We’re not there yet: busting the myths about gender equality 

Myth 2: Our top female executive has stopped advocating for other women – we must have smashed the glass ceiling 

Why it’s wrong: If your top female executive does not highlight gender disparities, it could be because she feels like a token in the C-suite and avoids calling attention to gender. Powerful but isolated, women sometimes believe that advocating for other women may cause them to lose legitimacy. Consequently, they can distance themselves from promoting other women to draw less attention to their gender. Alternatively, given their success in achieving a top executive role, they may be less aware of other women’s struggles climbing up the corporate ladder.  

This is the pattern that emerged from an analysis of 2,345 CEOs and 12,965 top executives of S&P 1500 firms. In the years the study covered (2011 to 2017), women chief executive officers were less likely than men to have women on their top management team. They also found that the reluctance of isolated women CEOs to advocate for bringing more women onto their executive team shrunk when circumstances rendered their legitimacy less likely to be questioned (e.g., when the firm was doing well financially). 

How to fix it: Organizations can be highly effective in addressing gender biases when women occupy top roles. If you want to enlist your female executives in gender equity initiatives, avoid making gender a salient feature of your executive team, for example, by tokenizing women. Squash unnecessary questioning and delegitimizing of top female executives and review your organization for systemic biases and gender disparities. Women executives and senior managers are more likely to advocate and participate in inclusive organizations that have less gender biases to begin with. 

Myth 3: Women are in so much demand for CEO roles – they’re  untouchable 

Why it’s wrong: Female CEOs are dismissed at higher rates than male CEOs, especially when the firm is performing well. Female CEOs have a larger presence in industry than ever before but are 45% more likely than male CEOs to be dismissed, according to a study jointly published by researchers at University of Alabama, University of Memphis, Clemson University, and University of Missouri.  

By analyzing the dismissal patterns at 2,390 companies over a 15-year period, the researchers found that high performance helped men CEOs avert dismissal but failed to protect women from being disproportionately fired. It could be, the authors suggest, that boards make different attributions of a firm’s high performance, depending on whether it is led by a man or a woman: for example, directors may be less likely to believe that a firm’s high performance is due to women CEOs’ leadership experience and capabilities.  

How to fix it: Given these disparities, it is important to ensure that board assessments of CEOs are bias-free. Gender-sensitivity training for new and current board members could help create awareness of implicit and explicit biases in CEO hiring decisions and evaluation.