Role of Gender in the Promotion in Organizations - Essay Example

Role Of Gender In The Promotion And Attainment Of High-Level Positions In Organizations [Name Of Student] [Name Of Institution] Introduction There are many complex barriers which hinder career progress for women. Despite of all the progress and development, the mindset of corporations still has not changed to enable women to reach top-level positions. This has also become a serious concern for many organizations which wish to break the glass ceiling. The term depicts the many different obstacles that restrict people who meet all merit criteria to advance higher in their career and organization. Although there are some cases where women have reached the top-level of their organizations, their ratio compared to men remains largely insignificant (Bass, 2004: 33). In this past paced world of business, it is incumbent upon all organizations to value diversity and hire all people to enrich their work environment and for better ideas which are an inherent property of diverse teams. Also, these teams, irrespective of gender, should get equal chance to progress and reach the peak of their careers. A few barriers that specifically hinder a woman’s growth in her career in any organization are prejudice, lack of organizational savvy, unsupportive working conditions, lack of focus and no help in balancing home, family and career. As the obstacles are so deep rooted in social, cultural, economic and psychological grounds, it is difficult to find easy or quick solutions to this (Bradsher, 2001:2-4). In this paper I shall discuss the role of gender in the promotion and attainment of high-level positions in organizations. Discussion First, it is important to understand what gender equality means. According to Lorber, gender equality signifies that, “…women and men, irrespective of their race, should have the similar chances to attain professional qualifications and job-related guidance, and should be dispersed in similar proportions as they are in the salaried work force across corporations, job titles, professions, and also hierarchical arrangements” Lorber (1994:200). Similarly, Luke and Gore (2001: 203) define it as “equal rights to speak and to be heard, access to all positions, resources and power and appropriate representation on company boards.” Despite these set meanings, the reality remains that women feel disadvantaged and suppressed as opposed to their male counterparts when it comes to career growth and attaining top-level positions in the working environment (Bass, 2004: 33). After the fourth World Conference in 1995, held in Beijing, there has been additional awareness about equality in the workplace as a right for both genders, which has due to the conference attained, political and legal support (Bradsher, 2001:2-4). Yet, there remain wide gaps in practice in every field and every part of the world. The report on the Progress of the World’s women 2002 stated that women still make a mere 5% of the heads of big corporations and top-level ranks in international corporations (Vinnicombe, 2007: 17). The report also found that despite some progress which has occurred in the last twenty years, the progress and growth of women still lags behind that of men when it comes to influence, judgment calls, power, chance for growth and wealth (Dubno, 2005: 28-9). Whether gender really plays a role in the promotion and attainment of high-level positions in organizations, can be judged from the continuing gaps in literature which highlight the opportunities that women have and the extent to which they are able to take part in governance (Bass, 2004: 550-3). It is widely established that unless women make up a substantial mass of atleast a third of those who are involved in judgments, there small voice makes no difference to the end results of how things operate (Bass, 2004: 550-3). So, efforts have been made to ascertain that women constitute atleast one third of those concerned with taking decisions, along with the endeavors to eradicate the institutional obstacles that limited valuable participation by women, like including more family-friendly policies in the work environment. Another view states that women do not fit well in top managerial or leadership positions. It is important to assess this statement before making any decision about women’s abilities to handle the pressure of top-level jobs (Bradsher, 2001:2-4). Many researches have explored this question. A study established after their research that women did better than men in majority of the leadership dimensions (Dubno, 2005: 28-9). The only area where women scored low was that of envisioning. Since it is a vital quality for leadership combined with many others like energizing and motivating, empowering, designing and aligning, team nurturing, international vision, emotional intelligence, feedback and proper rewarding (Bradsher, 2001:2-4). They put forth a few possibilities of the view. They were of the opinion that women are visionaries but in a slightly unconventional manner. Women will have different ways of envisioning in which they include their male counterparts too so that a common vision is conceived and here their capacity to take along the team, results in a loss of credit for the vision conceived. A second view is that women are usually reluctant to go out on a limb (Dubno, 2005: 28-9). A very common issue for females remains their lack of assumption of the skills and competence of their male fellows. Also, women tend to put less stock in vision as they do not value it as much as males d (Bradsher, 2001:2-4)o. Men have a more cynical perception of the envisioning of a woman and the actual realization of the organization’s goals. This is holding back women to attain the positions that they deserve in the corporate world. Another aspect to explore the reasons behind women’s lack of career growth is to question their passion and ambitions in life (heilman, 2006: 377-9). It is generally believed that women have less desire, as compared to men, to climb the corporate ladder. Dobbins observed in his study that almost all the childhood goals were linked together by two key elements (Dobbins, 2006: 119-123). One was the specialization of any skill and the second was acknowledgement and recognition. Many do not perceive recognition as a vital emotional requirement, especially when they grow up, but immense researches have proved that acknowledgment or recognition is the primary motivational force that steers the development and enrichment of any talent or skill. Moreover, there is also a link between the capacity to strive for specific