Why the top jobs still elude women

Man`s world ... women are still excluded from senior management roles because the workplace is not flexible enough for their needs.

WHY are there so few women at senior levels in Australian corporate life? How is it that women, who are at least as well educated as men these days, represent only 12 per cent of ASX 200 executive managers? Why have women been appointed as CEOs of just five ASX 200 companies since 2004?

There`s no simple answer for this imbalance but a new study attempts to explore the reasons, including interviewing senior male and female managers in a range of companies.

The study, done with the co-operation of 13 large Australian companies among others, targets many of the issues that make rising to the top either less attractive or less possible for women.

The results won`t make comfortable reading for many boards and challenge the concept of just what it means to be the right "cultural fit" in organisations.

One of the most powerful aspects of the study, The Leadership Challenge: Women in Management, by Hannah Piterman and launched yesterday, is the many direct quotes by various individuals.

Many women are happy to concede that part of the problem is their own reluctance to play by the masculine-oriented rules and by the schedules of large organisations.

"A lot of women don`t want to be senior women in corporations because they want to have more flexibility and more choice and dedicate more time and focus to other elements of their life," says one female senior manager.

Fair enough. It`s certainly a sensible alternative to the competitive fixation with titles and offices and status shown by so many men. But, particularly given the growing shortage of skilled employees facing Australian businesses, it`s worth figuring out if such choices have to be so rigid for so many women.

The study finds that the pressure to conform leads to extensive gender stereotyping and to fewer, narrower and more personally costly paths to success for women.

It`s not just because most women tend not to be around as much for the networking opportunities like the drinks at the pub or the games of golf.

It`s also a more subtle shading that means male executives feel more comfortable with men like them while women who try to emulate that masculine model "encourage suspicion, derision and cultural isolation".

"The communication and decision-making styles attributed to women, such as being inclusive and collegial, are seen as incompatible with desired leadership traits of decisiveness and expediency," the study summarises. Women`s reluctance (and/or inability) to enter into a game of strategic survival and aggressive personal politics is perceived as weakness and lack of ambition."

And, of course, there is "the mummy track", partly a matter of personal choice, partly a matter of corporate culture.

"Working mothers are excluded from key roles, projects and opportunities due to a work structure and a culture that does not accommodate their needs," Dr Piterman says.

But surely that is true of the bad old days rather than the modern working environment where all the corporate human resources jargon is around team building and inclusiveness?

According to this study, with a few honourable exceptions, the practice of actually working in an organisation usually doesn`t correspond to the jargon or stated commitment to meritocracy.

"There are things people know they cannot say any more but they may be thinking it. Scratch the surface," says one female senior manager.

A number of the most successful women in the study either don`t have children or have a very supportive partner or engage in complex juggling acts that are not sustainable.

"Female talent is ultimately lost as working mothers fail to achieve effective flexible work arrangements and abandon demanding corporate careers," the study finds.

And, in a version of corporate Catch 22, it is only once women are significant and powerful minorities at senior levels of management in a particular company, that the attitude there does change.

Nor does the study suggest that this is necessarily permanent, especially in the current climate.

"You think you have made substantial ground, you think you have embedded long-term, substantial cultural change," says one female senior manager. "But as soon as there is a profit downgrade, then anything goes to get there."

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