The Leadership Ambition Gap

My passion and the topic of the Ph.D. research is woman in leadership. This topic is close to my heart for many reasons... including the fact that I have two daughters in very male dominated careers (one has a degree in Industrial Engineering, the other has a degree in Criminal Justice). I have seen time and time again the obstacles they continue to face in their careers. Mistakenly, I thought it would be different in education, especially considering more than 80% of the people in education are females. However, if you look at top level leadership positions, the percentage of female leaders is not much higher than in most of other industries.

I could go on and on, however the purpose of this blog is to introduce some of the topics in Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In.  In her book, Sandberg talks about how she and other women of her generation grew up with the idealistic notion that she had endless opportunites open to her. At no point did she consider that someday she may be expected to have to balance career and family. She explained that "integrating professional and personal aspirations proved far more challenging than we had imagined."

Despite the fact that woman earn 57% of the undergraduate degrees, and 60% of the master's degrees, woman often find that in their attempt to "have it all" something has to give, and often that something is career. This reality has manifested itself in a narrowing pipeline with many qualified females entering the job market but by the time that pipeline is filling leadership positions the pool of woman has been significantly reduced due in part to what Sandberg calls the "Leadership Ambition Gap".
While many woman are as professionally ambitions as men, research shows that fewer woman seek  senior level jobs. Studies also show that woman "are less likely than their male peers to characterize themselves as leaders, visionaries, self-confident, and willing to take risks" (p. 16).  

With more men striving for leadership roles, it is not surprising that they far out number women, especially considering some of the challenges that women must still overcome.  According to Sandberg this pattern starts long before women enter the workforce, in fact researchers argue it starts as early as kindergarten, when girls overwhelming choose being a mommy over being the president. Society often supports this expectation. Professional ambition is expected of men where as it is often seen as optional for women. Moreover, when a women is seen as ambitious, it is often seen in a negative light... "She is very ambitious" is not a compliment in our culture. Professional accomplishments of men are celebrated, whereas, when women experience professional accomplishments, society will question the "cost" of those accomplishments. Society expects women to marry and raise a family and when professional accomplishments interfere with those societal expectations, the "cost" is seen as being too great.

For most men, ambition means that they achieve desired goals in their career. However ambition for women may include climbing the corporate ladder, raising children, seeking personal fulfillment, contributing to society, and improving the lives of others. I do not in any way mean to imply that men do not aspire to these same goals, rather that the cultural messages we send to our children are that society expects this more of women than of men. 

We need to reflect on the cultural messages we are sending to our children. Girls that assert themselves and take charge are often called "bossy," very seldom if ever would a boy be called bossy for assuming a leadership role. Girls are given dolls to practice their role as mothers whereas boys are given tools to practice doing jobs that they may have later in life. Boys are superheroes while girls are princesses. What messages do these gender-biased practices send to our girls?

Closing the Leadership Ambition Gap will not happen based on what women do today, rather to truly change, we need to look at the messages we, as a society, continue to send to our girls. We need to let our girls wear capes, not call them bossy when they are taking the lead, let them know it's OK to be ambitious, and most importantly when they do grow up to assume that leadership role, we need to stop calling them the "Head Bitch in Charge" because this not only hurts our girls, it hurts our society.