Does career success make women less likeable and men more so? According to Sheryl Sandberg, who catapulted the “likeability penalty” conversation into the spotlight with her career memoir Lean In, the answer is yes. But research by leadership development consultants finds this may not be the case.
According to Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, women essentially maintain the same level of perceived people skills and empathy throughout their leadership careers, after a dip upon their first major promotion from supervisor to middle manager.
They also found that men faced a similar initial backlash, but didn’t recover as women did.
Zenger and Folkman created a likeability index based on the findings of their 360-degree feedback surveys. They compared the results of 9,500 male leaders and 5,000 female leaders on the questions such as: “Are you/they truly concerned about developing others?” and “How well do you balance getting results with others’ needs?” This included the leader’s performance as scored by an average of 10 team members and managers.
They found that female supervisors had an average likeability percentile score of 60 at supervisor level, which dropped to 55 upon their promotion to middle manager. Their likeability score then stayed fairly level upon further promotions (56 at senior management and 55 at top management).
Male supervisors had an average likeability percentile score of 58, which dropped to 51 upon their promotion to middle manager. The average score didn’t recover, declining to 49 for senior and top management.
While this study finds that formal assessments of women’s soft skills, people management and perceived empathy recover, it doesn’t necessarily address the social and emotional backlash that co-workers may be hesitant or unwilling to admit to in a professional review.
So it may be premature to dismiss Sandberg’s suggestion that a woman’s likeability suffers with success just yet.
What do you think?
You can read the Harvard Business Review blog by Zenger and Folkman about their findings here.