Senior Women Executives and the Culture of Management
29-30 November 2004
The two-day conference on Senior Women Executives and the Culture of Management organised by ATN WEXDEV and the UTS School of Management in Sydney on 29 and 30 November was extremely successful, with 170 attending, including delegates from all ATN universities, other Australian universities, public and private sector organisations. The conference was organised to highlight a WEXDEV-based major research project on Senior Women Executives and the Cultures of Management [.pdf] (PDF), (Chesterman, Ross-Smith and Peters), which looked at 19 organisations, including 5 universities, 12 public sector agencies across Australia and 2 financial institutions, all of them with 30% of senior positions filled by women. It was intended to hear from others interested in the impact of women senior executives on organisational cultures.
How do women get into senior positions?
The first session featured leading US academic Joanne Martin, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Sociology from Stanford University. She reported on recent research she had undertaken on how the proportion of women in the workplace profoundly influenced workplace culture. She found that:
- when women comprised under 20% of workers at any level they could suffer unequal treatment.
- A 'tipping point' was reached when women formed 20 to 40% of the workforce, when women started to break the glass ceiling, move into male territory, identify common interests, work as a group, and make demands. This could make men defensive, or give the women power to change things eg by questioning hostile cultures or long-hours or gender inequalities in pay and promotion.
- At a second tipping point of 40 to 60% women, people relaxed, awareness of gender issues tended to disappear, and workplace morale soared for both women and men.
- In big organisations it was important for women to hold at least two of the most senior executive positions to show a firm's commitment to women's advancement.
Professor Martin warned that female-dominated organisations (over 60%) were marked by lower prestige and pay. For the purposes of teaching executive women, she suggested using Executive Women at Link.com teaching case, published by Harvard Business School Press. For details contact Colleen Chesterman of ATN WEXDEV. See Joanne Martin's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
In the next session we heard from two senior women. Leading businesswomen Cathy O'Connor, Managing Director, Metropolitan Radio, DMG Radio Australia, and Professor Jeanette Hacket, DVC Curtin University of Technology, described how they had reached their positions, the balance they had developed between work and family, the critically important support they had received from senior men encouraging them, and the importance of taking risks in order to test out senior roles. See Jeanette Hacket's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
Giam Swiegers, CEO of Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu, recently named by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency as most promising person for the advancement of women, described his commitment to enhancing women's participation at senior levels in his organisation. As a leader he had introduced a women's initiative, which included giving women seen as high-potential the opportunity to define their own individual flexible working conditions. Following this, Associate Professor Anne Ross-Smith, Head of the UTS School of Management and chief investigator in the research project, summarised the findings on women's career paths, highlighting the gradual disappearance of blatant gender discrimination, but also the tendency for women to be reticent about applying for senior positions. See Anne Ross-Smith's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
How can organisations ensure that they are encouraging women to enter senior positions?
In the afternoon 3 women executives reported on how organisations support women to get them into senior positions:
Ilana Atlas, Group Executive, People & Performance at Westpac and one of 2 women on its 8 person executive pointed out that women, not being stupid, go to where they are supported. She used examples of the treatment of maternity leave in 2 different organisations over the past 30 years to show how firms that wanted to get the best talent available and to retain people whom they had trained had to be more flexible and offer adequate flexible working conditions. She saw this as "following the business case". She pointed out that generation Y are also seeking flexibility. See Ilana Atlas's speech [.pdf] for more information.
Jan Andrews, Deputy Commissioner for Public Employment in South Australia described the numerous initiatives taken over the past 25 years by the state public services to increase the proportion of women in senior positions.
Professor Angela Hildyard, Vice-President, Human Resources and Equity, at the University of Toronto, described an extensive portfolio of programs offered by this large university to support women including explicit commitment by the CEO, encouragement of work/life balance, networking and mentoring. See Angela Hildyard's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
Following this, Dr Margaret Peters, UniSA, another chief investigator, summarised the research project findings, which also underlined the importance of CEO support, of having a critical mass of senior women, of networking, of explicit values and of flexibility. See Margaret Peters' presentation [.pdf] for more information.
In the final session, Chief Executive Women representatives, Jillian Broadbent, previously from Bankers Trust, and Di Ryall, the former managing director of Apple, described for the first time a CEW program in which they worked with 4 firms to mentor 16 emerging women executives, so as to increase rates of retention and promotion of senior female talent. They stressed the importance of monitoring gender data (What gets measured gets done!); their findings supported previous suggestions that women hesitate to put themselves forward and that the need for more flexibility in workplaces is important for all (including Generation Y). See Jillian Broadbent and Diana Ryall's presentation [.pdf] and information about the CEW mentoring program [.pdf].
The dinner speaker Helen Trinca editor of AFR BOSS magazine gave a lively and amusing presentation on what women wanted from work, based on reactions to her recent book Better Than Sex (Random House, 2004).
What are the particular qualities that women bring to senior management?
Sue Vardon who until recently headed Centrelink and is about to take up a role as chief executive of South Australia's Families and Communities Department spoke compellingly about how well women are equipped to handle senior management roles. She spoke of how Centrelink had been turned around by her commitment to relating directly to front-line workers and trusting them. For more information on Sue Vardon's views, see her interview in Chief Executives Unplugged (EOWA, 2003).
