Looking For Female Leadership At The Top Of Companies?
What You Should Add To Your Resume To Be CEO-Ready
Is 40 Years Too Long To Wait?
There sure aren’t many women in the corner offices, or in the next level down either. Recent research by Catalyst shows that 84% of these offices in major U.S. companies are occupied by men. At the rate women are moving up, it will take 40 years before we see equality. That’s too long for me. Is that too long for you?
What Can We Do About It?
We were told in the past that there were not enough women in the pipeline. I, along with most other people, believed that. Turns out THAT wasn’t the reason. Now that women are almost half our workforce, that pipeline is full and not much has changed. Does it have to stay full for 40 years before we see results?
Women Can Turn This Around
When Catalyst asked CEOs why this situation persists, they said women are rarely taking line positions. These are positions directly responsible for the profit and loss of the company—sales, manufacturing, finance, etc. Most women are found in staff positions—HR, marketing, advertising, etc. The second reason CEOs gave for the lack of high-level women is the lack of experience in more than one area of the company.
The numbers back the CEOs up. Women are huddling in HR and other staff departments and not in areas that make profits for the company. Women are only taking 10 percent of the line positions. Turns out that can be a reasonable complaint about women, but now that you know, add a line position to your resume. Show others you can take control of Profit & Loss—make it heavy on the profit side of the equation.
It’s true that not enough women are strategically jumping from one department to another to learn all about the company or industry. Turns out that can be a second reasonable complaint about women. Take a look at Meg Whitman’s job background (former CEO of Ebay) to get a picture of a great CEO resume. She believed moving to another company location (taking the family with her) was a necessity.
By following conventional wisdom—in the past—we women logically thought if our first job landed us in human resources or the advertising department, then we should make the most of it and learn all the twists and turns of that department. Conventional wisdom was wrong again. If we want to make it into the top two tiers of a major company, we need the expertise of how to earn money for the company. It’s as simple as that. Look at how often the V.P. of Sales, or a financial officer is promoted to CEO. And how often do we see the V.P. of Human Resources promoted to CEO? I can’t think of an example. Can you? You get the picture.
But as I’ve said before, we’re smart. We can learn. We can turn complaints about us into the next opportunities awaiting us.
If you want to be in that rare club, the female CEO club, you would do yourself a favor by planning a route to the corner office that jumps from department to department. I’ll give you a tip below. And, here’s the important thing: You must get line experience.
Tip #1: Jump into a line position, perhaps into sales, but do it with the mindset that you’re sales management material. You’ll probably have to start as a sales person. That’s OK. Show that you have management knowledge and want to use it. Sometimes salespeople cannot be successfully promoted to sales managers. It takes a different set of talents. Make a big deal of showing you’re comfortable with numbers. Stage a presentation where you’ve memorized the numbers. Toss out a few numbers for everyone to plug into equations. And then, wham-o, you come up with the answer first. Sound like fun? Do it! This is necessary to overcome the unfortunate stereotype that women are not good with numbers.
Tip #2: You can arrange to transfer to different departments, or you can form a team to solve a problem at your company. Do all your planning before you announce that a solution is needed. When you point out the problem, don’t give that confident, ambitious man a chance to jump in and take care of putting out the fire. You have to hand it to him; he can spot an opportunity to shine a mile away. That’s OK—that’s what we need to learn to do. Identify the problem this way: “I have a solution to the problem of dwindling sales among 18 to 35 year olds. I’ve identified team members from various departments who would work together with me for a brief time period until the fire has been extinguished.” Now this benefits you by being the team creator and leader. And it allows you to jump into different departments’ domains and build your expertise in the company.
Further Reading:
Podcast (always less than 10 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Powerful Body Language For Working Women —Women, Change Your Body Language, Change Your Message or read it here.
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Are Women As Ambitious As Men? —Is Ambition Good For Men, And Bad For Women? or listen to it here.
Website, WomensMedia, by Catalyst, What Keeps Women from Reaching the Top? Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners of the Fortune 500
Website, WomensMedia, by Natalie R. Manor, Leadership & Confidence
—Many Women Are Competent, but Lack Confidence
Website, Catalyst, 2007 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners of the Fortune 500
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