“It takes a full-blown crisis for organizations to bring in women to key leadership positions. Either women don’t take risk or it all else man dominated society. Organizations wait until a crisis to bring women into positions of power because they realize the current strategy is not working and new approach is needed.”
Caroline Fairchild (Sep 2014,Fortune)
A situation of full-blown crisis for an organization comes when it seems only an option to delegate powers of an influential position or a key leadership position to a woman. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founder and CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation says crisis brings women into key positions in organizations when existing strategy doesn’t work and new tactic is indispensable. Yet, researches prove that women leadership improves corporate performance.
Growth of women leadership key positions is very sluggish. Unseen barriers exist that don’t let women go to the higher positions i.e. Glass celling. Much work is available to explore the factor that why we have few women leaders on top position, yet one prime factor is not being stated. Do really women want to acquire most senior level of their organization? —is it a leadership ambitious gap or something else that holds them back. Or if they want to aspire to the top than what are those obstacles that don’t support them.
Knowingly gender diversity works and realizing role reversal concept for men and women; yet, women underrepresentation for leadership positions is spotted. In 2013, women represented only 16.9% of corporate executive in fortune 500 companies while making up 40% of the global work force. Women career development or aspiring programs are being well supported in west where as in developing countries still female business leaders are missing. In Pakistan we have quite a few women leaders holding top positions especially in we have too few names of business leaders. Several works have been done in this regard that “why we have too few women leaders” but the purpose to this study is to evaluate if women Do NOT Want or Are there any another factors that hold them back.
1.1 Background
THE UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP ROLES
Despite almost a half-century of equal opportunity legislation, opportunities for women for leadership positions are whatsoever but equal. Apparently, the percentage of women in leadership roles is substantial and is increasing dramatically. That is particularly true for limited fields such as management, medicine etc. Women also acquire influential positions in a wide range of governmental, non-profit, and religious contexts; Even then they are still grossly underrepresented at the top and overrepresented at the lower tier of the most influential leadership hierarchies.
In the global world of competition and corporation, where there is cliché of equal opportunity still women have difficulty unlocking full potential at work. The issue of competence and qualification is unlikely true as % of women holds university degree is more than men along with consistent outperforming job when it comes to academic achievements. (WEF Gender Gap 2007)
According to the Christiane Lemke in 2014 Max Weber Conference; “Women in Leadership Positions: Can Women Have It All?” Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, New York University, August 2014.
An unpredicted rise of women can be seen in recent years. Presently a record number of women world leaders including eight countries in Europe, Latin America and Caribbean, Africa had women political leaders in 2014.In US many women were part of Senate and House election in 2012, Hillary Clinton likely to be a part of US presidential election 2016.
In higher education and business world including media women have made progress but slowly into shouldering leadership positions. Despite income distribution, compensation schemes, job security, and gender discrimination are still persisted and pronounced.
Sheryl Sandberg CEO face book argues that women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers; demonstration of determination and perseverance is required for them to attain leadership positions in the corporate world. Combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment is necessary for this support is required by men to benefit in work place and at home as well. In spite of it, there is not only an individual mindset which enabling women to pursue a career, especially with a family, but also a more complex life world, in which influence of family commitments and society involved intensely.
Advancement into key influential positions is not a linear process, factors that contribute to the upward progress of women who attain positions of leadership and power, and then what is holding women back? What difference does diversity make to include women in top positions and what is the situation of women who face the challenges in other parts of the world? are the questions discussed in this section.
1.1.1 Global Perspective
Women continue to be disadvantaged when it comes to work place both in the public and private sectors. Despite of being eminently qualified to be more into mainstream, women remain discriminated against in terms of accessing top management/leadership positions. Even then more women are getting educated and hold more jobs worldwide. Hence, most continue to suffer from discrimination in the workplace and rarely break through the unseen barrier i.e. glass ceiling, which separates them from top-level management and influential positions.
Apart of it, the few that push through to occupy top leadership/management positions face serious challenges/hardships that can and do confine their performance up to a certain limit in these positions. This is a serious concern as it strengthens the existing concept of stereotyping for women’s ability to perform at the top level/influential positions.
