New Study Notes Success Indicators of Female High-Achievers
Was Carly Fiorina’s experience unique or are there influences and success factors that female high achievers have in common? How do young girls become business leaders?
The “Becoming Leaders: Female Achievers” study,2 (see graphs below) conducted in February 2012 among female high achievers, provides new insights into how we can help girls get the tools they need to be successful. In this research, high achievement was determined based on senior leadership status (CEOs, vice presidents and business owners). Respondents came from across the country and from various industries. While connections, education, mentors were shown to be factors of success, there was no magic bullet. When asked, women attributed their success to a variety of factors. Their responses offer key insights:
· “Being willing—and able—to make company/job changes along the way; personal/professional drive; desire for work-life balance usually not found in corporate America.”
· “Basic characteristics of having insight, reading others well, strong emotional intelligence.”
· “Willingness to take risks and be comfortable with ambiguity and the unknown.”
· “Values, character, intelligence.”
· “Pure responsibility. Too much at risk to fail.”
As in Fiorina’s case, numerous factors contributed to the rise and success of every woman and each journey was unique. Still, certain success indicators were undeniable and patterns appeared that may help the next generation of females find greater achievement in the workplace.
Success Starts Early
If parents, educators and society want to help girls achieve, they need to start early. The research indicates that female achievers are typically identified prior to college and often prior to high school. For 82% of female achievers, their first significant leadership experience takes place before college while 37% felt that their leadership in grade school and middle school were significant. Success breeds confidence and greater confidence leads to more risk taking, more challenging roles and even greater achievement.
Mentors and Role Models
High-achieving business women often do not rely on the image of womanhood from their formative years for their career achievement. For 70% of high achievers, their mothers did not work during their childhood while 26% came from dual income families. When it came to career encouragement, fathers were the predominant source of support among 44% of survey respondents. Mothers came in fourth after husbands and friends.
However, as young women entered the workforce, many of them found mentors to provide business role models. Overall, 59% of female high achievers had at least one mentor; female mentors were reported by 37% of respondents while another 22% had male mentors. Thirty percent of respondents had both male and female mentors. Since women constituted only 16.1 percent of board seats and 14.1 percent of executive officer positions (including a pale 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs) in 20113, women who want mentors need to look for male and female role models in the corporate setting.
High-achieving women also report another type of role model—business owners. Fifty-nine percent of female achievers noted that their father or mother owned a business, 75% and 25%, respectively. Fifteen percent of respondents were business owners themselves. Nineteen percent reported that more than one family member-father, mother, sibling-owned a business. Apparently, success is a family thing. Children learn what they see modeled at home.
The End of the Carpool?
“You see, women are brought up from the time they are six years old to read books, eat candy and go to dancing lessons. They can’t compete against men. They’re not used to competition. Maybe it will change someday. But not now.” – Commentator Gene Scott, 1973, on the upcoming tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Ms. King defeated Riggs leading to new respect for women in sports.
In the nearly 40 years since Scott’s statement, Title IX was enacted to provide more funding for high school and collegiate sports for women. Girls responded by entering nearly every sports in droves. Has the competitive playing field helped girls prepare for the competitive workforce?
Some research indicates it has. “Using a complex analysis, Dr. [Betsey] Stevenson showed that increasing girls’ sports participation had a direct effect on women’s education and employment. She found that the changes set in motion by Title IX explained about 20 percent of the increase in women’s education and about 40 percent of the rise in employment for 25-to-34-year-old women.”4
However, the Becoming Leaders: Female Achievers study showed that all those tennis lessons, gymnastics meets and soccer practices may not turn a young girl into an achiever. On average, girls who did not play competitive sports were just as likely to end up as the CEO, vice president or business owner as those that did. Still, a regression analysis that includes sports participation and years in the workforce revealed that 45% of women with twenty years or more experience participated in competitive sports in high school and college, but 60% of women with less than 20 years experience were competitive athletes. The research indicated the positive potential of competitive sports while also indicating that it was not always a key ingredient. Expectations change and norms evolve. With Title IX sports participation has become the norm for girls.
“Furthermore, gender norms are not fixed — they evolve over time, vary substantially from place to place, and are subject to change. To achieve development objectives, they must include specific efforts to transform inequitable gender structures so that girls and women, as well as boys and men, can benefit equitably.”5
Education: Underrated but Fundamental
While only 63 percent of female high achievers rated education as extremely important or very important to their success, they may be inadvertently underrating it. There was an obvious correlation of educational achievement and success. All respondents had bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent had advanced degrees. An estimated 78 million women are projected to enter the workforce by 2018, with 10 percent of women over 25 holding an advanced degree, compared to only 1.7 percent in 1960. (See chart below.) In 2006-2007, women earned half of the terminal degrees. With the education bar being raised to this new standard, advanced degrees will become even more important.
