The glass ceiling is a significant issue for women.. It discourages women from excelling and moving ahead in life. It hinders the success rate of women overall. Women can find it difficult to handle the glass ceiling in the corporate world. Here we provide some strategies on how you can deal with the glass ceiling.So, let’s get into it and begin with describing the glass ceiling and the effects it can have
What Is the Glass Ceiling, And What Are Its Effects?
The phrase “glass ceiling” describes a metaphor, an unseen wall. It hinders some people from moving up to management and leadership roles inside a company. The expression highlights the struggles women and minorities endure in the workplace and can prevent people from succeeding through accepted norms. It’s a phenomenon that can impact social standing and job progression, and can persist after the workday. It can spread into every aspect of a person’s life, including people’s well-being and health. The glass ceiling affects many people, however, the focus of this article is its impact on women in the workplace.
Some people can experience the following effects due to the glass ceiling:
- Loneliness
- Self-doubt
- Bitterness
- Resentment
- Helplessness
- Withdrawal
How Can Women Break Through the Glass Ceiling?
There are many ways to break through the glass ceiling. Let’s take a look at 4 strategies:
Request the salary you deserve:
Women can find it difficult to demand what they are worth. Therefore, women need to build confidence and create a track record of accomplishments, and stand for what they are worth and deserve. Document your successes and achievements. Be prepared to objectively present the documented data to your manager. It can also be helpful to survey the job market to determine your value and consider presenting this, as well, to your manager. It is, of course, essential to know your manager and company culture, in order to make an informed decision about how to best convey what it is you want.
Encourage and support other women:
It may sound surprising, but women are as prone as males, to hold stereotypes toward other women. It is the responsibility of women to help each other advance in their career growth. One way to demonstrate support is when a woman has an idea, support her to ensure she is heard and given credit. Another way is to congratulate other female coworkers on accomplishments and work well done Greater numbers of women breaking down barriers will encourage more women to do the same. Women must stand together for the success of all women.
Adjust your viewpoint:
Adopt the mindset that you can achieve your goals. Women must stand up as equals to men. They need to remind themselves of their strengths and have confidence in their ability to compete. Anything less can be self-sabotaging and set you up for diminished results.
Create opportunities for yourself:
Don’t let the glass ceiling prevent you from advancing. Instead, put yourself in charge as a means to overcome obstacles. One idea is to start a business, which would allow you to design your career opportunities without organizational constraints. If you’re not the entrepreneurial type, seek out opportunities at companies that value, promote, and reward female leaders. Build network connections with decision-makers in these organizations to make a move when the time is right.
What Challenges Do Women Face in The Corporate World?
In a world full of stereotypes, women still face many workplace and career challenges. Which of these 5 most resonate with you?
Old Guard societal norms:
Many female business leaders participating in business events may notice they are only one of very few women present. And when women try to engage in discussions with male executives, they often report feeling discounted, dismissed, and ignored. One way some women try to compensate is to take on a traditionally “male” demeanor. In doing so they can be perceived as aggressive, inappropriately competitive, and rudely brusque.. It can be exceedingly challenging for female leaders to strike the right balance, in order to maintain an assertive stance and wield their power in ways that are perceived as positive.
Illegitimacy of female leaders:
Many female CEOs often encounter a male-dominated C-Suite world that refuses to recognize that their leadership seat at the table is legitimate. It can be helpful to ascertain whether the ascendancy of a woman to the executive team is a validated move toward transformative organizational change, or whether it’s a token move to satisfy insincere DEI policies. Either way, it requires women to try to forge relationships with leaders, while continuing to demonstrate the knowledge and talent that legitimately earned them the executive position.anaging family and work life:
Parent business leaders, executives, and most employees with parenting responsibilities must manage their obligations to their families. Additionally, overseeing care for elderly parents has often fallen on the shoulders of women. It can be particularly difficult for many women to manage their personal and family life, while also taking on higher level projects to advance in their careers.
Building leadership skills:
Young girls are often pushed to develop a sense of community and supportiveness, rather than to grow their leadership strengths and sense of empowerment. Over time, this can lead to women underestimating their value as decision-makers and leaders.
Support network:
A strong support system for female employees is crucial for success in the corporate workplace and in entrepreneurship. Corporate female employees and entrepreneurs consistently report that a lack of support networks, sponsors, and mentors has decreased their opportunity to advance in their careers.
How Can Women Overcome These Challenges?
Women have life experiences and natural talents that are impactful to the bottom line of companies. They often excel at networking and have natural relationship-building and negotiation abilities. Many women are also naturally skilled at multitasking, delegation, and budgeting. In addition to contributing to the bottom line women can use their natural talents and skills to more deftly overcome work-related challenges.
