If organizations, coaches, and consultants spent half as much time getting managers to do their jobs rather than putting energy and effort into "fixing" women, we would be much further ahead on creating a level playing field, on women's advancement and on closing the wage gap.

For far too long, responsibility has been placed on women to break the glass ceiling.

This is ludicrous.

Yes, women can be prepared to move into ever higher positions, but the glass ceiling is created by managers, mostly men, whose decisions on promotions and hiring keep women out.

So instead of praising women for breaking the glass ceiling, let's focus attention on the managers who hire them. And on the fact that, by some means, these managers have managed to counter the mindsets held by so many managers that keep women back.

Mindsets reflected in comments like these.

These apparently "considerate" and sensitive comments are made from a mindset related to the Motherhood Penalty and Fatherhood Reward because the opposite is also said. 

Another mindset that holds women back is the mindset that managers, both women and men have about what leadership looks like. 

If managers truly believed all the exhortations they hear from HR, and learning and development professionals, notable business journals and other publications, they would believe that people who engage their teams and who are inclusive should get ahead. They're the right ones to promote.

But a mindset that gets in the way of this is the mindset that says that leadership looks like command and control. And while in emergency situations or when time is essential, It might be true that command and control is a useful  strategy, in general, it is not.

But decisions are made about hiring and promotions where comments like these are made.

A third mindset that managers hold that will often be detrimental to women is the belief that if someone is ambitious he or she will ask for opportunities.

While this is often true of men and increasingly true of women, it isn't universally true.

There are many women whose mindset is a countervailing one. 

We believe that if we do good work, if we get results, our work will be recognized and rewards will come.

Instead of telling managers that they have to fix these and other mindsets that create career barriers for women, we exhort women to break the glass ceiling and we praise them when they do. 

Similarly, when it comes to the wage gap, we tell women to negotiate, ask for more money.

And what happens when we do? Often, especially by the first gatekeepers in HR, we're considered pushy, too aggressive.

And when we don't, of course, we don't get the compensation that might be given to a man. 

Now what enables this?

It truly has nothing to do with whether or not women ask. Because, in many ways we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't.

It does have to do with gatekeeping and the fact that HR and HR systems will often penalize women who negotiate. They will often offer women compensation at the lowest possible point. 

And when it comes to routine salary increases managers, will often favor men (see mindsets above). 

Instead of telling women that we have to negotiate, let's fix the systems and let's change the mindsets of managers.

Let HR make it impossible for wage inequalities to develop over time based on manager's decisions about promotional increases.

Educate HR about how their mindsets can disadvantage women  when their companies are on a path toward wage equity.

This whole thing infuriates me because we've known all of this 50 years.

Differing degrees of sophistication and understanding But I can attest to the fact that these were conversations being had in the company I grew up in 50 years ago.

This it infuriates me because when I was CEO of my consulting business we would find  executives willing to undertake the journey toward changing the mindsets of managers, but then with the slightest of pushback, the shift would be made from:

"Let's talk about the generic mindsets of managers that impact the career trajectories of women."

to

"Let's talk about how unconscious bias affects everybody. Let's do broad diversity training."

Which only tended to water down the initiatives for women's advancement and do nothing for the advancement of other groups that are underrepresented in senior management and or that suffer from wage inequality.

Furthermore, most of these biases aren't unconscious at all. They are conscious, but they are justified in the minds of the people who have them.

So I'm on my soapbox about putting responsibility for women's advancement and wage equity where it belongs - in the hands of managers and in the hands of the HR professionals whose systems enable the inequalities and leave issues of mindset unaddressed.

Catch you next time.

Susan

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*Megan creates a listenable pod from a truly imperfectly created original containing my walking huffs & puffs, footfalls, background noises - birds, waves, cars, dogs, roosters and more. Thank heavens for Megan!