Fixing the Broken Rung on the Higher Ed Leadership Ladder

When women trip on that first rung of the leadership ladder, they never catch up. Women in entry-level positions are promoted to managerial positions at much lower rates than men in corporations. Only 87 women overall are promoted for every 100 men from entry-level to management positions (McKinsey and LeanIn.org). This is referred to as the broken rung of early career leadership progression. The broken rung isn’t limited to corporations – it’s prevalent in higher education institutions, too.  

Gender inequality needs to be tackled at the organizational level, and not targeted to male leaders and coworkers. Below is some of the research, combined with first-hand experiences, to guide the discussion.

Is a Leaky Pipeline the Problem?

There are more female professionals than males in nearly all functional units of higher education. Females hold 60% of professional roles in higher education, yet they represent far fewer leadership positions and are still underpaid compared to males, according to a 2022 CUPAHR report. Females of color fare even worse in leadership representation and pay. 

Women are also more educated than men. The majority of students seeking and attaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees are female. Nearly 60% of students are female and 40% are male (National Student Clearinghouse). 

A lack of ambition for females is not a cause, either. Nearly 50% of women overall describe themselves as “very ambitious” in regards to their careers, according to a 2022 CNBC survey. Ambition rates are highest for Black women, with 66% describing themselves as “very ambitious.”

The data shows the problem is not due to a leaky pipeline. There are plenty of females with educational credentials, professional experience, and ambition. So if it’s not a pipeline issue, what is causing the broken rung at institutions of higher education?

What are Some Causes of the Broken Rung?

There are a handful of causes that contribute to the broken rung. 

  1. Change Resistance. The decision-makers may not see a need for change. Change might not benefit them whereas status quo does (World Economic Forum). Or maybe change is not a priority for the decision-makers. Other priorities will rise to the top. Addressing leadership equality may be perceived as lower priority rather than essential for sustainable organizational success.
  2. Lack of Representation. As the data demonstrates, there are fewer females in leadership positions and therefore, hiring positions. The lack of diversity in hiring managers may perpetuate the problem. With less representation, there is less role modeling, too. The first female in any leadership role has a bumpier path to traverse and will be under more scrutiny.
  3. Gendered Cultural Norms. Some colleges have a culture of opportunity for males. Males may be solicited more often for stretch projects, highly-visible projects, and informal networking opportunities (e.g., golfing). By contrast, females may be expected to take on more of the non-promotable work (The No Club). Non-promotable work is essential for organizations but doesn’t lead to advancement. Examples are taking minutes of meetings, planning the parties, undertaking DEI and well-being work, and serving on more committees. When females do the non-promotable work, they stretch themselves thin, which leads to burnout. It also creates more space for men to do the promotable work. In my own experience, I saw this happen time and again. Like some of my female coworkers, I tended to fall in line with gendered cultural expectations of the workload. For years, I did not feel empowered enough to challenge the non-promotable tasks. I just did them, usually with a smile. 

    Organizations may tolerate gender-based microaggressions, which can be manifestations of unconscious bias. The microaggressions include females having their judgment questioned even when they are the technical expert in the room, being mistaken for someone with less experience, not being given credit for their work, and receiving comments on their appearance, personality, and perception of friendliness.
  4. Policies and Practices. There are structural elements, such as employee policies and corresponding practices, that also contribute to the broken rung. Any policy or practice that favors one gender over another, even subtlety, can adversely affect the promotional opportunities for the outsider group. An example is the time allotted for a professor to be granted tenure. A female may need extra time to satisfy the requirement for tenure. The standard timeline may disadvantage females, considering the 2.5 times extra domestic laborburden they experience.

    As for practices, females need mentors, coaches, sponsors, and allies from the majority group. The organization should intentionally create the structures for these relationships.  
  5. Lack of External Pressures. Non-profit colleges and universities do not have the same external drivers as for-profit corporations. The shareholders of corporations are demanding diversity and equity in the leadership pipeline now. (Albeit, with a long way to go to achieve equal representation and pay!) The consumer demands of corporations also influences the hiring and promotion practices. However, there are fewer pressures to address the gaps and make the changes in higher ed.

What are Some Promising Solutions?