According to the McKinsey & Co, 2011, Unlocking the full potential of women in the US economy survey, Even successful women executive offered mixed responses only 41% of successful women aspire to be a part of c-suit position. Out of 59% one response is
“My ego aspires to make it happen, but my authentic self is not sure if it is worth it.it would require me to do more and more politics, and I don’t want to .I don’t enjoy that.”
In west, organizational climate is striving to support the development of talented women leaders to make significant economic benefits. But too many women don’t want to reach at the top, out of 200 successful women 59% don’t aspire to join the c-suit. In US is in process of reforms that if corporate leaders are commit to change and support women to fulfill their family commitments, then all women and men benefits. It’s not that easier but successful companies and inspiring women make it believable.
In the United States, women in management account for about a third of M.B.A. classes, but only 2 % of Fortune 500 CEOs, 8 % of top leadership positions, and 16 %of board directors and corporate officers . From an international aspect, even US is by no means different than other countries.
A similar pattern seems with heads of state. About 6% of the world’s top political leaders are female. They hold only 21.9% of positions in national parliaments worldwide. Since the 1990s, only about 30 women have served as heads of state, although an increasing number have been in powerful nations such as the United Kingdom and India etc.
Figure 1:Women in National Parliament (Global)
There are also very few women mayors in most regions in the world, fewer than one in 10 cities has a woman as a mayor.
The world’s most successful/powerful companies are mostly run by males. There are only 26 female CEOs in this year’s Fortune 500 companies, and only 54 in the top 1000.
Figure 2:Women Mayors, By Region (Global)
Figure 3:Female CEOs in Fortune 500
Women currently hold 5.2 % of Fortune 500 CEO positions and 5.4 % of Fortune 1000 CEO positions. This is low, but at least it’s a steady increase from 1995, when there were no women CEOs in the top 500. (Over all Fortune 200 women representation as board of director is only 15%).
Women are underrepresented in the finance industry, too. Only 11.4% of CFOs in 2013’s Fortune 500 were women.
Figure 4:Proportion of Women in Finance
Complete and comprehensive international data is unavailable for women’s representation in key positions of/a leadership role in business and the professions, but the limited information can reflect their progress in respective fields.
Following section explores the root cause/basis for these persistent and pervasive inequalities, which vary across geographical, national, cultural, and occupational contexts.
COO FACE BOOK INC., SHERYL SAND BERG
Sheryl Sandberg, a global leader in technology, is a 21st century workingwoman role model because of her strong advocacy for the advancement of women’s leadership. With net worth of $1.1 billion, Facebook COO she is one of the wealthiest women in tech. Sheryl Sandberg has been ranked one of the 50 “Most Powerful Women in Business” by Fortune Magazine .
She is an author of best selling book “Lean In” a digital manifest for a workingwoman. She is cited about obstacles that a woman face while advancing a corporate ladder.
She mentioned not only about gender discount , professional penalties , and double bind dilemma but also about double standards for performance evaluation.
“Men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted on the past accomplishments.”
She says, a huge stumbling block for a woman is being nice or being a competent lady,
“If a woman pushes to get the job done, if she is highly competent, she is acting like a man. And if she acts like a man, people dislike her. In response to this negative reaction, we temper our professional goals” .
Further she says, about impact of concentration of women on top position
“It’s easy to dislike the few senior women b/c there are so few. If women held 50 percent of the top jobs, it would just not be possible to dislike that many people.”
CASE STUDY: GOOGLE’S GLASS CEILING
A disheartening insight into a Best place to work (according to the Fortune’s List 2012) “Google’s Executive Hiring Practices”.
“ CEO Larry Page is simply more comfortable with “guys” like himself – men, not women”
Sep 30th by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos
Google not only prioritized hiring with male youth but also CEO Larry page removed noticeably female executives from his inner circle. CEO said that he was more comfortable with people like himself that is engineering and scientist Men. This practiced brought famous algorithm into fore that engineers and scientists are “proactive guys moving a head” while female s are failed business people even don’t ask for promotions.
While exploring this gender gap, four issues were highlighted, Gender imbalance among executives, Social structure of engineering as “Male’s work”, Women don’t ask for promotion that’s why they don’t get promoted and parental leaves and gender equality in cultural context.