Strategies to assist women to excel in the workplace include:
- Solid support, sponsorship, and mentoring programs
- Leadership opportunities
- Realistic and accessible strategies for managing work and personal life
- Awareness of barriers to women excelling in their careers, along with implementation of positive changes to break down barriers
- Women-focused entrepreneurship programs
What Are Current Support Systems For Working Women?
These are 4 metaphorical techniques companies can implement to drive a cultural shift.
The mirror:
Companies offer female employees the opportunity to promote their accomplishments. As an example, women are encouraged to demonstrate how their achievements contribute to organizational success. This shifts the focus of women’s contributions from “process” to “results.”
Optical magnifier:
As people come and go in an organization, new allegiances and alliances are formed. Periodic in-depth corporate cultural analyses are useful and relevant as organizational demographics shift. This is critical to ensure recognition of the diversity of talent, that it is equitably utilized, and that a healthy culture is maintained.
Freedom card:
Successful sponsorship programs open doors for female career advancement. These programs provide women with opportunities to grow their skills, demonstrate their accomplishments, and develop relationships with key individuals, to hasten their ascent to executive leadership positions.
GPS:
This coaching program trains and motivates women to gain political awareness of the workplace, develop power relationships, and hone their leadership abilities.
Why Do More Women Need to Be Represented at Executive Levels in The Corporate World?
These 5 points underscore the importance of women serving in executive roles.
Transformative leadership:
Studies indicate that women demonstrate more consistency in behavior, as compared to men. Additionally, in a meta-analysis comparing male and female leaders, female leaders were shown to be more transformative. This is just one of many attributes companies require in the fast-changing competitive business marketplace.
Strong group collaboration:
Women generally possess excellent communication skills and can create a strong communication network. Passionate and enthusiastic women can persuasively convey a vision and demonstrate exceptional leadership, particularly in challenging circumstances.
Female leaders may be more effective mentors:
The importance of role models, particularly for young professionals, cannot be overstated. Most everyone needs someone to mentor them to effectively advance in their careers, regardless of gender. Many studies show that, when developing and guiding new talent, female leaders are more effective mentors than male leaders, often demonstrating more patience, along with clear and supportive communication.
Better financial results:
Studies have demonstrated that companies with greater diversity, yield more original and representative ideas. This underscores the importance of DEI initiatives, which of course, include engendering contributions by women. Greater originality that is representative of the larger population can result in reaching a larger demographic group of customers.
Improved communications:
Many surveys reveal that women are generally superior communicators. This essential talent is critical for open and clear internal communication within an organization, as well as, external communication to promote a company’s public image and reputation
What Are the Benefits of A More Gender-Diverse Workforce?
Gender diversity provides a valuable diverse perspective along with broader industry talent. An organization can better serve its varied consumer base with a population of gender-diverse personnel. Gender diversity can help an organization enhance its working capability and increase its success rate. The following are 6 benefits of having gender diversity in the workplace.
A more extensive reservoir of talent:
Businesses that don’t recruit women are losing out on the skills and competencies of half the population. Utilizing women’s unique competencies can improve productivity and the bottom line.
Diverse viewpoints:
Employers gain from the collective perspectives and strategies resulting from diverse life experiences, because having both men and women on teams expands the diversity of viewpoints. A variety of viewpoints can yield greater creativity, which can result in a competitive edge. Creativity can result in critical innovations and lead businesses to identify and seize new advantageous opportunities. Cultivating a more diverse employee population can also inspire businesses to question gender norms and make positive changes that are more inclusive and equitable.
Increased teamwork:
Women on teams can inspire improved team relationships and increase productivity. According to research, women are better at interpreting nonverbal communication. Additionally, because they are generally more patient and better listeners, teams s with more women were able to more effectively maximize the knowledge and abilities of the group as a whole.
Increased employee loyalty:
According to surveys, an inclusive company culture improves opportunities and morale. Workforce diversity provides a more relaxed, accepting, and friendly environment and increases employee loyalty to the organization. This can improve a company’s bottom line, by increasing retention of valuable talent.
More accurate representation of customers:
Customers come from all different backgrounds. Your organization’s composition should mirror your target audience. This can increase customer engagement leading to increased sales.
Increasing profit:
Numerous examples exist in business literature demonstrating that gender diversity has a favorable effect on the bottom line.. Particularly as part of a DEI culture, gender diversity can enhance the overall morale of employees, It can also improve communication and create a more accepting environment, where employees demonstrate greater engagement and motivation, resulting in increased productivity and profit