Why good intentions just aren't enough

Ever since Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, the topic of women in executive roles has been all over the media. By addressing the issue of a gender gap in leadership positions directly, she opened up a door for long overdue discussions and somehow managed to make the topic cool, hot and – most importantly – absolutely vital.

When bringing up the topic of women in the workplace, I have heard from a number of men that they are concerned, even afraid, that men will lack chances in the workplace “with all this pro-female training and coaching going on”.

Exactly this is the core problem. There is a wide range of formal mentoring, skills training and leadership development courses offered for women in the workplace. And companies deliberately communicate these efforts to the public. Hence the “fear” that men soon will be underrepresented in those sought-after corner offices.

In a study, the organization Catalyst found that despite formal measures, the gender gap in the corporate world is not improving. To illustrate their findings, Catalyst developed the 70/20/10 model, which shows that “leadership development occurs primarily on the job, not in the classroom”. Here is the key: “10% of an employee’s development happens in formal programs, with 20% coming trough networking, mentoring, coaching, and other influential relationships, and as much as 70% from on-the-job experiences – the ‘hot jobs’ that provide challenging opportunities to develop and practice leadership skills.”

It is not sufficient for women to work on just any project and thereby gain hands-on experience. What matters is that these projects are “hot jobs” which advance careers faster. These “hot jobs” can be characterized as:

• Highly visible projects
• With mission-critical roles
• Providing international experience.

Formal leadership programs must not be underestimated as they play a crucial role in the advancement of a career. However, only if paired with “hot jobs” will they help close the gender gap. And study findings showed that women are assigned to significantly fewer “hot jobs” than men. The good, formal, public intention of these programs just is not enough. As Catalyst puts it: "Formal development programs can promote advancement for women if they provide equal access to ‘hot jobs’."

This means that women need to actively seek out highly visible projects and be supported in doing so. Go beyond good intentions and show what you are capable of doing in practice, where everyone will see, notice, and remember you!

Annamarie