mother, nearly 60% of women earn bachelors and masters degrees, etc. Even though we as a nation have made progress there is still much discrimination based on pay and point blank racism in many organizations in business. The factors that support discrimination are women receive less education, become mothers, less work experience, and have fewer development opportunities (NorthHouse 304). Regardless if you receive this information as true or false, it is just unfair to all the smart females in this country that are not taken serious by employers. As women face a “glass ceiling”, men appear to have a “glass escalator” in their way to the top. It is an extreme challenge for women to overcome all of these obscene barriers.
Stereotypes affect the way employers look at women. Women are viewed as having the characteristics of concern for others, sensitivity, warmth, helpfulness, and nurturing. As men are viewed with the characteristics of confidence, assertiveness, independence, rationality, and decisiveness. Many of the characteristics that are looked for when promoting someone are those that men typically have. Employers should never stereotype by sex or any other way because each person has their own characteristics, but if fair or not this is what happens in many organizations. Women can try to overcome this stereotype by adapting a transformational style of leadership. This leadership style helps females maintain their femininity while adapting attributes of power, assertiveness, confidence etc (NorthHouse 311). Is there another style of leadership that women can use to increase their chances of becoming noticed by employers? Or other traits or behaviors they can adopt?
A question that arises in this article is discrimination is illegal so why does it persist? The reasons that are mentioned are it is more cost effective and lack of knowledge of the salary difference between genders. I believe that discrimination still persists due to there will always be people in an organization that are discriminatory against a certain race, gender, ethnicity, etc. Discrimination will never completely go away due to certain individuals that break the rule of ethics. I believe discrimination is a question of ethics. Morally this issue is wrong and should not be a practice in organizations such as Novartis. Does anyone else have an opinion about why discrimination is such a problem in companies such as; Wal-Mart and Novartis pharmaceutical?
-Mitchell Terry
Friday, October 21, 2011
Ways Women Stunt Their Careers Unintentionally
Ways Women Stunt Their Careers Unintentionally
This article talks about ways that women compare to men in their self-confidence in the work place. It is no surprise that women tend to have lower self-esteem, but showing a connection between that and the work place never occurred to me. The study narrowed it down to 4 main problems that women find themselves in, in the workplace. These 4 categories are being overly modest, not asking, blending in, and remaining silent. These categories include things like not asking for promotions, not showing their accomplishments, not speaking up in the board room and overall not standing out.
All of these things made me think of the small debate we had in class over authentic leadership. A lot of the characteristics talked about in the article regarded being modest. If you are authentically a modest person, and don't like being in the spotlight for your accomplishments it could be seen as a great personality trait. However, in the work place its not a good thing, because you don't get recognized for your work and it can go unnoticed by not only your boss, but by your coworkers as well. This could be a very definite reason a lot of women can't seem to break the glass ceiling. Could this also be a downfall in authentic leadership or no, because if they are modest they will never truly be leaders?
This article also made me ponder complexity theory. Considering there is never a true leader with this theory do you think it could just be a lot of modest leaders that never come out of the woodwork and take credit? I mean someone has to be behind those movements, or is it really a self organizing system?
Overall, do you guys think that a modest women could be a leader or must it take confidence? This clearly goes back to the trait theory in chapter 2. Does it take certain traits to be a leader or can a modest leader that has fantastic accomplishments rise to power and break the glass ceiling?
-Danielle Sparacino
This article talks about ways that women compare to men in their self-confidence in the work place. It is no surprise that women tend to have lower self-esteem, but showing a connection between that and the work place never occurred to me. The study narrowed it down to 4 main problems that women find themselves in, in the workplace. These 4 categories are being overly modest, not asking, blending in, and remaining silent. These categories include things like not asking for promotions, not showing their accomplishments, not speaking up in the board room and overall not standing out.
All of these things made me think of the small debate we had in class over authentic leadership. A lot of the characteristics talked about in the article regarded being modest. If you are authentically a modest person, and don't like being in the spotlight for your accomplishments it could be seen as a great personality trait. However, in the work place its not a good thing, because you don't get recognized for your work and it can go unnoticed by not only your boss, but by your coworkers as well. This could be a very definite reason a lot of women can't seem to break the glass ceiling. Could this also be a downfall in authentic leadership or no, because if they are modest they will never truly be leaders?
