Women in Leadership at Verizon Connect

It’s the year 2024, and only 25% of senior management positions are held by women.

How did that statement make you feel?

Maybe, for some reasons, you’re shocked. Or maybe, sadly, for other reasons, you’re not. Most likely, you probably and rightfully feel a mix of feelings: frustration, confusion, disillusionment, annoyance, to name a few.?

Just please save room for hope!

Hold On -- Why Are We Talking About This?

Well, during our interview for the previous #TeamTuesdays series, Attracting and Managing Top Talent , teammate Kelcey Little pointed out a rare and exciting facet of the Verizon Connect Experience team: there are women in management positions in five levels of leadership!

FIVE!

I celebrated that Verizon has these brilliant examples of representation.

But then I wondered just how rare that truly is.

So I started like any good researcher starts: with desk research!

Several research companies and institutes have examined this trend. Study after study has found that there are several, complex factors blocking women from the C-suite. We’ve heard of the glass ceiling, which is the phenomenon of experiencing an “invisible” barrier blocking women from moving up the career ladder. But there is also the broken rung, which identifies that the problem often begins in junior management positions, i.e., women are overlooked for management roles in the first place (McKinsey & Co, 2023 ). There is also the phenomenon of the glass cliff, which describes that when women do get promoted, those promotions often happen during times of chaotic stress for the business, leading to less support and resources, and an increased chance of failure (Investopedia, 2022 ).?

Oh, and by the way – all of those challenges are compounded and exacerbated if you are part of a racial minority, identify as LGBTQIA+, identify as gender fluid, have a disability, and/or are otherwise disenfranchised (McKinsey & Co, 2023 ).?

It boggles my mind that we have become so adept at describing all of these problems, but we haven’t really made game-changing strides in fixing them,

Especially when study after study (after study after study after study after study after – you get where I’m going!) also shows that there are enormous benefits to including more women in these powerful leadership roles!?

Ooh, Wait -- What Are Those Benefits?

More Resourcefulness and Revenue

According to DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast , the top 10% of the most financially successful companies have a higher number of women leaders in their senior management and executive leadership roles. The inverse was also found to be true; companies that reported financial failure also saw decreases in the amount of women leaders in those same roles.?

But there’s also a problem. Only 29% of management roles with revenue-generating responsibilities are held by women. These revenue-generating management roles sit in departments that have an impact on profit and loss (P&L); one such department is Sales. S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment discovered this, and they and other studies (like this Forbes article ) hypothesize that stereotypes about women unfairly clash with how people define “strength”, “likeability”, and “leadership” itself.?

This especially shows up in fiscal roles, and as such, this has a knock-on effect in the overall impact that women leaders can have in businesses: because women are often blocked from advancement in those departments, and those departments are often responsible for making strategic business decisions, fewer women leaders actually have the ability to influence strategy.

Things are looking up, though! Forbes also reports examples of how women leaders have been able to affect change. For instance, one study showed that startups founded by women generated 78 cents for every dollar of funding. In comparison, startups founded by men generated just 31 cents for every dollar of funding. This is hypothesized to be related to better resource and financial management. And those gains happen despite the fact that other studies have shown that women who want to found startups still only receive as low as 2% to 10% of all available venture funding !?

What kinds of benefits might we experience if we were successfully able to scale this up? Surely this is a case for including more women in senior leadership roles in larger, more established companies, and getting them the resources they need to succeed!?

More Rigor

S&P Global also found that women leaders often have more experience than men leaders within the fields that they lead. This was found in a study of senior leadership advisory boards across several different industries. Out of 25 groups, 16 groups had a higher share of women with relevant industry experience. The groups that had the biggest gender-based discrepancies in experience were Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, and Life Sciences; Health Care Equipment and Services, and Consumer Discretionary Distribution and Retail.

In contrast, 9 groups had a higher share of men with relevant industry experience. The groups that had the biggest gender-based discrepancies were Real Estate Management and Development, Commercial and Professional Services, and Transportation.?

Interestingly, the nature of the kinds of groups that see those disparities seems to align with trends shifting regarding training and academic backgrounds. As many outlets, like the Pew Research Center , have found, more women are graduating college, and thus, entering the workforce with valuable and relevant foundational knowledge and experience.?

This is especially true with regard to STEM roles. Women are taking on more science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) roles , as reported by the National Science Foundation and US Department of Commerce. Some areas, like the physical sciences, computer science, or engineering, still have fewer women in total. But some shifts have also opened up fields that are completely STEM in nature, but due to stereotypes about the field, were not formally considered STEM fields. This particularly hits home for me personally, and is an example of how stereotypes play a role in the perception of women’s contributions and strengths: Psychology is generally considered by people not to be a STEM field, but given that Research and Experimental Psychology is officially a STEM designation , people in the field of Psychology are often unfairly discounted for STEM roles, especially leadership roles, when they have bountiful expertise.?

