Access to Current Boss May be the Real Barrier to Future Female CEOs

Progress in your career can be defined by small, pivotal moments. Engaging one-on-one with your boss can play a big role in bringing these moments about. Yet meaningful engagement with senior leaders may be another bastion of male office dynamics, helping them get ahead faster than women. 

A report recently published by McKinsey and LeanIn.org, titled 2018 Women in the Workplace, showed 27% of men saying they had never engaged in a significant discussion with a senior leader about their work, with the figure at 33% for women respondents. For women of color, this figure was even worse, with black women reporting the least access to senior leaders at 41%.

Alex Krivkovich, managing partner of McKinsey’s Silicon Valley office, said, "A lot of times, we obsess about the big stuff, the big moments, like the promotion into top leadership, how many people are sitting in the C-suite - things we can see very visibly. But we miss all the small things that accumulate, that get you to those opportunities. So what are some of the micro-interactions that signal that women aren't getting access along the way that sets them up for those big moments?"

Interactions that build

A senior work leader having familiarity with your work, and even simply knowing a name, can help provide opportunities for important work and future promotions.

Krivkovich believes that the “informal or small everyday moments” provide connection points so that individuals can eventually get the “next key account or that stretch opportunity”.

Whilst this exclusion may not be intentional, the lack of exposure and engagement may be leading to women being excluded from particular opportunities. Such exclusion has the potential to shape careers of young women, especially those who are of color.

Krivkovich highlights the necessity to look beyond community building at work and instead enhance network building. "Women do need opportunities for community, but that is not the same thing as helping women strengthen their networks for access to future opportunities. In fact, to make that possible, you really need to bring your women together with your leaders, broadly, which includes very much your men and your women at the table. A lot of companies miss that difference."

Creating change

Women missing out on such opportunities can create and reinforce a cycle of exclusion, says Andromachi Athanasopoulou, associate professor of organizational behavior at Queen Mary University of London, and associate fellow in executive education at the University of Oxford.

"When women have [fewer] role models in the environment they work in, they're more likely than men to react to that by being more self-conscious, more modest, more reluctant to actually interact with others, because they feel they are the minority," she says.

Newer female employees can be provided with sponsors in mid-level management. These sponsors are then able to act as connection points to more influential decision makers. Those with sponsors were much likely to have a consequential meeting with a senior leader, while women subsequently were 1.5 times more likely to see themselves as leadership material.

Placing more women in these situations can hijack the negative cycle and turn it into a positive, says Leanne Son Hing, associate professor of psychology at the University of Guelph and senior fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. The more women are at the top, the more likely that new female employees will be seen as potential candidates for new opportunities.

"If there's more women, more female leaders, more female upper managers, more women within research and development, within different departments or units within the organization - then people's schema of 'Who would make a good x?' is influenced by who they see in those roles," she says.