This article also made me ponder complexity theory. Considering there is never a true leader with this theory do you think it could just be a lot of modest leaders that never come out of the woodwork and take credit? I mean someone has to be behind those movements, or is it really a self organizing system?
Overall, do you guys think that a modest women could be a leader or must it take confidence? This clearly goes back to the trait theory in chapter 2. Does it take certain traits to be a leader or can a modest leader that has fantastic accomplishments rise to power and break the glass ceiling?
-Danielle Sparacino
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Something other than the glass ceiling holding back doctors..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/22/women-doctors-top-nhs-jobs
The article talks about women in the medical profession reaching a glass ceiling in the senior positions. The twist with this article that I found interesting is that women were the one's primarily keeping back complete equality. There is still the issue where women are being paid less than men (18% less), but the writer of the article feels that women are just not pushing themselves forward. As of this article, 56% of the medical school graduates are female, and 59% of the medical workforce are women, but only 28% of those women are medical consultants.
Women have indeed come a long way in the medical field. Back in the 19th century, women weren't even allowed to go to medical school and today they have a shot at high ranking positions within the medical community. At the end of the article there is an anecdote about one female doctor who climbed the ladder the hard way and once she got to the top and started to have kids, she stated that she regretted not being able to spend more time with her kids when they were infants.
How this relates to our class and leadership is that while there is a lack of leading female physicians in high ranking positions, this is not entirely due to the glass ceiling holding them down. There is also a distinct lack of forward momentum pushing women up towards the top. With the statistics being presented in this article, women not only make up enough of a percentage to be able to attain these higher positions, but also start to demand and receive compensation that would be equal to their male counterparts. It really just seems like it is only just a matter of time until the right people start to make those forward pushes and we start to see complete equality in the medical field.
-Geoffrey Ali
The article talks about women in the medical profession reaching a glass ceiling in the senior positions. The twist with this article that I found interesting is that women were the one's primarily keeping back complete equality. There is still the issue where women are being paid less than men (18% less), but the writer of the article feels that women are just not pushing themselves forward. As of this article, 56% of the medical school graduates are female, and 59% of the medical workforce are women, but only 28% of those women are medical consultants.
Women have indeed come a long way in the medical field. Back in the 19th century, women weren't even allowed to go to medical school and today they have a shot at high ranking positions within the medical community. At the end of the article there is an anecdote about one female doctor who climbed the ladder the hard way and once she got to the top and started to have kids, she stated that she regretted not being able to spend more time with her kids when they were infants.
How this relates to our class and leadership is that while there is a lack of leading female physicians in high ranking positions, this is not entirely due to the glass ceiling holding them down. There is also a distinct lack of forward momentum pushing women up towards the top. With the statistics being presented in this article, women not only make up enough of a percentage to be able to attain these higher positions, but also start to demand and receive compensation that would be equal to their male counterparts. It really just seems like it is only just a matter of time until the right people start to make those forward pushes and we start to see complete equality in the medical field.
-Geoffrey Ali
South Korea Making Baby Steps to Equality
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_16/b4080058309099.htm
This article describes the situation in South Korea with women entering the workforce. I found some interesting parallels with our current recession and South Korea's financial crisis. Many women in America are now entering into the business world with staggering numbers due to the fact that men are losing their jobs and women are stepping in to make money for their families. The same thing is happening in South Korea. "Thousands of men lost their jobs and took salary cuts" so women stepped in to work from home, and other job positions. Now the government has banned gender discrimination in the work place.
