How CEOs Keep Top Female Talent

“One in four women in corporate America are now considering ... leaving the workforce. That number holds steady even for the country’s senior-most women leaders ... If businesses don’t act, we’ll lose our best leaders.”—Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer, Meta) & Rachel Thomas (Co-Founder, fast.ai) in Fortune magazine, 2020.

The Lack of Women in Senior Manager Positions

Research shows few women make it to the top manager roles in major companies across the world. Women hold less than a third of all senior manager positions and even fewer reach the topmost Chief Executive Officer (CEO) roles. This matters because companies play a huge role in the economy. Having more women in senior manager positions indicates that women have adequate representation in companies. This is aligned with the values of fairness and equality in society. 

Women Managers Face Extra Barriers 

Based on prior research studies, we know that one of the biggest challenges women managers face is the prevalence of stereotypes. Many biases against women still exist in the workplace. For example, the view that women managers lack leadership skills is common because most leaders have historically been men. 

These biases lead to many problems for women managers. Women are often judged negatively and unfairly. They often get hired into lower-ranking roles and miss out on promotions to senior roles. This means fewer women reach the top manager positions. Women managers also tend to get paid less than men in many industries. 

When women become senior managers and do well, they still face problems. Others in the workplace may view successful women as unlikeable or unfriendly. Some researchers suggest that dealing with these additional stressors and scrutiny may lead to burnout for women managers. This makes them more likely to quit.

What Can CEOs Do to Help Women Managers? 

Our research team looked at how CEOs impact the psychological safety of women managers as well as how long they stay in their jobs. CEOs are the commander-in-chief in their company. They make all major decisions that impact the company’s strategy and performance. Since CEOs have a major influence on the company, we wanted to see how their support for diversity affects how long women last in senior manager roles. We focused on the CEO’s “diversity-valuing behavior”. This refers to the CEO appreciating different viewpoints and treating everyone with equality and fairness. 

We surveyed 365 men and women senior managers from the 1,000 largest US-based companies. Of those surveyed, 21% were female, 91% were White/Caucasian, and 8% reported their firm was led by a female CEO. We asked all respondents to tell us how much they think their CEO values diversity. We also asked if they feel emotional and mental safety in their job. Finally, we also tracked how long they stayed in the company.

Our results indicate that women managers are more likely to experience a sense of emotional and mental safety when they think their CEOs value diversity. This suggests that when women managers perceive their CEO values diversity, they feel safer and are less likely to leave the company. We found that this relationship only exists for the women managers. We saw no such effect for male managers. 

When CEOs, both men and women, show their support and commitment to diversity, women feel safe to share their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. They are able to do so without fear of negative consequences, such as criticism or punishment. This helps companies retain women managers over time. 

This study provides useful ideas on how CEOs can help women managers. The main finding from our study is that it is not enough to just talk about supporting diversity. Leaders must show a consistent commitment to diversity through their actions and interactions with those working for them. Their actions must line up with their words.

There are many simple ways CEOs can show their support and commitment to diversity:

• CEOs can mentor and sponsor women managers. They should open new opportunities for them and help them build new skills for advancement. This can be done through training and special projects. 

• CEOs can model supportive behavior towards women managers so others in the firm can behave in inclusive ways. This includes listening to their opinions, valuing their contributions, and making them feel respected and appreciated.

• CEOs can ensure fairness in performance evaluations, pay, promotions, and access to career opportunities for women managers. They can watch out for biases against women and actively work towards fixing them.

• CEOs can make enhancing diversity a priority in decision-making, and reflect this priority in talking with all stakeholders of the firm, such as employees, investors, suppliers, etc. 

• Above all, CEOs can continue to learn about and understand the challenges women managers face in the workplace and make sincere efforts to create a supportive, just, and inclusive culture from the top. For example, male CEOs could hold meetings with women managers to learn about the issues they encounter that hinder their progress. They can also ensure that others in the company are aware of and find solutions to these challenges. 

Ongoing CEO action and leadership on diversity issues can make it easier for women managers to overcome the barriers and succeed. 

      It is important to know that our study has some limitations. We measured how much the CEO’s value diversity based on how senior managers perceive their CEO. This was instead of observing the CEO’s actual behavior and values. We believe these managers can determine if the CEO supports diversity based on their interactions with the CEO. However, it is still their opinion of the CEO rather than the CEO's actual support for diversity. In the future, research should directly observe and measure the CEO’s support for diversity by surveying the CEOs themselves. This approach would allow researchers to examine how the CEO’s support for diversity impacts the experience of women within companies.

This study emphasizes the importance of CEOs supporting diversity and inclusion. It is important that women in senior manager positions believe their CEO values diversity and is committed to their success. This allows them to feel safer to voice their thoughts, ask questions, provide feedback, and take risks without fear of judgment. This is not just positive for women but can also help create a culture of emotional and mental safety in the whole company. If the CEO creates a diverse and inclusive environment, that can open opportunities for many different groups. This could ultimately provide talent advantages for the company too!

Written By: Dr. Priyanka Dwivedi with help from Caitlyn Brown and Katie Shipley

Academic Editor: Female Neuroscientist
Non-Academic Editor: Female Lawyer

Original Paper

• Title: No Reason to Leave: The Effects of CEO Diversity-Valuing Behavior on Psychological Safety and Turnover for Female Executives

• Authors: Priyanka Dwivedi, Inn Hee Gee, Michael C. Withers, and Steven Boivie
• Date Published: December 1, 2022

• Journal: Journal of Applied Psychology

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