I did not
have many female role models when I started my career working as a field
engineer on offshore oil rigs. So, I did what I was taught to do – work hard
and trust that I would get promoted when the time was right.
Five
years into my career, that promotion still had not materialized. Then I found
that one of my junior colleagues was moving to a management role, a position in
a different team that he networked and self-advocated his way into. It was a
wake-up call for me. I realized that if I wanted to move up the corporate
ladder, I needed to take the reins of my career into my own hands.
The
“broken rung” is real and, together, we and our organizations have created it.
The broken rung is preventing women from advancing and achieving their true
leadership potential. Mending it is the only way to achieve gender parity in
the C-suite in our lifetime.
We often talk about the “glass
ceiling” that prevents women from reaching senior leadership positions. In
reality, the biggest obstacle that women face is much earlier in the pipeline,
at the first step up to manager. Fixing this “broken rung” is the key to
achieving parity.
- LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co., Women in the Workplace 2019 Study
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The “
glass ceiling,” or inability of women to break through to the C-suite, has long been cited as the reason for gender imparity at the top. But, in reality, the challenge for women begins much earlier in our career when our self-confidence is fragile, experience is low and champions are non-existent. From unconscious bias, misplaced assumptions, and being told “
you are not ready,” the broken rung refers to the very real obstacles women face when stepping up from entry-level into their first management role.
The truth lies in the numbers. According to the
LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co., Women in the Workplace 2019 Study, for every 100 men promoted and hired to manager roles, only 72 women were promoted. The problem is worse for women of color. According to the same study, for every 100 men promoted to management, only 58 Black women and only 68 Latina women were promoted.
Just as I did, many early-career high-achieving women believe that if they put their head down and work, their companies will take note and promote them when the time is right. I have also worked with several women who have a strong discomfort with self-advocating for their careers despite excelling at their job.
Early-career is also a prime time for women to start their families, and many women lean out either due to lack of flexible maternity leave policies or a greater share of workload falling on their shoulders. And when women don’t ask, instead of imploring why, managers assume that women lack the ambition or interest in moving up. Or they hold unconscious biases around what women want now that they have a young family. I once lost a consulting job because the company assumed that I wouldn’t be able to travel because I had a one-year-old at home.
I always say, “If you are not in the driver’s seat of your career,
someone else will be.” Take charge of your leadership development, get feedback
on the skills you need to move to the next level and self-advocate for your
promotion.
Chelsea Clinton once said, “It is really hard to imagine yourself as
something you don’t see.” Find a female mentor within or outside your
organization. They need not be at the top of the organization yet, but they
should be relatable and accessible so you can draw inspiration from their
journey when your own seems tough.
Don’t wait for the title to take on responsibility. Instead,
self-nominate for high-visibility assignments. This is the most effective way
to show your potential and start building champions for your career.
Fixing the broken rung requires creating work cultures rooted in equity
and conducive to early-career talent development. Organizations that lead the
pack understand this and shift their focus from “fixing the women” to fixing
themselves.
- Establish common ground rules
When companies establish different rules and accommodations for women,
everyone suffers. At a local level, model behavior that makes it acceptable for
the men in your teams to leave at 5 pm for a pickup, move away from an “always
on” work lifestyle or mark a sick day to take care of older parents. At an
organization level, establish policies such as equal maternal and paternal
leave, which levels the playing field for the career progression of young
parents.
Teach your managers to put asking before assumption. At the least,
during performance reviews and significant life events, sit down for a 1:1 with
your female employees and learn about their career goals so that you can
provide the right training, mentoring and job exposure to support them.
- Provide leadership training and coaching to
early-career female talent
Eighty
percent of participants in a KPMG’s Women’s Leadership Study agree
that it is critical for companies to support a woman’s career development
during her twenties. Organizations that are serious about gender parity
cannot just focus on developing the talent that is flagged as high-potential.
Instead, they need to shift the focus to creating a bigger pool of
high-potential talent. One way to do so is by providing their early-career
talent access to a structured leadership development program. Organizations can
leverage virtual-instructor-led training (v-ILT) to provide such programs
cost-efficiently to their diverse and distributed teams.
With more qualified women entering the workforce and increasingly robust
diversity hiring practices, a greater percentage of men and women are starting
their careers on equal footing. But unless companies get serious about fixing
the broken rung and women start taking ownership of their careers, the gender gap
at the top will not close.
So, what action will you take towards fixing the broken rung?
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Richa Bansal is a seasoned professional with a decade of experience in strategy, operations, engineering, supply chain, and management. Richa earned a Bachelor’s from IIT Delhi in India, a Master’s from Purdue University, and an MBA from Rice University.
Richa founded Pinkcareers so that women can get access to career development and coaching through a learning format that is flexible, effective, and meets the needs of modern working women.
When she is not working on Pinkcareers, she loves to travel the world with her husband and two little boys.
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Check out
Pinkcareers' Incubator Leadership Accelerator, our 6-months program for new (and aspiring) female managers who want to level up their leadership skills and own their career success.
NEXT COHORT STARTS 15 AUGUST, 2021.Discover your authentic leadership style, get comfortable with self-advocacy, enlist sponsors, and become a confident contributor to your career success.
Save your spot now before we get sold out!