This is refreshing to see even in a country that still believes the man should be over the woman, that women are finally able to compete alongside the men. There are still issues, however. Again there are some parallels with the U.S. For example, one woman said she had to put 120% more effort than her male counterparts in order to get ahead. This is frustrating that the same mistakes are being made all over again. The men use the excuse that women are not aggressive enough, so they do not get promoted as much. The men in S. Korea need to look at the women in the U.S. and they need to see how we rose to where we are. They need to understand they are wrong. Women can display the same aggressive attitude to their work that men can. I also want to point out that the same qualities that are said to make a good male manager, do not work with women managers. When women display these qualities they are seen as to aggressive. I foresee that the women in S. Korea will have to go through the same thing that women in America are going though now. It is a long road to success, but hopefully it is a road taken.
I am happy to see progress is being made, however. My recommendation to the women in S. Korea is to keep working hard. Do what it takes to get ahead, and prove the men wrong. We as women have to work harder and play by the boys rules in order to get ahead. Unfortunately this is the best we can do until things get better. Some women may think that I am wrong for saying we need to play by the boys rules, but I think that they are naive to think that they can walk in and change the system overnight. Again, unfortunately, this is the best we can do right now.
Anna Swacker
This article describes the situation in South Korea with women entering the workforce. I found some interesting parallels with our current recession and South Korea's financial crisis. Many women in America are now entering into the business world with staggering numbers due to the fact that men are losing their jobs and women are stepping in to make money for their families. The same thing is happening in South Korea. "Thousands of men lost their jobs and took salary cuts" so women stepped in to work from home, and other job positions. Now the government has banned gender discrimination in the work place.
This is refreshing to see even in a country that still believes the man should be over the woman, that women are finally able to compete alongside the men. There are still issues, however. Again there are some parallels with the U.S. For example, one woman said she had to put 120% more effort than her male counterparts in order to get ahead. This is frustrating that the same mistakes are being made all over again. The men use the excuse that women are not aggressive enough, so they do not get promoted as much. The men in S. Korea need to look at the women in the U.S. and they need to see how we rose to where we are. They need to understand they are wrong. Women can display the same aggressive attitude to their work that men can. I also want to point out that the same qualities that are said to make a good male manager, do not work with women managers. When women display these qualities they are seen as to aggressive. I foresee that the women in S. Korea will have to go through the same thing that women in America are going though now. It is a long road to success, but hopefully it is a road taken.
I am happy to see progress is being made, however. My recommendation to the women in S. Korea is to keep working hard. Do what it takes to get ahead, and prove the men wrong. We as women have to work harder and play by the boys rules in order to get ahead. Unfortunately this is the best we can do until things get better. Some women may think that I am wrong for saying we need to play by the boys rules, but I think that they are naive to think that they can walk in and change the system overnight. Again, unfortunately, this is the best we can do right now.
Anna Swacker
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Hillary Clinton's Leadership Style
I found this article on the Washington post site. It is about the leadership style that Hillary Clinton used during her democratic campaign for president. It shows how she personally related to average American citizens in the United States. It relates to a number of leadership issues that we have studied and are going to study throughout the semester.
Hillary Clinton is a determined, strong willed and emotional human being. Throughout Mrs. Clinton's early career she has been known as a stern, strong willed woman who had to take on the masculine style of leadership to persevere in the politician society. Hillary’s emotional side was exposed in a public press conference in New Hampshire.
Hillary Clinton showed her true emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and express emotions, to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand and reason with emotions, and showing that someone is capable of emotions. Hillary Clinton broke out of her shell and showed that she could connect with the average woman in the United States.
Hillary Clinton had to show her true self to be a contender for the presidency in 2008. Hillary Clinton was using the authentic style of leadership, which will be talked about later this semester. Authentic leaders exhibit their genuine selves. Hillary Clinton showed us many of the characteristics of an authentic leader. She illustrated her passion for the United States by believing in herself and showing true passion for this country. She also presented examples in her speeches of her own life that compared to life experiences of the average woman in America. Her life stories showed her deep connectedness towards the women in this country. Hillary Clinton ultimately had to adapt to the situation and change her leadership style to have a chance of becoming the first female president in United States history.
My question to the group is did Hillary Clinton’s authentic leadership style help you feel a connection to her while she run for president? And did this make a difference in your vote for president? Or have you known an authentic leader in your life and if so did you like their leadership style and why?
-Mitchell Terry-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)