Glass Ceiling the Barriers That Term Paper

"If you're not taking risks and dealing with fallout, perhaps you're demonstrating that you won't like the intensity [at the senior management level]."

Other qualities also may also hinder women's ability to advance their careers. For example, women managers are rated as more nurturing, emotionally expressive and sensitive than male managers. "Women are less dominant, less competitive and more willing to ask for help," says Dr. Hagberg (Patterson, 2005). "That's why they're better team players."

These qualities result in high ratings from subordinates when women are at the middle management level, but by being too protective of their work groups, their bosses may see them as "rescuers and mothers," rather than as potential senior-level executives.

Fortunately, ambitious women executives do not have to reinvent themselves to advance. They just have to fine-tune existing skills, according to experts. "The team- and consensus-building skills women have are the skills required for managing," says Richard Hagberg, a consulting psychologist (Patterson, 2005). "In a flattened organization, when you must get things done through people over whom you have no formal authority, you need a different kind of management skill, and women have it."

In an attempt to figure out what conditions are required for women to command top executive positions, an ethnographic study was conducted at a hospital (Adaire, 1994). The study consisted of four women who held executive positions: one associate administrator, one interim associate administrator, one director and the CEO. An in-depth data gathering technique using observation, interviews and documentation was employed to investigate numerous factors, including skills, education influences, support, barriers and corporate culture.

The findings revealed the following (Adaire, 1994):

having opportunities to be participating, valued family members and to compete in activities while young helps girls to develop a sense of competence and mastery; education, credential building experiences, certain competencies and being willing to take risks are necessary for success; having certain attitudes and philosophies are crucial factors in their success; mentors, network involvement and relationships with peers does affect mobility; the women did have a career plan, not in the sense of a linear career plan, but rather one in the form of the spiral career concept; the women understand, accept and have learned to adapt to the culture of the society in which they live and work; the women are savvy at expressing, affirming and communicating the substance of their culture to others; and the amount of prejudice a woman encountered depended upon several components.

To be seen as executive material, women managers may want to concentrate more on creating balance in their business activities. This means "fitting in, being a team player and having the most powerful people on your side," according to Williams (Patterson, 2005). "Simultaneously, you have to maintain enough individualism to stand out and plenty of competitiveness to push ahead."…