Source: Digest of Educational Statistics 2008, Table 268 http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_268.asp
Travel Abroad: Over-hyped as Success Factor
Perhaps the travel industry has pandered to parental concerns by promoting the benefits of travel and study abroad programs. In reality, it is not a predictor of future success. The research showed respondents felt travel had little impact on achievement with 65% rated it as slightly important or not at all important. Only 17% rated it extremely or very important.
Experience is Key
It took high-achieving women years of hard work to get to the level of senior leadership. A whopping 82% of them have been in the workforce more than 20 years experience while 100 percent have over ten years of experience. Education, connections and role models do not make up for experience; nothing does.
However, as more baby boomers begin to retire from their positions in record numbers and take all that experience with them, opportunities to fill the void emerge even for those with less experience. The White House Project Report states, “The “baby boomer” generation (about 76 million people, born between 1946 and 1964) is beginning to retire in increasing numbers. “Generation X,” the next generation, born between 1965 and 1979, consists of only 46 million people (only about 60 percent of the boomers). Simple math shows that there will not be enough employable adults to do the jobs we need — even with the current cutbacks in employment and the economy.”6
Essential Ingredients for Success
“Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”--Thomas Edison
While the Become Leaders: Female Achievers study focused on women, it is safe to assume that most of the lessons are valid for men as well. Success is more likely if you have the following:
· 20 years of experience-82%
· Early leadership roles-82%
· Advanced degree-60%
· Mentors-59%
· Business owner role model-59%
· Multiple sources of career encouragement-44%
Women (and presumably, men) who do not have the benefit of the above advantages, can still expect to achieve if they are willing to work extremely hard and are in the right place at the right time. Nothing replaces hard work. It was noted as essential by 100% of the Becoming Leaders: Female Achievers research respondents with 84% rating it extremely important and the remaining 16% rating it very important. Being at the right place at the right time and utilizing connections were each noted as extremely or very important by 68% of the respondents. Some success factors such as educational degrees are objective; some such as hard work, experience and connections require constant diligence and consistency to be effective; and some such as being in the right place at the right time require a bit of luck and the insight to understand the market forces that are in motion.
There are many paths to achievement. There is not one sole factor for success, but many factors with a cumulative effect.
Forming the Next Generation of High-Achievers
“Until women receive representation at the top, sex role stereotypes persist — and not only won’t men’s perception of women change, but women’s own perception of women remains static.”--Robin J. Ely, professor of organizational behavior, Harvard Business School
The future is brighter for the young girls today as they stand on the shoulders of those female achievers who have gone before them and broken barriers. With the advancement of women throughout the last 20 years, there are many more female role models, more potential female mentors and additional sources of career encouragement.
Female achievement comes not only with the grand legislative movements such as 19th amendment giving right to vote and the Title Nine act known for its impact on funding for women’s high school and college sports. Changes in female access to leadership roles comes through the difficult decisions women and men make each day to give girls and women experiences to grow and opportunities to succeed. The choices are many and the paths to success are varied, but girls of today have ever increasing chances of becoming a high achieving career woman.
Women and men are becoming more comfortable with women in leadership roles. According to a 2008 Pew Research Center study, women are viewed above men in five of the eight character traits the public highly values in their political leaders (honesty, intelligence, creativity, outgoingness, compassion) and equal to men in two others (hardworking, ambition). Men rated higher (by 10 percent more respondents) in only one important trait—decisiveness.7 The public is ready for female leadership, but the same study reports that respondents think other Americans are not ready to elect a woman to a high office and that women are held back by men in their political party.
Despite incomplete acceptance, engaging women as leaders makes business sense. According to a recent Catalyst study, “Fortune 500 companies with high percentages of women officers experienced, on average, a 35.1 percent higher return on equity and a 34 percent higher total return to shareholders than did those with low percentages of women corporate officers.”8
How women are perceived in the workplace has evolved over time and continues to change in positive ways. However, representation at the top is still limited demonstrating that stereotypes persist. Women’s perceptions of themselves must change. While adults can make incremental and sometimes momentous changes, fundamental change will come with how the next generation is being raised by parents and influenced by societal culture…a culture created by decisions made every day by everyone in the board room, at the office and at home.
References
1 Fiorina, Carly. Tough Choices. City: Penguin Books, 2006.
2 Donelson, Tammy. Becoming Leaders: Female Achievers Research Study, 2012. All research is from this study unless otherwise noted.
3 Soares, Rachel. “2011 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Board Directors, 2011.
4 Parker-Pope, Tara. “As Girls Become Women Sports Pay Dividends.” New York Times.com, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/as-girls-become-women-sports-pay-dividends/, February 15, 2012.
5 Right To Play, Harnessing the Power of Sports, Sport and Gender, Empowering Girls and Women, page 128.
6 The White House Project Report, Benchmarking Women’s Leadership, Nov. 2009, Page 7.
7 Pew Research Center, Pew Social and Demographic Trends, Men or Women: Who’s the Better Leader?, Aug. 25, 2009
8 Catalyst, The Bottom Line: Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity, 2004
