It’s been argued that certain ‘alpha females’ are deliberately hindering the career progress of other women. But is the issue really about personality, both male and female, rather than gender?
At a campaign event for Hillary Clinton in 2006, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
It highlighted an unwritten assumption that women can, and should, help each other advance. Traditionally, women have had to fight hard to gain work equality, especially in bigger companies and in senior roles. And while things are better than they were, it seems that progress is still painfully slow.
Grant Thornton’s Women in Business 2017 report, for example, states that the percentage of women in senior leadership roles has hit 25 per cent globally. However, this is an increase of just one per cent since 2016, and just six per cent in the 13 years since the research began.
It’s not surprising, then, that there’s a growing number of professional networks for women, providing advice and support for those wanting to climb the corporate ladder. But scratch the surface and is there a darker underside to this ‘business sisterhood’? Indeed, do some senior professional women actively stop other women progressing?
The boss of Legal & General, Nigel Wilson, stirred the hornets’ nest in March this year when he told the Daily Mail: “Do enough women promote other women? The data is very mixed on that. I’m not a woman, so I don’t know why, whether they are the alpha female and don’t necessarily want other alpha females around.”
So, what do professional women think? Jo Sumner runs several businesses and is also a Regional Director for the Athena Network, an international organisation for businesswomen. She thinks there may be an issue in certain kinds of company. “Our focus is entirely on the mindset that there is enough for everyone,” she says. “That we can learn from each other’s success and from the mistakes we’ve made along the way, and all do better as a result.
“From time to time, however, I do meet women from more corporate backgrounds coming into our network, who find it incredibly refreshing that we actually have each other’s back. So, there’s obviously still a problem in some sectors.”
In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg says that because there are still relatively few women in the most senior roles, it creates a perception that such roles for women are scarce. Therefore, a woman trying get what she sees as a rare female opening on the board may well see other women as competitors.
Others argue that so-called ‘alpha women’ are just behaving like alpha men. Jill Britton, Director of Supervision at the Jersey Financial Services Commission, comments: “There’s context to what Nigel Wilson said. In that article, he also noted: ‘There’s always been a bit of pulling up of the drawbridge. People don’t want a younger version of themselves, who might be better than them in a couple of years, sitting in the wings. That applies to men and women’.”
Balancing act
Britton believes the alpha women theory is a red herring. “In my experience, alpha female terminology has been associated with perceived negative behaviours in women, such as aggression, single-mindedness, being a loner, selfishness and being highly competitive,” she says. “It’s more important to focus on why females aren’t advancing and what we can all do – both men and women – to ensure the balance is achieved.”
Karen Jones, CEO of Citywealth, describes her personal experience of alpha female behaviour. She says: “My first encounter with an alpha female was an Executive Director who used to throw her red stiletto across the room at people’s heads to get their attention while screaming at the top of her lungs. So, yes, there are definitely some women who act aggressively – but their style will lead to difficulty for anyone, whether male or female.”
She points to research from Muna Jawhary, author of Women and False Choice: The Truth about Sexism, which suggests the gender argument is white noise and asks why an alpha female has to be seen to help other women. Jawhary wonders whether it’s because we’re programmed to expect ‘better’ behaviour from women.
Jawhary’s research prompted Citywealth to do its own. The Citywealth Power Women Report involved 153 board-level women representing 123 organisations such as UBS and Deloitte across the UK, Jersey, Guernsey, Switzerland, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
It found that women have a new style of management – which its researchers christened ‘synergetic leadership’ – where they gravitate to a collaborative style that resonates with the millennial workforce. While they are confident, result-orientated, innovative and push themselves, they also have high emotional intelligence, kindness and integrity, and believe in ‘we leadership’.
Leadership traits
Sarah Bartram-Lora Reina, Associate Director at Zedra, has worked for both male and female bosses over her 25-year career in finance. She believes that even if women have a different working style, all good leaders tend to have similar traits.
“There are some people who have a certain charisma that just makes them a good leader,” she says. “People who can articulate and keep their head under pressure, who have expertise in a particular area. I think that applies whether you’re male or female – as does feeling protective about your role if you feel it’s threatened.”
As for the pay gap and the lack of women CEOs, Bartram-Lora Reina argues: “When you drill down, it’s partly historical – elements left over from a previous way of doing things. Some individuals, both male and female, will always have an issue around women taking time out to have children and then choosing to work part-time, not recognising that they may have obtained other skills along the way.”
She believes things are slowly changing and that companies are recognising new benefits in hiring women. “Boards often seek out women now for the alternative viewpoint we can bring,” she says.
Many women see encouraging others to follow in their footsteps as a no-brainer. “While the Jersey Financial Services Commission is a relatively small organisation, having a highly skilled and diverse workforce is essential in achieving our goals,” says Jill Britton. “Given my gender and the opportunities I’ve had, I do believe I have a key role in attracting and retaining female talent.”
So perhaps it’s time we tore up the gender rulebook and approached things in a new way. “Isn’t it just a case of everyone having the chance to progress equally on merit, be they male or female?” asks Bartram-Lora Reina.
Karen Jones agrees. “As an alpha female myself – I’m CEO of an eight-person business – I take great pride in my company having both a feminine and a masculine side. In business, you need both to survive.”
For those who believe things are still changing too slowly, there’s always the option of entrepreneurship. In fact, there are signs that an increasing number of women are eschewing in-house power battles to go it alone [see box]. After all, you don’t have to fight to get to the top if it’s your own company.
Alternative route to the top
According to the Office for National Statistics, the level of self-employment in the UK increased from 3.8 million in 2008 to 4.6 million in 2015, continuing a trend that started in the early 2000s.
One reason for this could be a shortage of work for all after the recent global financial crisis. But it could be that women are realising that if the business world won’t change to suit them, they need to change the way they do business.
Since the downturn of 2008, the majority (58%) of the newly self-employed have been female. Furthermore, in 2014 alone, 70 per cent of those becoming self-employed were women – and in 2016, self-employment started to decline for men, but not women.
Another reason women go it alone could be that self-employment offers more flexibility, sitting more comfortably with childcare, for example. Here to Stay: Women’s self-employment in a (post) austerity era, a 2016 report by the UK Women’s Budget Group, states: ‘Part-time self-employment grew by 88 per cent between 2001 and 2015, compared to 25 per cent for the full-time mode.’
The research also found that among younger and mid-aged self-employed women, in particular those working part-time, their lifestyle is one of choice not circumstance. These women don’t want to work full-time, and aren’t seeking an alternative job.