Gender imbalance was due to the bias in hiring process along with that retaining policies troubled it. It was cited that Engineering and science are male dominated fields. Organizational structured supports gendered construction of science and males that they comfortably fit in upper management slots. Hence in male dominated field men’s output are rewarded where as female’s scientific endeavors are not.
Women in their engineering studies do all what male students did, take part in all actives, get good GPAs, even most of the time better than them. But it was found that they are not as confident as males were in their expertise while working in field. For women a stumbling block is during academics of engineering it is not taught that how to navigate in engineering career.
Another issue was women were not good to sell them, they don’t ask for promotion but in reality if they ask people treat them as a Pushy.
In contrast, Parental policy implementation is a contribution towards balancing gender discrimination.
Google was unable to answer about Glass Celling that what kind of a management dynamics it is which keep on facilitating and rewarding male’s career advancement over women’s career.
1.1.2 Asian Perspective
Continent of two-thirds of the global population is Asia where two billion of the world’s women are. Although Asia’s women have involved significantly in the growth, efficiency, and productivity, they keep facing disadvantages in formal leadership. Leadership in Asia, as elsewhere, inclines to be associated with males. Although corporate research has amply documented the immense loss that Asian economies and public administrations suffer by under-utilizing their women labor pool, yet gender stereotyping endures.
The ratio of women sitting on corporate boards and executive committees in Asian companies is dramatically low compared with western world esp. Europe and the United States, even though women remain under-represented in those regions too. On average, women account for 6 % of seats on corporate boards, and 8 % of those on executive committees. The comparative percentages in Europe and the United States are 17% and 10%, and 15% and 14% respectively. Significant differences are observed in case of Asia .
Figure 5:Female Representation in Asia Compared with Western Markets
Figure 6:Proportion of Women in top Positions (Asia)
Underrepresentation of women at the top of corporate hierarchy is directly associated with availability of women in pipeline which is required to feeds those positions. Therefore underrepresentation of women at the top positions is not the only problem, in fact more participation is required in pipeline in order to fill in those top positions. If women are to be presented at top positions so they have to be presented in pipeline as well. Female labor participation in western countries is appreciably higher than that of Asian and they are well represented in over all work forces though some specific industries attract more. Despite all the fact, the higher you go the less visible women are, either they decide to leave or get stuck at lower tier. Similar trend is observed in Asia, the proportion of women decreases at each level of the hierarchy. Even the pattern is different from country to country, first, rate of female participation in labor force but over all tend to be lower as that of western countries. In India it is 35% which one of the lowest in the world. China has world’s largest female labor participation rates but still only 8% of corporate board members and 9% of executive committee members are women.
Figure 7: Variation in female labor participation rates across Asia
Second, there is no there is no scarcity of female graduates.in many countries, around half of graduates are women. In Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, it is 57% along with some exceptions. In India, the female literacy rate is much lower than that of males. However, among Asian countries, lack of education does not explain the scarcity of women in top positions.
Figure 8: Losses along the Corporate Pipeline
Third and prime factor is the double burden of many working women in Asia holding down a job while looking after their families esp. in cultural where women is the sloe responsible for family and household duties. On average 30% of the businesswomen leaders leave their job voluntary at mid career or senior level due to family commitments.in some states the level is higher such as in India and japan it is 50% indicating the bounding and strength of cultural view of gender of both sides that hamper women’s progress. In countries like Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, family commitments are less influential over women’s decision making regarding work. The concept of double burden, persist in Europe too; but questionably higher in Asian women not only due to society and culture but also due to governmental support which is needed for advancement. Moreover, there are other factors involved that are unspoken and unrecognized biases, mangers are more comfortable with same gender that is men rate performance of other male mangers more highly than that of female, despite the fact that women most often reluctant to promote herself. This trend mostly found among Asian women mangers especially south Asians.