skills and the social acknowledgement through attainment of particular aims or actions (heilman, 2006: 377-9). It was also stated that in the absence of earned recognition, long-term growth and performance targets are hardly ever attained. This finding has an important connection with women getting top-level managerial positions in companies. Research suggest that women tend to look for recognition amongst other women but this drastically changes when they enter the corporate world and are in competition with men for same positions (Mainiero, 2006: 633-8). Women also receive less appreciation for their achievements than men in all phases of life which leads to demoralization. Also, the gender discrimination that exists for high level positions is never clearly stated or articulated. It is instead, subtle and systematic (Dobbins, 2006: 119-123). There are never any explicit policies or rules which show any signs of discrimination for women yet the corporate world remains dominated by men and the male views on strategy development, performance assessment and interpersonal dealings usually prevails in the organization. Women are usually dealt with rather strictly and are subjected to lower pay scales (Eagely, 2000: 237-42). The salary difference is another indicator of the hidden discrimination that exists against women; they are considered less competent and hence promotions for them come slow, if any at all. This severely limits the potential of women in the organization who over the time start eliminating the top-level positions from their target list. Women also have to face a multitude of barriers in their promotions which get more and more complex with each step up on the corporate ladder. Glass ceilings exist in all fields whether it is education, government, NGOs etc. and remains invisible and staunch; the foundation of which remains the gender disparity in the corporate world. (Dobbins, 2006: 119-123) The biggest indicator of this remains the compensations offered to the females as opposed to those given to males. Another indicator is the corporate culture which throws many hurdles in the way of any woman on the road of promotion or success (Eagely, 2000: 237-42). This is evident by the corporate policies which cleverly maintain status quo by ascertaining that men remain in seats of power. Another fact which adds to the many obstacles is the work/family balance which if not handled properly severely hinders a woman’s progress and contributed to the glass ceiling notion. Women remain responsible for home and children even if they enter corporate world and hence many senior managers refuse to promote them on the basis of their domestic responsibilities, which they assume make them unsuitable for key positions (Donnell, 2000: 64-7). Furthermore, chances for promotion are more favorable for men as compared to women owing to the developmental viewpoint, like networking and mentoring. Women also lack the benefit that men have from socializing. Women often get little or no benefit from informal networking if they are less in number; example they will not hand out with males in the evening for a drink or for a football game (Morrison, 2006: 22). There exist other barriers too apart from the glass ceiling obstacles discussed above. Remnant of prejudice is widely known as males in a group will often get higher salaries and quicker promotions (Donnell, 2000: 72). Also, family circumstances and demands of child bearing prohibit their presence in the career for longer tenures. Moreover, they have usually lesser opportunities to attain higher qualifications. Promotions and increments are easily offered to men as opposed to women with identical qualifications (Mainiero, 2006: 633-8). If women do reach a certain managerial position, they have to face stricter evaluations as compared to men on the same level. People also find it difficult to report to a woman manger and this cultural mind set has severely hampered women’s progress and their abilities to reach the top positions in organizations. Subordinates report to woman and man managers with different characteristics and attribute males as better leaders. Psychologists claim that this is actually a clash between two groups of associations; communal and agentic (Fitt, 2001: 57-9). Women are more attributed to communal characteristics of compassion and concern for others, whereas men possess agentic traits which convey authorization and control. Most people refer the latter to as leadership qualities and the long history of men dominating the leadership roles has made it almost impossible to distinguish between male and leadership qualities. (Fitt, 2001: 57-9) If women try to adopt agentic traits they receive strict allegations for not being communal and when communal they have to face criticism for not being leader like. Either way, a woman has to prove herself in each step and phase of her career and yet she may not get what she really deserves. Conclusion In short we can say that despite all the advancement and progress in this contemporary age of information and technology, women are still confined to support functions, segregated by glass ceilings with little or almost no opportunities for mobility and true progress. They often find themselves trapped in lower level ranks in the corporations with hardly any major responsibilities, less visibility and chance to prove their talent and also lesser compensations. Their positions usually comprise less command over other peers, data, resources and technology and therefore a lack of power and say in the organization. (Fitt, 2001: 57-9) When faced with such legitimate power cuts they often become unfit for higher ranks in the organization. The women who brave through all the discrimination and reach a top-level status in their organization, with first of her gender ever done so, is merely limited to a token status. Now despite reaching a senior position, because of her token status she will have to face extra hurdles as compared to men who enjoy majority status in most of the organizations (Simpson, 2001: 23). Stereotyping and isolation are common and usually they end up as spokesperson of their gender in that organization (Mainiero, 2006: 633-8). Made to believe that their gender and not their hard work and skills have earned them that position, they tend to take less credit for their success at work and undervalue their potential. Although women still lag behind men by a huge margin when it comes to getting top-level positions in the organizations, they have potential and perspectives to contribute. 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