Why do women have to sprint into leadership positions
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Alaina
- . October 14, 2022
- . Update: November 11, 2022 12:56 am
Women often face subtle biases when it comes to leadership positions. They face many obstacles to their advancement and, as a result, are even less likely to end up in leadership positions than their male peers.
According to BBC, the tendency for women to handle childcare responsibilities and outright discrimination affects women and can be a challenge that limits them from seeking leadership roles. Reportedly, women still hold just 23% of executive positions and 29% of senior manager positions globally, despite making up 40% of the workforce.
The pressures women face to have children mean many women feel compelled to ‘sprint’ early on in their careers. These career sprints show up in the data – women who make it to leadership positions tend to do so faster than men. However, sprinting can take an enormous toll on the women who also make it to the top.
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According to Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn, women feel compelled to ‘sprint’ to avoid the ‘motherhood penalty’. Kimbrough said that women who don’t scale the leadership ladder quickly are less likely to make it to the top at all. Kimbrough also said that women want to make sure that their careers don’t sink once they begin families.
Christine Spadafor, a visiting lecturer on strategic leadership at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, also said that employers think pregnant women and mothers are less committed, less competent and less dependable. She said it can hold back women from top spots after the first decade of their careers.
Spadafor also said that working women tend to be more burned out than their male counterparts. Research also showed that women who explicitly hope to have children might experience very high levels of pressure to establish their careers early. During a woman’s reproductive years, employment and gender pay gaps also increase.