Advisory boards are just one example where thought leadership suffers from the lack of representation of women in senior management positions. Having that formal rigor and the industry experience that displays that rigor is vital to being able to influence future generations of work. Lots of work is being done in this field to help rectify this. One great example is McKinsey & Co’s Next Generation Women Leaders program – check it out here !

More Representation

Importantly, the inclusion of more women in senior management roles helps fix that crucial first broken rung.?

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast found that women leaders are more likely to plan for the future by investing in their teams’ growth. They cleverly refer to this as “bench strength”, describing how identifying the strengths and?variance in domain expertise sits throughout the team in individual contributor roles or junior managers. Our team has described the process of identifying, maintaining, and evolving that bench strength can help with legacy planning for the future. Identifying your bench strength and training those teammates in increasingly senior-level practices and experiences means that you can better plan for your team as people progress through their careers, as people move to new opportunities, and as your business and company adapt. In essence, women leaders are more likely to proactive plan for the future by training their teams of today.

And, as you all know, representation matters. Harvard Business School identified that for their study’s participants, seeing women in senior leadership roles positively influences self-perception of and performance by women in individual contributor or junior management positions. In short, when we see others like us doing well, we also do well; we are better able to visualize what success looks like, and we can take actionable steps in those same directions. This can help inspire women to overcome the insecurities prompted by the negative stereotypes of weak communication, unlikeable aggression, and emotionality, or the fear that speaking up will have a negative impact on their career progression.

It’s important to note that women are also more likely to feel like they must leave their companies to advance their careers , when compared to their men counterparts. Thus, there is a trade-off between career progression and attrition – women often feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Being able to create supportive environments for women to see possibilities for career advancements can help retain top talent (for some Verizon top talent, check out our series on Attracting and Managing Top Talent !).

Happily, the benefits of representation of women in senior management doesn’t just extend to other women – everyone truly wins when women leaders have the power to set cultural examples!

DDI found that organizations that have more women leaders are almost 2 times as likely to be considered inclusive. Surprisingly, men often call out a lack of inclusivity when they are also in companies that have few women leaders. But this can be partially rectified by including more women at leadership levels. Women leaders focus on employee engagement at a higher rate, and that is especially true of women in STEM. Because of that devoted focus on employee engagement, women leaders are arguably more likely to take specific actions to better employee engagement, which positively impacts performance, and thus, positively grows the bottom line.

Here’s a specific example: hybrid and remote work!

Those of us who totally or partially work remotely can often feel disconnected from others. Hybrid and remote workers sometimes miss out on crucial knowledge, career opportunities, and team culture. But McKinsey & Co found that hybrid and remote workers have significant gains in productivity, work-life balance, less burnout, and less pressure on appearance. And, for these reasons, all people identify flexibility as a “top 3” employee need.

These benefits impact women in particular ways. The flexibility that remote and hybrid work affords also gives women a space for psychological safety. This means that women experienced fewer instances of the impacts of those negative stereotypes that often block them from advancing in their careers.

Pair this with advocating for the flexibility of remote and hybrid work. If women see those benefits in a unique manner, and we’re in senior leadership positions that successfully advocate for those structures, then all people benefit! This is just one example of how having more women leaders in senior leadership positions can also help with addressing gaps and problems in the employee experience not just of remote or hybrid work, but the employee experience in general.

What Can We Do About It?

That last point about representation is something that really resonates with me.

As I've shared throughout this series, one thing that helps me move toward impactful action is understanding and sharing helpful stories and examples. So, throughout August and September, I’d like to take some time during #TeamTuesdays to celebrate women in leadership!?

I am so fortunate to get to work with strong, inspiring women. We don’t yet fully meet the criteria of women in senior management roles as outlined by S&P Global , i.e., no more than two levels away from the CEO of a company. But, as Kelcey Little mentioned, we do have five levels of leadership up from our first-line manager positions. So, let’s capture that magic!

We’ll hear from leaders like Alexa Carleo , one of our UX Research Senior Managers; Amelia Tilby (née Diggle) , our Senior Manager of Service Design; Michelle Morris CCXP , our Associate Director of Competitive Insights, and more amazing women!

We’ll discuss the career decisions that led us here, the challenges that we’ve faced, the success stories we’ve experienced, and how we hope to see Verizon play a key role in positioning women leaders like ours for success.?

Again – it’s the year 2024, and only 25% of senior management positions are held by women.

If you're looking for influential, passionate, and successful women leaders; if you’re looking for inspiration to motivate yourself as a women in leadership; or if you'd like to highlight someone from your own experience, join me for #TeamTuesdays throughout August and September! Share your reflections and anecdotes in the comments! Together, we can celebrate these incredible mold-breakers, as well as examine and discuss the roles we can play to empower them!

Thanks for reading! How do you feel? Are you passionate about highlighting women leaders and the benefits they bring to your teams? Share your thoughts below -- and maybe tag an amazing women leader in your life! Check us out for August and September #TeamTuesdays to read more!