The Reality of Diversity at the Top

In industries dominated by men, the pressure to put women in leadership roles is immense. Given the historical underrepresentation of women in leadership, gender diversity at the top is frequently tracked and commented on, since the senior women provide a visible signal of the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. Organisations with more women in senior management than their competitors earn external praise. Clients are happy, stakeholders feel reassured, and media scrutiny is lessened. However, this quick fix often leads to unintended consequences. While these firms may appear committed to diversity, the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

In fact, what Dwivedi and Paolella’s study suggests, is that once a firm reaches this relative gender diversity at the top, it feels satisfied with their existing level of diversity and simply stops trying. The attention, time, and resources that should flow towards building internal diversity initiatives are redirected. The firm feels satisfied with itself and the focus on hiring and supporting women at junior levels wanes. It’s as though, after ticking off the gender diversity box, the real work—the hard work—of fostering an inclusive environment for all women, at all levels, simply fades into the background.

When it comes to gauging how diverse one’s company is, people tend to compare the gender representation in the most visible, top roles to other companies within their industry. Sadly, due to women’s underrepresentation in the leadership roles across a number of industries, this type of comparison becomes highly problematic, especially in male-dominated industries. This in turn can lead to an illusory sense of progress and overestimating how well one’s firm performs on diversity-related matters. As a result, organisational decision-makers begin to allocate fewer resources, less time and effort to practices aimed at driving diversity within the workplace.When we combine this with the research findings that showcase that senior women rarely enjoy the same status and power as men, a more complex picture starts to emerge. Furthermore, senior women face paradoxical challenge, where on one hand they are unfairly  expected to  be the  sole drivers of further diversity initiatives (which tend to involve unpaid and low-reward, time-consuming tasks unrelated to their role), while at the same time in order to advance or maintain their position, they feel compelled to distance themselves from their gender if they are to be seen as “one of the boys”.

Given the issues outlined above, just because a firm has a higher proportion of women at the top than its competitors, doesn’t mean it has enough women in senior management to make a real difference. Without a critical mass—a meaningful number of women—those in senior positions are often left powerless, unable to influence or mentor junior women effectively. This leads to a troubling cycle. Firms mistakenly believe they’ve done enough by hiring a few senior women and, as a result, cease to invest in promoting gender diversity. Without consistent effort, they fail to recruit and support women at the entry level, leaving the pipeline to leadership positions narrow and flawed.

Diversity Committees: The Missing Piece

So, what’s the solution? It’s not enough to just hire women at the top and hope everything else falls into place. Dwivedi and Paolella’s research points to the importance of having women in key decision-making roles, particularly on diversity and hiring committees. When women are substantively represented on these committees, they can actively monitor and oversee diversity initiatives, ensuring that gender equality isn’t just a token gesture but a core part of the company’s culture.

The researchers propose that such committees can circumvent some of the challenges mentioned earlier by providing senior, as well as junior, women with opportunities to identify with and champion gender-equality while at the same time engaging in tasks that are officially part of their role and can thus be formally recognised. Furthermore, such committees tend to provide greater authority to women to drive diversity issues within the firm and provide greater psychological safety to raise concerns and offer solutions. Committees form also a great opportunity to both senior and junior women to demonstrate their managerial capabilities and raise their profile as change agents, while providing greater accountability to the company (studies show that when men anticipate being held accountable to women for their decisions, they become more conscious of their own biases).  What I would add from my own consulting experience, however, is that it is important to ensure such committees have access to the resources needed, engage male allies and that they are recognised as high value-adding initiatives that support the organisation, rather than just another tick-box exercise.

Moving Beyond the Surface

Diversity cannot be achieved by just meeting quotas or hitting targets. Real diversity requires sustained commitment, continuous attention, and the willingness to challenge deeply ingrained biases. Firms must stop treating gender diversity like a box to be ticked and start seeing it as a systemic issue that needs addressing from the ground up. Does it mean we shouldn’t bother with hiring women to the top leadership positions? Of course not- previous studies have shown that senior women help to reduce gender stereotypes for junior women and improve their productivity, as well as career prospects, while reducing gender pay gap and turnover. For the companies to be able to leverage those benefits, however, senior women are needed to have true decision-making influence and play an active role in influencing recruitment and selection practices across all levels of the organisation.

Achieving true equality isn’t just about getting a few women into the boardroom. It’s about ensuring that every woman, from entry-level to senior management, has the opportunity to succeed. Let’s stop celebrating surface-level diversity and start pushing for real, meaningful change.It’s not about hiring women for the sake of appearances but about giving them real power—ensuring they can shape the decisions that can truly make a difference.

If you are interested in discussion how your company can make a true difference, get in touch at anna.c.jaffery@inpsyconsulting.co.uk

Reference: Dwivedi, P., & Paolella, L. (2024). Tick off the gender diversity box: Examining the cross-level effects of women’s representation in senior management. Academy of Management Journal, 67 (4), 991-1023.

The post The Diversity Trap: Why hiring more female leaders is not enough first appeared on Inpsy Consulting Anna Czaplewska-Jaffery.

