"How can a company compete in today's marketplace if they don't use half of the workforce? To me, it's about getting the best talent available and, to get the best talent, you cannot exclude 50 percent of the pool. You cannot win that way."
Brenda Barnes
Chairman & CEO,
Sara Lee Corporation
INTERVIEW WITH
ALICE EAGLY

From our 2008 Census

Alice Eagly's research refutes the popular metaphor of the glass ceiling, and instead argues that women must deal with a labyrinth, facing challenges and obstacles throughout their careers. To successfully navigate, she advises that women should seek mentors and create their own social networks, obtaining a top down perspective.

Author, with Linda Carli, of Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, and the James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Psychology and Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University. [See this research.]


Why is it important to have women in positions of leadership?

There are lots of reasons. The first is that there is quite a lot of evidence in the social sciences that groups are often more productive and creative when they're not composed of all the same kinds of persons. If you have people who bring different perspectives to the table and have different types of backgrounds and insights, it's likely that the work they do will be more effective. Initially, more diverse groups can have tensions when you bring new kinds of people together. Once they're over the shock of the differences, the more creative the group tends to be and the better they are at problem solving. In that sense, having women on boards or in the executive suites is good for business. If you look at the proportion of women in leadership roles in the Fortune 1,000, this proportion correlates positively with the bottom line.

In our book, we say that the more women you have on a board, the better. You should not stop with one token woman, or other minority, because the more women you have, the more they blend into the group and contribute more effectively. Also, from a public image standpoint, it's important these days for a company to have more diversity on its board. Representing, and understanding, your customer base is crucial. Women have so much purchasing power today that when the public becomes aware that a board is composed entirely of white men, they question it more than they used to and say, how does that happen?

How do you view the challenges women face? Your book talks about the labyrinth as an ongoing series of challenges.

Our research suggests that there are numerous causes holding women back that are interrelated. That's our metaphor, the labyrinth, and it conveys a sense of a complex journey toward a goal worth striving for. We encourage people not to think in terms of single causes but in terms of sets of interrelated causes. There has been such a fixation on a presumed glass ceiling, but it's more complex than this worn-out metaphor suggests.

Women are discriminated against at all stages of their career. Discrimination usually doesn't happen in the old-fashioned way such as, "We don't want any women here," but along the lines of, "She might not be able to handle a job like that," or, "She might not be tough enough for all those pressures." It's more subtle and reflects a stereotyping of women that people aren't necessarily labeling as discrimination or prejudice.

What is the biggest challenge to getting more women on boards of directors and in executive suites?

Leadership is regarded as agentic, meaning it conveys control and assertiveness. Men (as a group) are associated with agentic qualities. So, even when women have the perfect characteristics for leadership, it's hard for that to penetrate. We still tend to assimilate people to stereotypes automatically, without realizing we're doing it. Much of this thinking is embedded in our culture and produces a set of pressures that is more difficult to counter. People expect women to be "nice" and can be uncomfortable when they assertively take charge. How can women cope with this problem? We talk about women blending communal and agentic behaviors, not being too kind and sympathetic but not going so far in the culturally masculine direction that they get backlash from others. We advocate splitting the difference between masculine and feminine behavior by being assertive yet friendly as a kind of generic strategy.

Building social capital is another area where women have to work harder. They often don't have as many opportunities for networking outside of the workplace because they are not always welcome in male-dominated groups and they often have family responsibilities that limit the time available for networking. Activities are often structured around male-oriented pursuits like sports or hunting, which tend to exclude women. Don't wait for an invitation, be bold, and look for other ways to build your networks.