Research culled from its database of 17,000 people’s behavioral competencies in 2012 found that women showed more skills than men when it came to empathy, influence, and the ability to manage executive-level conflict. Specifically, women were more likely to use empathy as a strength, show strong competence in conflict management, demonstrate skill in influence and be self-aware.
“I think women leaders do have to manage the female stereotype of being more relationship focused, softer or nicer,” says Malloy. “Behaviors associated with strong leadership tend to be more consistent with the masculine stereotype.” “Women face the double-bind when taking on leadership positions. If their behavior is too feminine they are seen as too soft and incompetent, however if their behavior is too masculine they are perceived negatively.”
So why, despite these strengths, don’t we see more women in senior management? The reasons are complicated, even for ambitious, highly skilled women. One reason may be that successful women managers must demonstrate more leadership skills. According to Malloy, “Research the Hay Group conduced on outstanding women leaders found that they navigate this double-bind by using a combination of both stereotypically masculine leadership styles (e.g., being Authoritative or Visionary) and feminine leadership styles (e.g., being more Affiliative or Participative).” Men by contrast only need to demonstrate the “masculine” leadership styles.
I researched issues related to women in the workplace and concluded that women’s femininity has unique advantages, but stereotype bias also exists.
About our research program on self-awareness, one of the most common questions I get is whether we’ve found any gender differences.
First, the data: research has shown that women possess a slight self-awareness advantage over men. In one survey study of 275 people, we’ve found that women’s self-ratings of self-awareness are slightly (though not dramatically) higher than men’s. Other research has shown that women are rated slightly higher in self-awareness by direct reports, as well as managers and peers. Women are also better able to recognize the importance of self-awareness for their career success and advancement.
But despite these advantages, women continue to be underrepresented in senior leadership roles and are paid less than men. While gender inequity has wide-ranging causes, focusing on the role that self-awareness plays can give women, and those who champion them, tools to address some of these disparities.
So why aren’t women’s self-awareness advantages translating into better representation in senior leadership roles? Are there any lessons from the self-awareness literature that could help explain this persistent gap? And what can be done do to close it?
Lesson 1: Women underestimate themselves, but not in the way most people believe
It is often said that women are less self-confident than men — yet surprisingly, current findings do not support this idea. Though past researchers have documented differences in self-confidence between girls and boys, this gap shrinks dramatically by age 23. And where past research revealed gender differences in self-ratings of managerial effectiveness, more recent studies have shown that male and female leaders rate themselves similarly. As Sarah Green Carmichael aptly states, “Again and again, when we look at adult women, we don’t see a bunch of shrinking violets who could get ahead with just a little more moxie.”
Yet even though the average woman isn’t underestimating herself as a leader, she has a slightly more nuanced challenge: she may lack the confidence that others value her contributions. In one study, women and men’s self-ratings of emotional intelligence (EQ; a key leadership skill) did not differ. Yet when asked to predict how their supervisor would rate their EQ, women’s predictions were three times lower than men’s, despite being rated slightly higher by their boss than men were.
Why do women underestimate their true value? Researchers have suggested that persistent stereotypes about leadership being a male characteristic (whether implicit or explicit) can lead women to worry that they are validating negative stereotypes, which would cause coworkers to see them as less effective than they see themselves.
The ability to correctly predict how others see us, often called meta-perception, is an important aspect of self-awareness. And indeed, when women underestimate how others view their contributions, they may unintentionally hold themselves back. If a female leader believes that others don’t value her, she could be more cautious about applying for a job, putting herself forward for a promotion, or asking for a raise.
Therefore, to advance and thrive, women need to gain a more accurate picture of their contributions through the eyes of others. One approach for comparing our predictions with reality is the reflected best self-exercise (RBS). It is a powerful vehicle to discover our defining strengths as others see them.
A leader wishing to complete the RBS would identify at least eight people from different parts of her life — current or former colleagues, employees, supervisor, friends, family, etc. — and send them an email asking when they have seen her at her best, including a few specific examples. Once she receives the responses, she would review them to identify key themes and patterns. Finally, she would compose a self-portrait of who she is at her best through the eyes of others.
It is vital for women leaders to understand what others see as their defining strengths and contributions. It requires a bit of effort and an open mind, but in so doing, we can begin to remove any self-imposed constraints preventing us from putting ourselves forward for bigger, better opportunities.
Lesson 2: Women aren’t getting good feedback
Feedback is essential for a leader to understand her contributions, as well as the adjustments she can make to be more effective. And even though women ask for feedback as often as men, they are less likely to get it.
Giving honest feedback is notoriously difficult. It can become even more difficult when it crosses gender lines. Researchers have coined the phrase “benevolent sexism” to refer to behaviors that shield women from difficult information. In a work context, male bosses or colleagues may avoid giving women negative feedback because they don’t want to hurt or upset them.
When women do receive feedback, it’s typically less specific than feedback given to men. This has profound consequences: studies have shown that when women receive vague feedback, they’re more likely to be assigned lower performance ratings. Vague negative feedback tells a leader that her performance isn’t meeting expectations, but because it doesn’t identify the behaviors that aren’t serving her, she doesn’t know what to do differently.
A lack of specific positive feedback also puts leaders at a disadvantage. It suggests that she is doing well, but because it doesn’t point to the actions or results that are valued, she doesn’t know what to continue doing. And if she doesn’t have detailed, documented achievements, it’s more difficult to make the case for a promotion or raise. When women can solicit and record specific positive feedback, this has been shown to effectively eliminate men’s overrepresentation in top performance categories.
The question then becomes: how can women obtain more detailed feedback? In our research with highly self-aware men and women, we discovered an interesting pattern in how they got feedback: they turned to a relatively small circle, typically between three and five people, all of whom had an active interest in their success and a history of truth telling when it was difficult.
When it comes to the feedback conversations themselves, if they’re imperfect at first, it doesn’t mean they won’t be valuable. Business school professor Elle Bell Smith suggests that if feedback isn’t specific enough, women should ask follow-up questions like, “Can you give me an example [of] when I did that?” “What was the impact you saw [of that behavior]?” or “How often have you seen me doing this?”
Lesson 3: Women tend to take feedback to heart
Of course, no one should take every piece of feedback at face value, nor should they over-rely on others’ views to construct their self-concept. In general, there are three types of information we use to form a picture of who we are: how we see ourselves, how others see us, and comparisons we make with others. While men place more importance on their self-views and social comparisons, women tend to be more focused on how others see them. What’s more, even though men and women possess similar views of their performance in the absence of feedback, women are more likely than men to modify their self-views in the presence of it.
Granted, it isn’t adaptive to ignore feedback from others, but by that same token, it can be just as dangerous to discount our self-views. Placing greater importance on others’ evaluations of our performance can cause us to ignore our own standards and goals, which could make our behavior less consistent with our values. When we become over-reliant on others’ approval, we may ruminate more on our fears.
Finally, I am very interested in the RBS approach and afterwards I would like to put this approach into my intervention experiments.