Improving Gender Equity in Your Organization

For years, women have comprised roughly half of the college-educated workforce in the United States—yet they remain underrepresented in top leadership ranks. Just 8 percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, and 1 percent by women of color. What do women’s experiences tell us about why organizations haven’t made more progress in promoting women? And how can leaders overcome this critical talent management challenge?

In their latest research, captured in the book Glass Half Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work, Harvard Business School (HBS) colleagues Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg explored the experiences of women as they moved through their careers and identified what organizations can do to improve women’s opportunities. They also looked at research on women in organizations and leadership, synthesizing an understanding of the current moment—how far women have progressed and how far they still have to go.

While many companies are making some improvements in hiring a more diverse workforce, they are less skilled at integrating women, especially women of color, into the business and fostering genuine inclusion. This leads to retention problems down the road.

Why Does the Problem Persist?

Gender barriers and biases affect women at all stages of work life.

Entry Level: The Wake-up Call

Younger women often have gender-equal experiences in college or graduate school and expect a similar experience when they enter the workforce. But the reality is starkly different. “Many women experience a moment when they realize, ‘Wait a second— the playing field is not as level as I thought it was. I’m being treated differently, despite all the messages to the contrary,’” says Ammerman. These women find it difficult to get any kind of actionable feedback or to find mentors or sponsors. Women who thought everything was possible are confronted, for example, with clear differences in onboarding of male and female colleagues and then discover that differences persist all the way through performance management and access to opportunities.

Mid-career: The Parent Trap

For mid-career women in a range of industries, the problems are actually worse. The authors’ research contradicted a prevalent myth about women in leadership. Many people still believe that women are not represented at the top in equal numbers, get stuck at lower levels, or even step out of the workforce because they prefer it that way. Says Ammerman, “This is a pretty persistent myth, and both men and women often think this. But the research suggests that it’s not about women wanting to step back or opt out—rather, organizations make it very hard for women to stay in their careers and to stay on the leadership track once they become parents.” One interviewee shared how this penalty hurt her career. “The moment I said I was pregnant,” she told the authors, “my team was restructured, and two of the three people that were reporting to me were put at my same level. I was also taken from a team of 30 people to a team of six people. It was a demotion.”

Senior Level: The Struggle for the Last Mile

Once women reach a senior level of leadership, other obstacles come to the forefront. Women, even at a highly experienced level, are still often held to different standards than male peers and face heightened scrutiny. “Women told us they were having trouble breaking through to that final layer,” says Ammerman. “They thought they had a shot at a C-suite position or were looking forward to joining a board but suddenly found themselves spending a lot of time trying to manage how the men around them were perceiving them. One woman told us, ‘There’s a masculine norm for leadership. That doesn’t mean it is a vicious thing or that people are hostile to me, but it’s a norm that is always calling out the fact that I am different. That creates an unequal footing.’”

A Framework for Change

Ammerman and Groysberg offer a solutions framework that illustrates how companies can build gender equity for the long term. A central pillar of that framework is the support of male allies.

For example, men in leadership roles can model behavior that makes it safer for all men to lean into caregiving; they can take their full parental leave but also be visible as they do so, making the point that their role outside of work is important too.

In addition, men at all levels can help by noticing gender disparities and committing to changing them. Ammerman recounts how a young male professional saw a list of 50 candidates for a junior role at his firm. All were men. “This did not seem right to him, so he went to HR and was told, ‘We could not find any women,’” Ammerman explains. “Not accepting that, he and a colleague went out and sourced some female candidates and eventually changed the process.”

Another central pillar is the crucial role female role models play in helping other women move up the ladder. Ammerman says, “When a woman looks at the people above her in the organization and someone in leadership shares a really salient part of her identity—such as her gender—it can have a big impact on her own development and leadership style.”

Evolving a More Equitable Organization

If companies want to make real strides in gender equity, they need to make key changes in multiple aspects of people management. Most importantly, they need to:

Resist Complacency

Successful companies champion diversity, equity, and inclusion as a priority for the whole organization—from the top down. They recognize that no matter how much they have already done, the effort must continue.

Foster a Culture Where All Are Valued

One interviewee told a story about a woman’s interaction with a client who said something egregiously racist to her. She came back and told the partner she was working with, a white man, about the incident; he picked up the phone and told the client in no uncertain terms that they were not to talk to one of the firm’s associates that way. That was probably not an easy call to make, but it sent a message to that woman that her dignity mattered.

Evaluate Performance Using Objective Criteria

Women often see prime opportunities going to male colleagues who are skilled at self-promotion, not necessarily at the core components of the project or job. Managers need to ensure they are evaluating employee performance on objective criteria and not inadvertently favoring people who share their identity. Groysberg says, “Not spending time with employees is another of the most important ways managers discriminate. Companies need to surround people with sponsors, coaches, and mentors.” It’s human nature to gravitate toward people who look and act like oneself. But if male managers don’t actively try to overcome that, disparities will persist.

The gender gap is a significant talent management challenge that organizations must confront and overcome if they are going to maximize the potential of their workforce. The following framework can help company leaders and managers at all levels—as well as the people who report to them—discover and eliminate systemic barriers to women’s growth and advancement, creating better-performing, more sustainable organizations.