Figure 9: Barriers to Gender Diversity Within Senior Management
1.1.3 South Asian Perspective
In emerging economies the position of women in economic development is far more complex and dependent on political, societal and theological norms and/or barriers. South Asia is a region of variety of cultures, languages and religions with number of variations in customs, value systems and ways of life. Despite the entire differences, the common factor in this region is gender discrimination. Customarily women are considered as a subordinate to the male. This feature is prominent whether the area is urban or rural. However, urban areas are more developed and level of education is enhanced therefore slightly improvement can be observed as in economic independence of women. Differences among educated and uneducated in regard of religion are not that prominent but political empowerment especially with the allocation of 33% seats in local government in South Asia is improved, but in other cases change is not up to the mark or satisfactory.
In south Asia generally women are under represented in high-level power structure especially in countries where quotas are not set for their equal participation it can be observed in case of parliament. Environment in south Asia is not conducive for active and whole-heartedly participation in some countries as a number of hurdles are presented in domestic as well as societal levels
Though despite all, the issue of women’s participation in most of the field is no longer in contention. But effective participation is not enough to influence the governance agenda for women’s interests, needs, and concerns.
CEO PEPSICO, INDRA K NOOYI
Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi born in India on Oct. 28, 1955 (57 years old) her breakthrough Leadership as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo “Performance with Purpose”. She is the third most powerful woman in the world according to the Fortune Magazine 2014.
Under her leadership, the company has become the largest food and beverage business in North America and the second largest in the world with 19 global brands that each generated $1 billion or more in 2010 in annual retail sales.
Despite all success, myth of having it all and balancing work and life remain an issue for Indra Nooyi, the main hurdle in her path of success and dissatisfactory element is nothing but discouraging society. Women have to face the pressure form society, it may seemed that many of them are imposed by other women.
When she became CEO of PepsiCo and placed on the board of director Nooyi said she was disappointed at her mother’s reaction to her great news
“Let the news wait. Can you go out and get some milk.”
She was forced by her mother to fetch milk first despite the fact that her husband was at home. She said her own mother gave her advice,
“Let me explain something to you. You might be president of PepsiCo. You might be on the board of directors. But when you enter this house, you’re the wife, you’re the daughter,,,,,,,,,,So leave that damned crown in the garage. And don’t bring it into the house. You know I’ve never seen that crown.”
Indra Nooyi said she doesn’t think that women can “have it all,” adding that a career requires women to sacrifice some aspects of motherhood. She added Biological clock and career clock are in complete conflict.
“It is difficult to maintain a work-life balance and women cannot “have it all”, saying she doubts that her daughters think she was a good mother.”
“I don’t think women can have it all. We pretend we have it all.”
The Atlantic, July 2014
1.1.4 Pakistan
Table 1:Labor Force Participation Rate
Total Population 184.35 million Males 51.35%
Labor
Force
57.24 million 32.88% Males 49.27%
Females 48.65% Females 15.57%
Among south Asian emerging market, female labor participation rate of Pakistan is lowest. Though poverty is one of the major challenge even then most of women in Pakistan are reluctant to avail employment opportunities. Many of them are often denied opportunities of education and employment. Those who have managed get the education and employment have to face numerous challenges and glass celling is one of them.
Table shows that women are heavily concentrated in certain industry and 74% women are working with agriculture, forestry and hunting and fishing industry. Likewise, it can be observed in terms of occupation.
Table 2:Employment shared by Major Industries
Currently women hold only 5% of corporate leadership positions. Out of 108 countries with only 3% of women in management positions Pakistan ranked last i.e. 108th nation, which is quite low. Jamaica has the highest percentage of female mangers at 59.3% according to the international labor organization (ILO) . Pakistani women in boardrooms are only 4.6% .
Table 3: Employment shared by Major Occupational Groups
In world classification of women in parliament Pakistan ranked 65 according to Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2015, women in national parliaments. Where 20.6% and 18.3% women hold lower house and upper house seats respectively.
Table 4:World Classification of Women in National Parliament
Rank Country Lower or single House Upper House or Senate
Elections Seats* Women % W Elections Seats* Women % W
65 Pakistan 5 2013 340 70 20.60% 3 2015 104 19 18.30%
Likewise throughout in the world, barriers to women’s participation exist in Pakistan. These blockages exist in prevailing social and economic regimes as well as in existing political structures. Social and economic barriers to women’s participation include the unequal distribution of resources, lack of tradition and motivation to actively intervene in politics, the electorate’s lack of confidence. Five women in the history of Pakistan, who have been the leaders of their respective political parties are,
• Fatima Jinnah
• Benazir Bhutto
• Nusrat Bhutto
• Ginwa Bhutto
• Nasim Wali Khan
However, all of them inherited their political careers from their family such as brother, husband or father and subsequently surfaced as politicians in their own right.