Heilman et al. (2024) focus their review on the most commonly held gender stereotypes, which tend to view women as communal and men as agentic. The stereotypical view that women are kind, warm and caring (i.e. communal) while men are more assertive, independent and competitive (i.e. agentic), is believed to stem from the social roles that have been traditionally assigned to men and women. These stereotypes can be both descriptive, in that they use different terms to describe how men and women are, but they can also include prescriptions that dictate how men and women should be. The problematic nature of these stereotypes becomes apparent when we imagine a scenario where both Jane and John are staying longer at work to help their colleague finish a project, but this prosocial organisational behaviour is only really perceived for John who is seen as getting out of his way to help a colleague, while for Jane it is seen as given due to her “caring nature”. While it might make Jane more likable, it won’t likely count towards her promotion, while John’s act of kindness can even be further attributed to agentic traits such as ambition and capability, landing John a nice salary increase and a new title. The damaging impact of these stereotypes is especially likely, however, to be experienced by women applying for roles or working within male-dominated environments, as well as female leaders, who often face what INSEAD Professors Herminia Ibarra and Jennifer Petriglieri refer to as “impossible selves”. These prescriptions that are often impossible for women to attain since they pose conflicting requirements, where women should be competent but not bold, not acting like men but also not overly feminine etc.

Research shows that women who violate the ”ought tos” and “should nots” that come with the descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes that Heilman et al. (2024) discuss in their review, are faced with backlash and are penalised for not adhering to the stereotypes. For example, women have been shown to be disliked, have lower chances of being hired, experience diminished influence and worse salary outcomes simply because they failed to fit in with someone’s stereotypical views on gender. Due to still persistent views of leadership that fit in more closely with stereotypically masculine traits, such as competence, assertiveness, dominance and confidence, women are especially likely to experience the stereotype backlash when seeking promotions or when applying for or occupying managerial and leadership positions, since prototypical leader continues to be viewed as male and thus women are seen as ill-fitting to high power roles, despite research clearly indicating that women perform just as well  or even exceed men in leadership roles. The penalties women face are the strongest for those who succeed in high status and high power roles (Heilman et al., 2024). For example, studies found high-achieving women in traditionally male environments, such as STEM or academia to be less likely to be offered a job and to be evaluated poorly. Unfortunately, even when they manage to successfully make it into the top and have built a career that unequivocally establishes their competence, women continue to face the impact of gender stereotypes. For example, Heilman et al. (1995) found female but not male leaders to be described as bitter, quarrelsome and selfish. Furthermore,  women’s power is more volatile than men’s, their decisions and behaviours are under constant scrutiny and any slip-up is immediately attributed to the woman’s ill-fitting to the leadership position, while her male-counterpart’s behaviour continues to be dismissed as more situational.

Given these differences in men’s and women’s experience in the workplace, it is important that we ask what can be done to improve gender equality. In their review, Heilman et al. (2024) discuss that research on prescriptive stereotypes suggests two ways in which their negative impact on women’s career prospects can be decreased. Firstly, studies show that providing information about woman’s communality can dampen the hostile impressions that women who violate gender norms tend to face. Rather than trying to emulate their male counterparts, female leaders have been found most successful when they signal their communality through democratic leadership style and by demonstrating being caring and sensitive to the needs of others. Another way in which women have successfully managed to decrease the penalties for their success within masculine domains, was through attributing their counter-stereotypical behaviour to circumstances.  For example, studies found that women who stressed that they arrived at their position unintentionally rather than as a person were viewed more favourably, while those who negotiated salary increase by stating it was suggested by someone else rather than their own idea, were more likely to receive it. While they can offer some interim solutions that can be applied by women wishing to get ahead, these research findings do not provide tangible solution to the problem posted by the gender stereotypes in the workplace and not only continue to place the burden on women, but in some ways force them to “play by the rules” that reinforce the present status-quo.

Although Heilman et al. (2024) firmly state that the best course of action would of course be to challenge the gender stereotypes at the societal level, the authors also recognise that decades of research indicate that changing stereotypes is a very slow and complex process. In fact, a growing body of research has been demonstrating that many initiatives designed to increase gender equality in the workplace are ineffective and fail to acknowledge that not only do they place the burden of change on women and disregard the consequences women often face when engaging in the behaviours that these workshops or leadership courses encourage.

Instead, the authors propose that organisations should take wide-ranging action to alleviate the gender bias in the workplace by:

With the increasing presence of women in leadership and decision-making positions, and with the growing awareness of both direct and indirect biases that women continue to face in the workplace, we are beginning to see some positive changes across the organisations. Let us hope this trend continues and that organisations seek to demonstrate their commitment to increasing gender equality by implementing evidence-based solutions and by creating workplaces that are inclusive to all the employees.

For anyone interested in supporting greater gender equality in their organisation – InPsy Consulting is here to help. Please do not hesitate to reach out to discuss ways in which you and your organisation can make a difference.

References:

Heilman, M. E., Caleo, S., & Manzi, F. (2024). Women at work: pathways from gender stereotypes to gender bias and discrimination. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 11, 165-192.

The post „Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” – The Impossible Selves and Gender Stereotypes first appeared on Inpsy Consulting Anna Czaplewska-Jaffery.

Despite my enthusiasm, however, it quickly became apparent to me how difficult it was to incorporate staying up to date on the research-front into my busy workdays. And if I was struggling to find the time for it as an IO-Psychologist, I was pretty sure that busy managers who usually don’t have access to the journals and who certainly do not have hours to spare in their busy schedules to read lengthy scientific research papers won’t find it easy either.

When I went back to academia to work on my PhD, being up to date with the latest leadership, cross-cultural management and gender research became a pivotal part of my everyday life and as I started working on my own business, it became apparent to me that I want to be able to share my knowledge with others. This is how this blog came to life – as a space for providing bite-size summaries for busy professionals who want to ensure their leadership practices are evidence-based and who want to make informed decisions for themselves and their organisations. So grab your tea or coffee and enjoy the read!

The post Welcome to InPsy Blog first appeared on Inpsy Consulting Anna Czaplewska-Jaffery.