A first step toward fixing the broken rung is to know exactly what’s happening at a specific college or university. Human Resources can mine employment data to discover trends in hiring practices. For example, HR can identify which functional units have specific gender gaps in managerial promotions (e.g., academics, student affairs, support services) and where the pay inequity resides. HR can also conduct anonymous feedback surveys to gauge the experiences of employees. It’s important to identify where the employees experience and perceive obstacles to advancement. 

Examine structural barriers inherent in the policies and practices and remove them. Modern care-giver policies can partially equalize the working conditions. Both parents need adequate paid time-off when a new child is born, adopted, or fostered. Other care-givers need time to care for aging parents and medical conditions of family members. Remote work, flexible hours, and shared jobs can also address care-giver needs. As a solo parent myself, I would argue that single-parent households would benefit from additional considerations, such as limited travel expectations.

The sexual harassment policies must be strict with safe reporting processes in place. The enforcement of the sexual harassment policies must be consistent. All employees should be trained on the policies and expected to comply at equal levels. 

All employees need equal access to formal and informal mentorship, sponsorship, coaching, and ally-ship. A serious approach would be to tie the access to the job expectations of senior leaders. 

It is important to note that policies and practices must achieve two levels of equality: discouraging inequality andencouraging equality. For example, it is not enough to state that employees in protected demographic groups (e.g., sex, gender) will not be discriminated against. The policies must also encourage equality by stating how all employees will be assured equal rights, responsibilities, and privileges and describe how that will happen. The corresponding practices should consistently uphold the rights, responsibilities, and privileges as stated in the policies.

Call out hidden and subtle barriers, such as unequal non-promotable workloads and microaggressions. Subtle barriers can create a toxic workplace culture. Employees are leaving these organizations at higher rates than organizations with healthy cultures (MIT 2022).

Our expectations for workplace culture and gender parity are evolving. The research is, too. I welcome additional insights on the causes of the broken rung in higher ed and how to fix them.

Are the Great Resignation and Great Dropout Connected?

There’s nothing GREAT about employees leaving the workforce in the past couple years at higher levels than pre-pandemic rates (Yuan, 2022). There’s also nothing GREAT about students dropping out of college at higher rates than pre-pandemic rates (EDI, 2022). People are quitting, stopping out, saying: ENOUGH

Do the Great Resignation and Great Dropout have anything in common? What might the commonalities tell us about how we work and educate now?

What is the Great Resignation?

The Great Resignation is sometimes called the “Big Quit,” and refers to the large number of attrition rates in US history, especially for employees in health care and technology (Yuan, 2022). 

A 2022 MIT study cited the following reasons for employees leaving, in this order: toxic workplace culture; job insecurity and reorganization; the stress of highly-innovative companies; failure to recognize high-performers’ contributions; and poor responses to the pandemic. Interestingly, higher pay was not high on the list. It was number 16.

More female employees are resigning than male counterparts (Deloitte, 2022). And the exits may not be slowing down, at least in higher education. A third of student affairs practitioners plan to leave the field (Alonso, 2022). 

What is the Great Dropout?

College students are leaving school before they complete their degrees, which is the worst scenario. Students have paid into the college system but will not see the workplace reward of a degree. 

The students who dropped out early in the pandemic aren’t returning to school (EDI, 2022). Drop out rates are 20% higher for males than females (ThinkImpact, 2021). These drop-out rates are higher than predicted by the demographic cliff, which wasn’t supposed to hit until 2025. 

What are the Similarities between Work Resignations and College Drop Outs?

Both stem from burnout. 

Employees are burned out from stress, non-work responsibilities (e.g., child care, elder care), and a lack of work boundaries and flexibility. Deloitte’s Women @ Work report found that 53% of women surveyed say their stress levels are higher in 2022 than 2021 and that they feel burned out.

Students are burned out from virtual learning, financial debt, and mental health issues.

It’s all just too much, all at once. People need a release valve from the extreme external pressures faced during the past two years. 

The release valve is opting out. 

For students, those that dropped out have not returned.

For employees, some are looking for other employment at companies with strong cultures. Others might not return until reliable social supports are in place, such as child care.

