Women or Men: Who Has Easy Path to Top? Study says...

From the Wall Street Journal | Jan 28, 2010 By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

A new study shows a large gap in perceptions among the sexes in who has more opportunities for advancement-men or women.

Earlier this month, consulting firm Bain & Co. surveyed 1,834
business professionals world-wide on gender parity in the workplace.
The findings, which will be presented later this week at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, show that 90% and 85% of men and
women, respectively, believe qualified applicants of either gender have
the same shot at landing a junior-level position. Yet 81% of men said
opportunities to move to middle management are gender neutral, compared
with just 52% of women. Similarly, 66% of men said promotions to the
executive level are equally attainable by both sexes, versus 30% of
women. As for appointments to leadership and governance roles, 69% of
men and 31% of women said consideration is granted evenly among the
sexes.

In reality, women represent a much smaller portion of leadership
roles in business. A December 2009 study from New York research
organization Catalyst Inc. shows 3% of chief executive officers and
13.5% of all executive-officer positions within Fortune 500 companies
are women. In the boardroom, women hold only 15.2% of seats.

Men's perceptions may be rosier than women's because they may be
considering the long-term progress women have made in the workplace,
says Ellen Galinsky, president of nonprofit Families & Work
Institute in New York. Men will "say women have it a lot better than
they did in the past," she says. "Women say, 'Yes, but there are a lot
fewer of us and we had to give up a lot more to get there.' "

Perceptions may play a role in women lagging behind men in advancing
their careers, says Deborah M. Kolb, a professor specializing in women
and leadership at Simmons School of Management in Boston. Ms. Kolb says
studies have consistently shown women are seen by bosses and
colleagues-men and women alike-as being less capable of serving in
leadership posts than men, despite evidence to the contrary. "Women
often get asked to take career detours, to go into areas like human
resources, to be on the diversity committee," she says. "Men get asked
to take on strategic-development activities."

Similarly, studies suggest that women are disproportionately
assigned to oversee change within businesses-assignments that pose
greater risk of failure, adds Ms. Kolb. "They get asked to clean up
messes, so they might not have a track record of success and mistakes
may follow them," she says.

Research also shows that men are better at developing career
advocates than women, Ms. Kolb adds. "Men are much more likely to have
sponsors who put them forward," she says. "Women are not as well
connected and networked. It's harder for them to be seen as the kind of
people to be put forward."

Achieving gender parity in the workplace is possible if business
leaders take a systematic and customized approach to finding out what
derails women along the way at their organizations, says Orit Gadiesh,
chairman of New York-based Bain."You need to tailor it to the
company-how many women you have, where they drop off, and what happens
with promotions," she says. "You can't fix what you don't measure."

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com