Dr Colleen Chesterman then introduced a debate among academics as to whether women did manage differently. She warned that the WEXDEV research showed that both men and women had very stereotyped views of how men and women managed. The research in 19 organisations where women held around 30% of senior positions, hence were in a critical mass in powerful positions, showed that both genders saw women as more collaborative, consultative and more focussed on staff needs. In 2 of the organisations however a change in business fortunes had seen the re-emergence of more traditional hierarchical management styles and the departure of many women. See Colleen Chesterman's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
Professor Judy Wajcman, ANU, discussed how her research, published as Managing Like a Man, had shown there was often quite a gap between what women say and how they actually behave. Managers are aware of current management theory, which supports collaboration, but often this is not practised. When there are organisational problems, such as redundancy, these, rather than gender, determine management culture and style. She warned that gender discrimination was deep-seated: men who are consensual and co-operative are rewarded for it whereas women are seen as lacking in authority. For more information on Judy Wajcman's views, see her book Managing Like a Man (Allen & Unwin 1999)
Dr Joan Eveline, UWA, described her recent research, published as Ivory Basement Leadership (UWA, 2004), which showed that a female Vice-Chancellor had been able to introduce different collaborative forms of leadership. She warned that most women in universities still worked in 'the ivory basement' in jobs that were undervalued. See Joan Eveline's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
Professor Bob Connell and Dr Toni Schofield, University of Sydney, reported on their recent research on the impact of gender on the development of public policy, and warned that gendered patterns and regimes and their relationship to structures of power and authority were the major determinants in developing policies that were sympathetic to women. See their presentation [.pdf] for more information.
On the contentious issue of how to get more women onto boards, Professor Susan Vinnicombe, Director of the Centre for Developing Women Business Leaders at Cranfield School of Management, UK presented her latest research on the FTSE top 100 companies showing the continuing difficulties facing women operating at, or striving to reach, Boards. See Susan Vinnicombe's presentation [.pdf] for more information. Poor though the UK figures were, Sydney-based expert Jane Bridge showed that in Australia's top 500 listed companies women held just 5.7% of board positions, and that there had been little progress in the past decade. See Jane Bridge's paper [.pdf] for more information.
Dr Judith Pringle (University of Auckland) then discussed the situation in NZ where women are in powerful positions. Although there has been an increase in senior numbers in many fields, progress is slow, sex segregation continues and women in senior positions still grapple to increase the proportion of women. See Judith Pringle's presentation [.pdf] for more information.
Facing Challenges:
In the final session on Tuesday afternoon Kathleen Conlon from The Boston Consulting Group and Mette Schepers from Esanda Finance revealed how they overcame challenges to get into executive positions. They emphasised the importance of role models and mentors, and the need to take up challenges, rather than feeling unconfident.
Anna McPhee, Director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency acknowledged that women are still greatly underrepresented in senior management positions across Australia but described the impact of EOWA's work and their Business Achievement Awards in improving companies' performance. See Anna McPhee's presentation for more information.
Dr Michelle Ryan, an Australian now a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK described her current research on what she characterised as 'The Glass Cliff', the tendency for women to be appointed to senior positions when organisations are already in trouble. See Michelle Ryan's presentation and a paper by Ryan and Haslam [.pdf].
Professor Pat Barker and Professor Kathy Monks from Dublin City University described the research on women struggling to succeed as Chartered Accountants. See their presentation [.pdf] for more information.
Finally Pru Goward Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner gave a wonderful summary of the conference urging women to take inspiration from the speakers and speed up the changes underway in Australian organisations. Her paper is available from HREOC.
In Summary, throughout the conference a number of findings were highlighted:
Reticence: It was widely agreed that women were much less likely than men to apply for senior positions unless they were absolutely certain they had all necessary qualifications.
CEO support: This was a crucial factor in encouraging women to apply.
Critical mass: A number of women in powerful positions encouraged women to feel part of a group and established good conditions for networking as well as being role models.
Networking and mentoring: These were vitally important in promoting women.
Flexibility: Women's family responsibilities made it important for organisations to introduce flexible working arrangements.
Women manage differently: Both men and women believed that women encouraged collaboration, consultation, team-work and respect for fellow-workers.
Change has taken place: but the pace is still glacially slow.
The conference received excellent media coverage with reports in the Sydney Morning Herald on two separate days and columns in the Australian Financial Review. There were a number of interviews and reports on radio.
There were also highly enthusiastic reports from participants:
From a senior executive in Freehills Solicitors: 'There were three delegates from Freehills, of which I was one. All of us thoroughly enjoyed the conference and as two of us are managing a national project to maximise the success of women at Freehills (and to increase the number of female partners and leaders) the majority of the presentations were particularly relevant. It is rare that I go to a conference that I can't find sessions that I am prepared to miss so that I can duck back to the office. I haven't read e-mails, hardly returned calls and have done no other work for the last two days - a rare phenomenon at Freehills! Given the quality of the line-up, I was very surprised that there weren't more private sector participants - their loss.'
From a member of Chief Executive Women: 'Thank you for a stimulating 2 days - great speakers - my head was spinning at the end.'
From the principal of a Queensland private school: 'The speakers were excellent and I came away with a number of key ideas to think about implementing in a number of forums - both in the school and in other forums.'
From a senior Queensland public servant: 'Thank you for the fantastic Senior Executive Women and the Cultures of Management - I found every session highly valuable for my work here and made some worthwhile contacts too.'