The dropping-out behaviors could indicate an anti-organizational movement exacerbated by pandemic conditions. People don’t want to be held to the restrictions imposed by hierarchical organizations. People want more choices, flexibility, and control over what they do and how they do it. They are too burned out to conform to inflexible structures. Perhaps this anti-organizational movement also explains the rise in self-employment over the past couple years.

What Now?

What will be our societal response to the Great Resignation and the Great Dropout? How will the stopping-out behaviors affect societal and economic trends long term? How will hierarchical organizations adapt to this murky, shifting landscape?

Organizations, both within the workforce and higher ed, will likely be forced to evolve. Employees and students are asking for more options, flexibility, and control. The evolution feels painful right now for many. The pain point is the ambiguity inherent in the nature of forced changes. The workforce and higher ed can continue to resist the changes or find ways to adapt that meet organizational goals as well.

References

Alonso, J. (Nov. 17, 2022). More than a third of student affairs workers looking to quit. Inside Higher Ed. 

Deloitte. (2022). Women @ Work 2022: A Global Outlook.

Hanson, M. (2022). College Dropout Rates. Education Data Initiative (EDI). 

Lederman, D. (May 4, 2022). Turnover, Burnout, and Demoralization in Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed.

Sull, D., Sull, C., and Zweig, B. (Jan. 11, 2022). Toxic culture is driving the great resignation. MIT Sloan Management Review. 

ThinkImpact. (2021). College Dropout Rates. 

Yuan, L. (March 29, 2022). The Great Resignation Statistics. The Career Project. 

Overcoming Resistance to Build Consensus on Your Team

Collaboration is the usual go-to tactic to achieve consensus within a team. But what happens when the collaborative process hits obstacles or stalls out? How can you navigate through the collaborative process to continue working toward consensus? 

Four Steps to Creating Consensus

Consensus is a complicated negotiation among people, processes, and systems. Try these four steps to build consensus. 

  1. Identify whether consensus is desirable. Ask yourself: Do you really want to do to the work to achieve true consensus? Or do you simply want the group to agree with you and help you execute the project? If the latter, then forget consensus. In the latter case, be transparent about what you want to do, how it will be executed, and why you aren’t seeking group input on it (e.g., time constraints). On the other hand, consensus is achievable when time is on your side, the input of the group is valuable to the final product, you want to create new learning on the existing processes and practices, and you believe any resistance could be damaging to the work product or future relationships. 
  2. Assess the resistance. It’s common to hit resistance during the consensus process. Most flavors of resistance can be classified as human, philosophical, cultural, or technical. See the table for details.
  3. Apply the tactics to overcome the resistance. Each type of resistance has compensation tactics to soften the resistance. See the table for details.
  4. Maintain the relationships. Congratulations – you’ve achieved consensus! But don’t undermine all the hard work to build consensus by blowing it now. You still need to nurture the relationships of the people who contributed. Otherwise, the collaborators will sense being used and you will become a “one-and-done” success story. Here are some ways to maintain the relationships, which will help create the conditions for consensus next time:
    • Communicate regularly on updates and outcomes of the project; 
    • Demonstrate care, provide resources, and be accessible to the collaborators;
    • Give credit wherever its due – remember, you didn’t get there alone;
    • Celebrate victories; and
    • Document and share the learning with the larger organization. When the project learning extends its reach, there is a sense of pride and ownership in contributing to the greater organizational good.

Beware of Groupthink!

Consensus is ideal but what happens when there is false consensus, and members of the team aren’t actually on board? This phenomenon is called groupthink, which is the illusion of consensus (Beebe and Masterson, 2012). Groupthink results from a dysfunctional absence of conflict or avoidance of conflict. The causes are a lack of group consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the decision. You can see groupthink when actions are justified rather than evaluated, people are overconfident in the decisions, team members feel pressure to support decisions, decisions are made quickly, and team members prioritize the leader’s opinion over others. 

To prevent groupthink, leaders can empower team members to question the merits of a project. Leaders should directly solicit the critical assessment of the team, especially the members who are naturally quiet. (Although tread carefully with team members who dislike being put on the spot.) Leaders can role model an evaluative model by questioning actions and decisions, especially their own.


References

Beebe and Masterson. (2012). Communicating in small groups. 10th Edition. Allyn and Bacon.