The document summarizes research on barriers that women face in advancing to leadership roles. It finds that women are less likely than men to receive stretch assignments that develop leadership skills, more likely to be placed in "glass cliff" roles with high risk of failure, and more likely to end up in staff rather than line roles. This limits their access to the most influential assignments and positions. The document also discusses how women receive less sponsorship from senior leaders, are excluded from influential networks, and face biases in talent reviews and day-to-day interactions that undermine their perceived competence. It provides strategies for women to overcome these barriers by cultivating relationships across groups and seeking sponsors and mentors.

1. Understand the system, make a strategy
Women in Leadership
January 2016
Janice Fraser
Director, People
Pivotal

2. Keep in touch!
@clevergirl

3. I’ve been in business for a long time.

4. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
We’ve come a long way since the day
my business partners tried to deny my
maternity leave retroactively because in
their view parenthood was a “lifestyle
choice”.

5. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Even so, women don’t advance into leadership
proportionately.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
IC Manager Director VP SVP C-Suite
Source: Women in the
Workplace 2016, McKinsey22
This study comprised 132
companies that employ
collectively 4.6 million people.
% Men
% Women

6. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
But why?
It doesn’t make sense.

7. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
What’s true in
the world?
Literature
review.
Synthesize
findings &
map out a
system model
Make explicit
strategies to
support the
advancement
of women.
My plan.

8. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
1. Stanford Study: Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level women in Technology, Clayman Institute for Gender Research 2009
2. McKinsey Study: Unlocking the full potential of women at work, 2012
3. Catalyst Study: Good Intentions, Imperfect Execution? Women get fewer Game Changing Leadership Roles, 2011
4. Anita Borg Institute: Barriers to the advancement of technical women. A review of the literature, 2007
5. HBR: To Close the Gender Gap, Focus on Assignments, 2012
6. HBR: Why Men Still Get More Promotions than Women, 2010
7. HBR: Women in Management, Delusions of Progress, 2010
8. Bersin: What Exactly Are Talent Calibration Sessions Versus Talent Reviews?, 2008
9. Fortune: The abrasiveness trap: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews, 2015
10. HBR Press: Through the Labyrinth, 2007
11. Catalyst Study: The Double-Bind DIlemma, 2007
12. HBR Study: Women Get Fewer Game-Changing Leadership Roles, 2012
13. Clayman Institute: Senior Leadership Summit for Women (WT2 Conference), Feb 2016
14. Forbes: The 'Glass Cliff' Phenomenon That Senior Female Leaders Face Today And How To Avoid It, 2015
15. PWC/Strategy& Study: The 2013 Chief Executive Study, 2013
16. Google, Search result definition. March 2015
17. Journal of Advances in Gender Research: Gendered Networks: Professional Connections of Science and Engineering Faculty
18. UC Hastings: Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color in Science
19. HBR: Prove Yourself ... Again: Why Women Get Overlooked for Management Positions
20. Slate Study: How to Get Ahead as a Woman in Tech: Interrupt Men
21. Catalyst Study: The Double Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do Doomed if You Don’t
22. McKinsey Study: Women in the Workplace, 2016 (Just published this week)
The studies.

9. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
• Senior women get fewer key opportunities than men.12, 14
• Self-reinforcing factors bias leadership pipelines against women.1, 2
• Research from leading institutions has identified a small number of causal
patterns.2, 13
• This situation can be reversed over time through sustained effort rooted in
belief about the problem.1, 2
What I found.

10. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Stanford researchers have
identified 3 causal factors
that significantly hinder
women’s ascent to top
leadership roles.13
Good news. Sourcing &
Screening
Interviewing
& Selecting
Power & Team
Dynamics
Performance
Reviews
Talent Reviews
& Calibration
Assignments &
Promotions
Compensation

11. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Women’s Leadership Pipeline
Inputs and Outcomes
Sponsorship
Networks &
Social Capital
Talent
Reviews
Stretch
Assignments
Senior
Leadership
OPT OUT
Staff Role
Laterals
Sidelines
70%
Mentorship Glass Cliff
20%
Performance
Evals

12. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Women’s Leadership Pipeline
Inputs and Outcomes
Sponsorship
Networks &
Social Capital
Talent
Reviews
Stretch
Assignments
Senior
Leadership
OPT OUT
Staff Role
Laterals
Sidelines
70%
Mentorship Glass Cliff
20%
Performance
Evals
WE’RE GOING TO START HERE,
with the outcomes
AND WORK LEFT, toward the
inputs

13. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Stretch
Assignments
Senior
Leadership
70%
Stretch Assignments
• 70% of leadership development comes from
“stretch assignments.” 5
• A “Stretch Assignment” is a project that is beyond
a person’s current knowledge or skill in order to
“stretch” them developmentally, often in
preparation for greater leadership opportunity. 5,
16
• Women are less likely to get access to stretch
assignments.12

14. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Stretch
Assignments
Senior
Leadership
70%
Glass Cliff
Glass Cliff
• The Glass Cliff is the phenomenon whereby
female executives are likelier than males to be put
in leadership roles during periods of crisis or
downturn, when the chance of failure is highest.
(e.g., Marissa Mayer) 16
• Women are mentioned more frequently than men
with regard to Glass Cliff situations. 16
• When stretch assignments are given to women,
they are often “Glass Cliff” assignments, which
have a greater chance of failure. 14

15. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Stretch
Assignments
Senior
Leadership
70%
Glass Cliff
Staff Roles
• A “staff role” supports the organization with
specialized advisory and support functions. A "line
role" directly advances an organization in its core
work.16
• As women advance, they migrate to “staff” roles,
whereas men retain their “line” roles. 2
• People in staff roles are not considered for the
most influential assignments and positions. 2
Staff Role

16. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
OPT OUT
Sidelines
Stretch
Assignments
Senior
Leadership
70%
Sidelines and Laterals
• Women are forced out of their leadership roles
35% more often than men.15
• Women are promoted only after having
demonstrated their capabilities (“prove it again”),
while men are often promoted on their potential
for future performance (“Prove it again bias”). 18,
21
As a result, “stretch assignments” are less
available to women, and lateral moves are
inevitable.
Ultimately, women leave the leadership
workforce in greater numbers than men.
Glass Cliff
Staff Role
Laterals

17. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
In summary, there are 5
outcomes for women that
preclude senior leadership. Senior
Leadership
OPT OUT
Staff Role
Laterals
Sidelines
Glass Cliff

18. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Talent Reviews
Talent reviews are the formal or informal situations in which
senior leaders discuss the leadership potential of team
members, often in a context of assignments and succession
planning.16
• Women are scrutinized more often than men in talent
reviews, particularly about whether they are “strategic”.13
• Women get judged more precisely against predetermined
criteria, while men receive more leniency. 19
• Women’s mistakes tend to be remembered for longer than
men’s. 19
• Women’s successes are attributed to circumstance or
luck, whereas men’s are attributed to skill. 19
Talent
Reviews
Stretch
Assignmen
OPT O
Staff Role
Laterals
Sidelines
70%
Glass Clif

19. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Sponsorship
Networks &
Social Capital
Talent
Reviews
S
Assi
Staff
Late
Side
Mentorship Gla
20%
Performance
Evals
What happens at the
talent review depends
on the INPUTS

20. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Sponsorship
Sponsors are senior managers with influence. They
prepare their proteges for advancement, protect them from
negative situations, decode the company system, and
advocate for them in circles of power. 6
• Sponsorship accounts for 20% of all professional
development and advancement. 5
• Having senior mentors who are in a position to provide
sponsorship leads to advancement. 12
• More-senior sponsors yield faster advancement. 6
• Women are sponsored less frequently and by more-junior
sponsors than their male peers. 6
Talent
ReviewsSponsorship
20%

21. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Networks & Social Capital
Senior managers with more social capital (in the form of
network ties that bridge different groups) are more likely to
get promoted. 2
People are most comfortable networking with others who
are most like themselves [men network with men, women
with women].1, 17
Senior women are therefore largely excluded from the
networks of power where decisions about assignments are
made.2
Sponsorship
Networks &
Social Capital
Tal
Rev
20%

22. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Power & Team Dynamics:
An overlay that hinders women’s promotion potential at all levels
“Prove It Again” names a category of bias
behaviors in which women have to provide more
evidence of competence than men in order to be
seen as equally competent. For example:
• Women are more likely to have their ideas
overlooked in meetings. When a man states the
same idea later, he receives acknowledgement
and praise. 19
• Women are likely to be the target of interruption
more often than men, at a rate of 3:1. 18, 20
“The Double Bind” names an interconnected set of
biases that create a very narrow band of acceptable
personality and comportment norms for women.
• “Taking-charge” skills and stereotypically masculine
behaviors, such as assertiveness and competition, are
often seen as prerequisites for top-level positions. 21
• When women act in ways that are stereotypically
masculine, they’re considered “too tough” or
“unlikeable”. 21
• When women act in ways that are consistent with
female gender stereotypes, they are viewed as less
competent leaders.21
• Women are perceived as “likeable” or “competent”, but
not both. 21

23. Janice Fraser, 2016
@clevergirl
Explicit Strategies
For Managing Career Advancement
Sponsorship
Networks &
Social Capital
Stretch
Assignments
Staff Role
Laterals
Sidelines
Glass Cliff
CULTIVATE
relationships across “type”
BE ONE FIND ONE
Remember this is a quid pro quo
relationship
CAUTION
CAUTION
SEEK

24. Thank you!