The deck is stacked against women from the earliest days of their careers, according to new research from Development Dimensions International (DDI). Gender discrimination still prevails in organizations around the world, but is now behind closed doors and preventing female leaders from reaching their executive potential.

“Holding Women Back: Troubling Discoveries and Best Practices for Helping Female Leaders Succeed” explains gender discrimination in the 21st century and debunks common gender myths about why women don’t make it to top management roles.

“There is nothing new about women being under-represented in the C-suite—but this research reveals what is holding back women who aspire to higher leadership positions,” Ann Howard, DDI’s Chief Scientist said. “That discrimination is less visible and starts so early in their career that it cripples their ability to compete with a male colleague who has had more opportunity.” 

“Holding Women Back” is a special report from DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2008/2009, a bi-annual study that measures the impact of leadership development initiatives around the world. The study included data from more than 12,000 leaders from 76 countries. The significant findings of the study include:

It’s worse than the glass ceiling

Women’s destiny is locked in long before they reach the ominous glass ceiling. Female leaders are under-represented in accelerated development programs early in their careers, which hinders their climb up the ladder. 

“If they don’t make it into these programs, their chances for an executive promotion are slim—and they don’t know it until its too late,” Howard said.

Sources of accelerated development include high potential programs (a pool of employees identified as future leaders of an organization and who receive special development) and international experience. How do women stack up?

• At the first level of leadership, there were 28 percent more men in high potential programs.
• At the executive level there were 50 percent more men than women in high potential programs.
• Men were twice as likely as women to have multinational leadership roles

 “Think about two subway cars—women are being put on the local and men on the express,” Howard said. “But women don’t know how much slower they’re moving until they reach their destination—and they’re not the ones who get the promotion.”

Discrimination is underground

Because many of the accelerated programs (like high potential programs and one-on-one mentorship) are secret or happen behind closed doors, organizations aren’t held accountable for gender balance. 

“A boss told me that he didn’t have problems with women in leadership positions, but that I should be careful because that wasn’t the case with everyone.”
-High level leader, insurance company

However, formalizing programs can provide a safeguard.  In U.S. health care organizations with formal succession plans, nearly twice as many women were executives when compared to similar organizations with informal or no programs.

“Without a well-founded process, promotion decisions are easily driven by stereotypes--not individual performance,” Howard said. 

Don’t count on safety in numbers
Having women represented in significant numbers at every leadership level doesn’t mean that will carry to the executive level-in fact, there is a backlash against women at the top when they are dominant in leadership roles at every other level.

The study found a significant decline from the proportion of women in first-level leadership roles to women in executive roles, regardless of the prevalence of women in the junior positions. The percentage decline was less precipitous in industries where women were better represented--until women became the majority, when the decline worsened, suggesting a backlash.  Although women were 82 percent of first-level leaders in the U.S. health care industry, they made up less than half of the executive population.  In contrast, men went from less than 20 percent at the first level to more than half at the executive level, so the small group of men in leadership roles has a much greater chance of making it to the top.

“We have lots of managers who are women. However, as you move up the ranks, there are fewer and fewer women. So, you see, there is an assumption of turning to the men for higher roles.”
-Senior vice president, information services, insurance company

“In industries where women are the majority of leaders, the percentage of males in high-potential programs was two and a half times that of females,” said Howard.  “This practice serves to keep men in the top positions in organizations, even when leadership ranks are primarily female.” View the video.

Listen to Ann Howard on DDI’s Podcast, Holding Women Back: Why gender still matters on today’s career ladder or read more about the research on DDI's blog, Talent Management Intelligence.