Research shows that every aspect of a woman's identity is used against her professional advancement. Here’s how this data can help us dismantle bias

One thing I can never overstate is that gender disparity in leadership is not due to a lack of willing women, or hard-working women, or qualified women. Women are not the problem. 

We don’t need to smile more or smile less. Speak more assertively or more demurely. Have more experience or less. Be older or younger. And a recent study by three researchers has the data to prove it. 

“[W]e wondered why institutions consistently fail to promote women to top jobs,” Amy Diehl, PhD , Leanne Dzubinski PhD , and Amber L. Stephenson wrote in a March 2023 Fast Company article. So they went deep. And not by examining fields which are associated with male leadership, but by studying four industries dominated by women: higher education, faith-based nonprofits, law, and healthcare. They looked at 30 different characteristics of a woman’s identity that were points of criticism and created obstacles to their success. What they found was that practically anything “can be proclaimed problematic for a woman leader to question her competence and suitability for leadership.” That includes age, body size, education level, marital status, parental status—even residential location.

The clear, well-documented message to women is that—whatever they are—they are “never quite right.”

To anyone who has gone to work in a female body during the last 150 years, these findings are hardly surprising. But they are important because they can be used as a tool to help us modernize workplace culture. Their details and specificity can enable us to root out the systemic discrimination that has too often been shrouded as constructive criticism and employee improvement plans. 

As I wrote in To the Top, the current corporate infrastructure is out of date. Companies need to change. And many of them are not only well intentioned, but well on their way. Yet a lack of understanding and limited perspectives at the top create barriers for women and other underrepresented groups that trickle down and across every function of the organization. 

Evaluations and feedback are a crucial part of building a career. And, as we know—and now have the data to illuminate—all is not equal on this playing field. 

So, how can companies fix this part of their engines while flying? It’s a formidable challenge, but they’ll never reach final cruising altitude without doing so. Here are three ways to get started.

1. Make sure 360 reviews are coming from a diverse group of peers and managers so that an employee’s chances of advancement and development are not based on one or two opinions. Also, when you hire someone, try to get references from a diverse group of people.
2. Review evaluation metrics. How are you assessing employees? What language are you using? What checks and balances are you employing to make sure that you are applying the same language and metrics to evaluate men and women? The lack of equity at the top isn’t due to a pipeline problem. The U.S. workforce is diverse. It's a lack of equity in assessing, developing, and promoting talent that is undermining representation at the C-suite level.
3. Double down on overcoming unconscious bias. Assume you are part of the problem and need expert insight to make change. A report by Russell Reynolds Associates from earlier this year analyzed 1,583 executives at the 100 largest companies in the S&P500—what we call the S&P100. The report found that unconscious bias training in recruitment has become common. The next step is to educate leaders on common biases in the talent identification and succession process, while equipping them with strategies to minimize the impact of bias. This is how we can help transform the composition of the pipeline and generate better parity across roles in the short- and long-term.

As researchers Diehl, Dzubinski, and Stephenson wrote in Fast Company, “It takes deliberate effort, but we can turn the message to women from ‘We want what you aren’t’ into ‘We want what you are.’ Doing so will advance women in the workplace and profit the entire organization.”

What anti-bias efforts are being made at your company? What effects are they having? Can you share strategies you’re seeing that make a difference or stories of receiving feedback that was tinged (or rife) with gender bias?