Female Leadership

So here is an interesting debatable topic, I have not covered yet: What is it like being a woman in a leadership role? Earlier this week, I had dinner with 2 powerful women, both alumni of the Kennedy School of Government; that same afternoon, I attended a luncheon for women in business at Chicago Booth. Both groups of women broached the topic of being a woman and how that impacts their leadership style.

I went to an all girls’ boarding school, where I held many leadership positions and subsequently at Columbia, I was more willing than some of my female peers to take on leadership roles. Despite my willingness to be a student leader, I had a slightly difficult time adjusting to being a woman in power in a co-educational setting. Sometimes, I felt that my decisions were second-guessed by my peers or that members of an organization would defer to the male opinion regardless of the authority that was granted to me as a leader. Not all student groups worked this way and it depended on the students that were involved in those groups but it was still an interesting phenomenon considering I was in college from 2002-2006. One would think that most people, especially in my generation, would suspend any form of female stereotyping.

Now, a bit older and hopefully much wiser, I am a woman in business school where there are only 35% of us. I expected women to be less represented due to the social pressures of competing with men. I though leadership positions would be overwhelmingly filled by men but as a matter of fact that is not the case. I am my cohort’s president on the Graduate Business Council and noticed that 3 of us were women (30%), which shows that we are fairly representing the female voice. In addition, you barely notice that women are a minority at Booth. In activities such as Random Walk (6 women, 10 men), my squad (2 women and 5 men), the women are respected and our male counterparts enjoy hearing our perspectives as much as other students.

However, I would say that being a woman in business school is different than being a woman in corporate America. I have not yet experienced this but the Harvard alumni I mentioned earlier explained the difficulty of being overly assertive in politics and senior management positions. They conveyed the fact that if you are not a threat (competing for the same job or on track to a very lucrative role), mentors will support your career success. However, once you seem to be overly successful or you surpass peoples’ expectations, those people that supported you earlier may begin to challenge your authority.

Women are still underrepresented in top leadership roles. For example if you look at MSNBC article about women CEOs, the author cites, “Women account for only 3 percent of the CEOs at the helm of the biggest 500 U.S. companies and that number hasn't budged over the last three years.” This may also be accounted by the fact women’s leadership style is different, which is discussed in the book, “The Female Vision, Women's Real Power at Work” by Sally Helgesen, Julie Johnson and Marshall Goldsmith. This book describes how women’s visions are different that those of their male counterparts and how having a different leadership style can sometimes positively impact the bottle line. Nonetheless, women’s leadership may not be accepted in male-dominated environments.

Since my current experience of working with male colleagues has been positive, my hope is that men will continue to respect and acknowledge women as leaders. I also hope that women who do want to be in top executive positions do not crack under the pressures faced by women in the workplace and are able to maintain success throughout their careers.