"Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception."
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg
A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology proposed that the mere presence of women in positions of power isn’t enough to “break the glass ceiling”. In order to foster an environment of equal opportunity, women in leadership positions need to be successful.
This research was carried out by Francesca Manzi, a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University and Madeline E. Heilman, a Professor of psychology at New York University.
It’s no secret that corporate America suffers from a “broken rung” effect, which often causes women to get stuck at entry-level jobs, leaving less room for women at the top. When women do manage to reach those coveted high-level positions, they’re often hailed as a trailblazer who opened the door for future women.
Unfortunately, the mere presence of women in leadership positions may not be the quick fix that some think it is. Dr. Manzi and Dr. Heilman hypothesized that female leaders will only positively affect other women striving for leadership positions if they perform well. If unsuccessful, they’ll have the opposite effect, making it more difficult for other women to succeed.
Considering there is a “glass cliff” phenomenon where women are more likely than men to be appointed leaders when the position is associated with a higher risk of failure, female leaders may bear an undue burden.
For their first experiment, the researchers examined whether the performance of a female leader affected the perception of other female candidates vying for a leadership position.
Participants from a large Northeastern city were told they would be making initial screening decisions about candidates being considered for high-level jobs. They were presented with information about a steel manufacturing company.
Next, they were told that the CEO of the company, either Michael (a man) or Patricia (a woman), was departing. Participants were given a newspaper that detailed the CEO’s on-the-job performance.
After reviewing the newspaper, participants were given information about a female candidate and asked to evaluate whether she was fit for a leadership position at the company.
The researchers found that the female candidate was thought to be less qualified and was less recommended for a leadership position when participants read the headline describing Patricia as an unsuccessful CEO. However, participants who read the headline describing Michael as an unsuccessful CEO were less likely to view the female candidate as unqualified.
In the following experiment, the researchers explored whether the performance of a female leader would affect the stereotypes attached to female professionals in general. The procedure of this experiment closely mirrored the previous one, except participants only read about a female, but not male, CEO.
After reading about the CEO and evaluating a separate female candidate for a leadership position, participants were asked to rate their general impressions of the female candidate on qualities such as decisiveness, forcefulness and rationality.
The results revealed that when participants read about an unsuccessful female CEO, they perceived the female candidate as less dominant, independent and self-reliant. This suggests that exposure to someone who confirms the stereotype that women are unfit for leadership can affect the evaluations of other female professionals striving to become leaders themselves.
In the next experiment, the researchers explored whether female leadership would be generalized to all female professionals if the industry was female-dominated.
Like the previous experiments, participants read about a successful or unsuccessful female CEO and were asked to evaluate a separate female candidate for a leadership position at a company. However, this time, participants were told that the company manufactured either tools or beauty products.
As expected, when participants were told that the company manufactured beauty products, a female CEO’s performance didn’t affect whether the female candidate was perceived as qualified for a leadership position. This suggests that female leadership performance may only affect other female professionals in occupations that tend to be stereotypically male-dominated.
The outcome of these experiments confirmed the notion that the mere presence of women in leadership positions isn’t enough to create a work culture that allows women the equal opportunity to succeed. In male-dominated industries, a female leader’s performance is what sets the stage for how other female professionals vying for leadership positions will be viewed.