By Melissa Greenwell, author of MONEY ON THE TABLE
Women are undoubtedly a key part of the talent pool in the United States: The Census Bureau reported that in 2015, women received approximately half of all bachelors’ and advanced degrees. So when young professionals enter the workforce, gender is fairly balanced.
But regardless of industry, when you look at those rising through the ranks, the gender balance in leadership declines. As professionals climb the ladder of their careers, the percentage of women in senior roles dwindles, often reaching teens and single-digit numbers at executive levels.
Childrearing is believed to be the number-one cause of leaders losing their female talent. This is the assumption employers usually make when a talented female leaves the firm. Sometimes that’s what the woman will say; it’s hard to argue with that reasoning, and it gets employers off the hook of having a more difficult conversation. In reality, many women leave to do something else they can manage professionally and personally.
I recently conducted a women’s leadership workshop and tested the following premise: When women opt out of the workforce, they want to stay home to raise families rather than doing something that enables them to keep and develop professional skills on a schedule that supports both.
Laughter was the response. Most of the women at the workshop said they would go crazy if they stayed home full time, but they wanted enough flexibility to spend quality time with their children and not feel guilty when they couldn’t. They knew many women who left their job only because they could not find the flexibility they needed. Those women felt forced into that decision; staying home full time was not their first choice.
The female leaders at the workshop were also frustrated with having to compete and work harder in male-dominated environments to get promoted, not only to be better subject matter experts but also to be noticed for it. They said that women simply burn out and decide to do their own thing, which could mean anything from starting their own business to finding an organization with a different environment, often taking smaller paychecks in the transition.
The bottom line is that women leave companies because many companies make it difficult for them to stay. Corporate cultures that are not flexible, pigeonhole people into roles that don’t leverage their best skills, and don’t recognize or promote women will continue to lose their female talent and perpetuate male-dominated environments.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), women earn approximately seven percent more bachelor’s degrees and three percent more master’s degrees than men. I’m sure these women did not do so with the intention of taking supporting roles. Yet that is where many of their corporate careers end. Women with advanced education are starting careers, achieving some success, and then leaving their jobs, just when their value is beginning to peak. Many go on to embark on a different career or start their own business to have more flexibility.
Consider these National Women’s Business Council statistics: As of 2012, businesses owned by women made up 36.2 percent of all nonfarm businesses, up from 29.6 percent in 2007, and generated $1.6 trillion in receipts. This trajectory only seems to be increasing. Some may think women are leaving corporations primarily to focus on family, but that is not the case. Instead, they are creating professional scenarios that will make it easier to have family and a career. Credit Suisse’s Gender 3000 states that the number of women-owned businesses in the United States went up by sixty-eight percent between 1997 and 2014, twice the increase in male-led start-ups.9 These women are choosing to work differently, not choosing not to work.
Another factor that drives women to either leave a company or accept less senior positions is the sheer lack of women in the leadership roles they seek. Women entering an organization filled with men in the top ranks experience big dips in ambition, simply because they perceive it’s not possible to get to those levels. My interviews with women who did achieve those positions suggest that many believed they had to make a trade-off between family and executive aspirations at certain points in their career. It took longer to get promoted, because the organization culture (driven largely by the men) made time in the office or on the road a requirement.
We all lose when women leave a company. Businesses lose a pipeline of talent. Women often lose their place in the workforce, along with their investments in education and careers. And we lose some of our best thinkers. This is preventable!
Adapted from Money on the Table: How to Increase Profits Through Gender-Balanced Leadership (Greenleaf Book Group Press) by Melissa Greenwell. Copyright (c) 2016 by Melissa Greenwell. All rights reserved. This book is available at all bookstores and online booksellers.
MELISSA GREENWELL is the author of MONEY ON THE TABLE: How to Increase Profits Through Gender-Balanced Leadership (Greenleaf Book Group, January 2017). She is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of national retailer The Finish Line, Inc. You can learn more at www.melissa-greenwell.com.