The aim of quota system is to increase women’s representation to address the problem of underrepresentation of women. It has been observed as one of the most effective affirmative actions in increasing women’s political participation and positively impacted on the number of women represented. Temporary measure to achieve gender balance has been obtained by increasing seats of women; however, it does not fulfill the real political empowerment and the democratic participation of women. This system provides only symbolic representation to women where women are treated as mere fillers for statistics without power.
Women underrepresentation is oblivious in Pakistan because we have less women in pipeline, besides that both the public and private sectors are recruiting women in Pakistan’s workplaces ranging from Pakistani military, civil service, schools, hospitals, media, advertising, retail, fashion industry, publicly traded companies, banks, technology companies, multinational corporations and NGOs, etc. A number of NGOs focus on encouraging self-employment and entrepreneurship among Pakistani women by offering skills training and micro financing such as Kashf foundation led by a woman CEO.
Some statistics that confirm the growth and promotion of women in Pakistan’s women labor pool:
1. A number of women have moved up into the executive positions, among them
a. Fariha Subhani CEO Unilever Foods
b. Naz Khan CFO Engro Fertilizer
c. Maheen Rahman CEO IGI Funds
d. Roshaneh Zafar Founder/CEO of Kashf Foundation
2. Women now make up 4.6% of board members of Pakistani companies, a bit lower than the 4.7% average in emerging Asia, but higher than 1% in South Korea, 4.1% in India and Indonesia, and 4.2% in Malaysia whereas 6.6 % in china.
Table 5: International comparison of women on boards
Country % of Women on Boards
China 6.6%
India 4.1%
Indonesia 4.1%
Malaysia 4.2%
Pakistan 4.6%
Philippines 23%
South Korea 1%
Taiwan 6.4%
Thailand 8.7%
Emerging Markets – Asia 4.7%
3. Female employment (women laborer force) at KFC in Pakistan has increased 125 percent in the past five years, according to a report in the NY Times. The number of women working at McDonald’s restaurants and the supermarkets has quadrupled since 2006.
4. There are now trend sets as women taxi drivers in Pakistan. Best known among them is Zahida Kazmi labeled by the BBC as “clearly a respected presence on the streets of Islamabad”.
5. Numerous women fly helicopters and fighter jets in the military and commercial airliners in the state-owned and private airlines in the country.
On the surface, this is a new era full of hope. For the first time in history, major Central Banks and multina¬tionals are headed by highly respected, credentialed and experienced women. However, a closer examination reveals a disturbing trend:
FIRST FEMALE PRIME MINISTER OF PAKISTAN, BENAZIR BHUTTO
Benazir Bhutto the first female prime minister of a Muslim state became 11th head of state in Pakistan in 1988 and was tragically assassinated in a suicide attack in 2007.
In 1988, when she was the first woman ever elected to govern a Muslim country. In the same weeks just before election, a scholar Mohammed Amin Minhas quoted the prophet Mohammed, saying according to the Los Angeles Times
“A nation that elects to be governed by a woman will not prosper,”
However, after that she took her oath of office, scholar reconsidered and said. “Allah has given us this woman as our leader, and Miss Benazir has acknowledged that this new power she possesses is, indeed, Allah’s gift.” She once mentioned that Britain’s “Iron Lady,” former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was her ideal as a role model but he said: “As a Muslim woman, I have great respect for Khadija, wife of the prophet of Islam, because she was a working woman.”
Her opinion regarding women leadership was very clear that obstacles always persist in way of successful women.
“It is not easy being a woman anywhere. Moreover, for women leaders, the obstacles are greater, the demands are greater, the barriers are greater, and the double standards are greater.”
