My clever and capable friend is struggling with a dilemma. She has been offered a CEO role at a smaller competitor organisation. It’s the natural next step in her executive career. A woman with a vision, she has always wanted to lead. Her entire career to date has been racing purposefully towards this point.
The problem is that she would prefer to run the company in which she is currently employed as a senior member of the executive team. However, having made her way up through the ranks she’s not convinced she will ever be given the nod for the top job in her organisation. Her CEO still sees her as the young, enthusiastic woman he first employed almost two decades ago. He doesn’t necessarily see her as his successor, leaning instead towards a shiny and slick new executive with big ideas who recently joined from another industry.
While seeking my advice on the weekend my friend lamented that she believed the heavy lifting she had done in recent years to turn the organisation around, including a complete overhaul of the organisational structure, wasn’t appreciated. She had falsely believed, it appears, hard work and commitment would be enough to put her at the front of the line for the CEO role.
During our conversation I was reminded of many women I have worked for and alongside in my career who have believed the same. On the weekend the former editor of Madison magazine Elizabeth Renkert published a piece in The Sunday Telegraph declaring her shock at being ‘unceremoniously dumped’ when the magazine closed, even though she had worked so very hard for so long. And then there is the tale of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
In my experience it’s a female belief that hard work equals promotion. Women are great at doing the job we were employed to do. We manage down and across extremely well. I have watched in amazement as a number of men have skipped to the top of the tree by doing those two things really poorly, but were masters at managing up. I once worked for a man who essentially destroyed the businesses he ran, was fired twice, and now oversees the management of thousands of employees in a significant job in an international organisation. He was exceptional at managing up. I wish I had taken more notice of his techniques at the time.
Recently my friend had a coffee with one of the non-executive directors of her organisation at his request. He is a supporter of her work because he can see that she was the primary architect of the strategy that has set them on a path to solid growth. He told her that there was a distinct possibility that the CEO’s chair would become vacant soon and that he wanted to see her given the job. He also shared that she may not be seen as corporate enough by other members of the Board and suggested she lobby the other directors. My friend was disappointed by that conversation which instigated her phone call to me on the weekend. I haven’t been able to get that conversation out of my mind.
– Are we contributing to the gender divide by spending all of our time getting the job done and next to no time talking ourselves up?
– Why are men generally better at self-promoting up?
– Is that really how decisions at the top are still made?
– Should my friend accept the job offer to become CEO elsewhere?
What are your thoughts?