Gender Inequlity In Leadership-The Glass Ceiling Effect

Introduction TopicsGender-based discriminationGender NeutralityWomen in the workforce

Emergent topicsGender bias Lack of opportunity Equal pay Gendered occupations Under representation in upper

management

Barriers / Topics

Glass ceilingSlow promotions Male-centered leadership model

WHAT IS GENDER DISCRIMINATION?

•Females of our country have faced the discrimination for ages now. Any denial of equality, gender and opportunity on the basis of gender is gender discrimination.

•Nature doesn’t discriminate men from women. But women worldwide have been the victim of inequality not only in terms of social and political rights but also on grounds of employment opportunities

Types Of Discrimination

DIRECT DISCRIMINATIONINDIRECT DISCRIMINATIONHARASSMENTVICTIMISATION

Gender Discrimination in Workplace

•Employees are subjected to direct gender discriminations when their legitimate rights such as employment, pay scales, work assignments and promotions are denied on the basis of their gender. 

•Some organizations resort to indirect methods by framing rules and procedures preventing a particular gender from participation. Sexual harassment is the common form of gender discrimination at workplace.

Indian workplace discrimination still exists, especially while hiring!

•Indian workplace is largely accommodating but discrimination still exists on various grounds, especially while hiring

•The survey was conducted by TeamLease Services, in the top eight cities of India – New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad, and found that five out of 10 employees have experienced one or the other kind of discrimination.

•An interesting revelation was that as one grows older, the less discrimination he or she is likely to face, as 54 per cent of employees between 21 to 35 years are reported to have experienced biases.

WHAT IS GLASS CEILING?

• Glass ceiling is an unofficial barrier that is present in an organization that prevents a class of workers (women in this case) to advance up higher corporate positions.

Glass Ceiling – Legitimate Power

Glass Ceiling – Legitimate PowerKeep women from rising above a certain

level in organizationsDiscrimination which increases women's

probability of failure Denying them access to developmental

opportunitiesPresenting only stereotypical challenges based on sex stereotypes

Glass Ceiling – Legitimate PowerWomen who are viewed as incompetent

and doubt their own leadership abilities may be passed over

A recent study reported that 40% of the women had been denied a raise or promotion because of being a women

Glass Ceiling – Legitimate PowerAttractive female managerial candidates

received lower ratings of their performance, lower starting salaries, and fewer promotions than did unattractive females or attractive males

Glass Ceiling – Legitimate PowerThe most successful attractive males were

rated as more capable than unattractive males

With women, the least attractive females were often seen as the most capable

Glass Ceiling – PayExists for both promotions and pay raises

and other organizational bonuses Women are paid less Receive less perks and time off for training

and education Disparities exist in the pay rates of male

and female employees even when tenure, education, and skills are equated

Workplace The sex ratios, the ratio of men to

women or women to men, exerts a great deal of influence on group behavior in organizations

Women are still often viewed as less effective leaders

Beliefs that women lack leadership abilities may lead to resistance to women in managerial positions

Gender Pay Gap in the Formal Sector( Study by IIM ahmd)

•The gender pay gap in India for the year 2011 is 28.13%. •The gender pay gap in India has been declining over the years.

• The gender pay gap increases with age. Women in the age group of below 30 years earned 27.72% less than men, whereas women in the age group of above 50 years earned 77.71% less than men.

•Women with a work experience of 31 years or more earned 75.42% less than men whereas women with work experience between 16-30 years earned 25.93% less than men.

Gender pay gap in India

Steps taken by the government to narrow the gender gap in India

IMPORTANT LEGAL CASES ON GENDER BIAS

The famous case of CB Muthamma v. Union of lndia (AIR 1979, Supreme Court page 1868), details about the sufferings a senior member of the lndian Foreign Service has to under go for getting promotion. She has gone to the court for quashing rule which say's that female I.F.S. Officers have to get permission from Govt. before they get married.

Result –

The court later on quashed these rules on the ground of discrimination against women.

Another land mark case b of Nargis Mirza, an Air Hostess in the Indian Airlines who has challenged certain provisions of their service rule wherein an Air Hostess could conhue in the job upto 35 years of age, but can be terminated if she gets married within 4 years of her recruitment or her first pregnancy which ever is earlier.

Result-When the matter went to Supreme Court, the Supreme Court struck down the condition of terminating the service of the first pregnancy as unreasonable and invalid.

– AN EXAMPLE

Google prides itself on celebrating and supporting difference and it sees itself as an “equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer.”

Journalist Claire Caine Miller, reporting for The New York Times, finds that only one third of Google’s 34,300 employees are women. CEO Larry Page has removed the already-noticeably-few women Executives from his “inner circle.”

LEADERSHIP STYLE AND GENDER

DO MEN AND WOMEN BECOME DIFFERENT KINDS OF LEADERS?

Transformational Leadership (TL) Research

Women’s styles tend to be more transformational than men’s

Women tend to engage in more contingent reward behaviors than men

META- ANALYSIS (Eagley and Johnson, 1990) Women were not found to lead in more interpersonally

orientated manner than the men in the organizations. Only difference- women used more participative or

democratic style as compared to men. Additional meta analysis by Eden in 2001 found similar

results.

• META ANALYSIS ( EAGLEY AND MAKHIJANI,1992) Women were devalued when they were working in male

dominated environments Females were evaluated unfavorably when the evaluators

were men They were evaluated as bad leaders if they practiced

autocratic style.

Meta-analysis comparing effectiveness of female & male leaders (Eagly, et al, 1995)

Women were •less effective than men in military positions• more effective than men in education, social service • substantially more effective than men in middle management positions; interpersonal skills highly valued

Breaking The Glass Ceiling

HOW TO BREAK THE GLASS CELING !!!!

Women at the top, especially women in male-dominated fields, often overcame substantial barriers to get where they are today. To succeed, they had to push beyond structural barriers. This success strategy can include ignoring the barriers and focusing instead on individual effort.

“Not all women executives see the glass ceiling even though they very may well have experienced it.”

Glass Ceiling In India

We have no more than three Indian women who have managed to make it to the top 100 powerful women (as per the August Forbes list). These three brilliant ladies are• Sonia  Gandhi (ranked 6th),•Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO of ICICI Bank (ranked 59th) • Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Founder, Chair of  Biocon Ltd. (ranked 80th).

Why does Indian women managers find it difficult to break the glass ceiling in top management?

INDIAN WOMEN WHO BROKE THE GLASS CELING

NAINA LAL KIDWAI CEO OF HSBC

VINITA BALI CEO OF BRITANNIAINDUSTRIES

INDIAN WOMEN WHO BROKE THE GLASS CELING