Life is too short to spend worrying about people who opposed you”
She further explained the double standard in a way that,
“If a woman is tough, she is pushy .If a man is tough, Gosh, He is a great leader”
FORMER PRESIDENT AND CEO FIRST WOMEN BANK LTD, ZARINE AZIZ
Inspiring and charismatic lady Zarine Aziz is a former president of first women bank limited. She also served Lahore Electric Supply Company as a Member Board of Directors of the Finance Committee and as Assistant Vice president in UBL.
In 1997, the government put the bank up for privatization to cut the huge losses but this decision was subsequently reversed in March 2001 by the government of General Pervez Musharraf when bank was in shambles. Zarine Aziz was appointed a President and famous financial turnaround is attributed to her name with numerous awards including “Best Turnaround Executive 2005” at the international award in New York. This utter changed was not only recognized by the government but also by the corporate sector/industry. During crisis she had to face skepticisms of being a woman, she said, I did not listen to anybody. How did I manage the pressures? By saying no and a hot cup of coffee…
“Women are surrounded by conspiracies-always remember this. Such is our culture”.
FORMER CEO UNILEVER PAK, & L’OREAL BRAND CEO, MUSHARAF HAI (S.I):
In July 2001, it was a shocking news for the whole corporate world when a woman was appointed as Chairman and CEO of Unilever Pakistan; the first time a female had been conceded as the head of a multinational company in Pakistan. Despite her excellent credentials many were questioning about her ability to lead in a man dominated filed where intense pressure of high profile job is welcomed. But, Hai proved herself by not only making Unilever into Pakistan’s largest consumer goods company but also being ranked amongst the 50 most influential women in business by Fortune magazine (2004).
Musharaf Hai defying all criticisms of the world
Currently Musharaf Hai is heading L’Oreal brand Subsidiary of L’Oreal Group in Pakistan as Managing director. She is the only woman to be listed in Fortune’s 50 most powerful women in the world, awarded the Sitara-I-Imtiaz, first Pakistani woman CEO of Unilever Pakistan.
ALFALAH GHP INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT’S CEO, MAHEEN RAHMAN:
A 39 year old women Maheen Rahman has been awarded a place in Forbes ‘40 Under 40’ Female Executive list 2015. She has been titled as the youngest pioneer of the asset management organization in Pakistan, and she is the only women executive among the sum of 21 competitor’s CEO. Based on Karachi, she took up the position as IGI Funds’ CEO in 2009. Alfalah GHP Investment Management bought IGI in 2013 and then became the CEO of merged company.
When she took a charge before becoming CEO, IGI was a lost making company; She turned around IGI into a company that returned 443% gains in total return. CEO of Alfalah GHP investments, mother of three’s lack of a smile to maintain distance from her colleagues in the male dominated field as well as to assert her position as a serious mind. Yet, She in among the women in Pakistan who except to work same number of hours as men are working but she earns on average 37% less than that of male counter part.
Rahman says about this issue,
“My biggest challenge has been building a reputation and trust in a market that values grey hair and being male. After all these years, I still routinely get asked
why I don’t just design clothes.”
MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS (OUP), PAK, AMEENA SAIYID
Her thought provoking views regarding ‘Women in Leadership’ while visiting IOBM
“My male colleagues would bet on how long I was going to stay at OUP, since I was the only woman working there but they all lost their bets and yes I am still there,”
PRESIDENT AND CEO FIRST WOMEN BANK LTD, TAHIRA RAZA
Tahira Raza President & CEO First Women Bank Ltd. pioneering bank within the realm of human resource management. She highlighted one of the core issues that women leave their jobs at mid career or senior level that again hamper advancement in their career.
“We are working to introduce flexible working hours for women”. She informed adding that “women have to undergo patches where they have to leave the job for some time but this operates to their disadvantage if they want to re-enter the job market”.
She mentioned that flexi hour’s policy would help retain valuable assets as team members over their productive career. She indicated that more government attention is required towards such initiatives to help improve financial/ economic inclusion across gender
1.1.4.1 Corporate Sector vs Public Sector
Research shows that employer of both public and private sector are reluctant to promote women to the top positions in their organizations .how ever reasons are different form others, some says women don’t have skills capabilities for such type of post on the other hand women holds her back to get exposed. Hence women lag behind in the race for top tier.