Fueling the ambition gap may be the current culture of work, one which does no favors for men or women, and one in which fealty to work is all—at all hours—as caregiving and family life are shunted to the margins.
Worries about balancing work and family life rank among the biggest deterrents for both men and women in aiming for an executive role.
“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There’s only life,” says veteran Microsoft Corp. executive Julie Larson-Green, who oversees hundreds of employees and leads design and user experience for Office 365 and Bing, among others.
The software giant, which has expanded parental leave for both genders and mentorship programs for women, was recently named in a proposed class-action suit alleging managers unfairly passed over women for raises and promotions; Microsoft says it is reviewing the complaint.
PwC LLP, the U.S. arm of a global professional-services firm, came up with a different strategy to reduce fears about taking family time. It exempts new mothers and anyone else off work for at least 16 weeks from being measured against their peers for their performance review that year.
Before 2010, “if you didn’t work a full year, it was very hard to get the top [performance] ranking,” remembers Jennifer Allyn, the firm’s diversity-strategy leader. A lowered rating hurt the chances that high performers returning from long maternity leaves would become PwC partners. “They were the pipeline for partnership,’’ she says. “I wanted to make sure that their ambition and career momentum were a constant.”
Under the revamped policy, staffers with protracted time off get performance reviews but no longer find themselves compared with colleagues who remained on the job. The shift had a dramatic impact on retention of new mothers.
Last year, 98% of PwC women on maternity leave resumed work—up from 88% in 2009, Ms. Allyn reports. She thinks the increase reflects the women’s realization that their careers are still on track.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2015
"At the current pace of progress, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality in the C-suite." Sheryl Sandberg
Here are some self-coaching books to get started in shifting gears:
When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41)
Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. (ebook and paperback editions)
Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions)