Gender Differences in Management

CultureAmp recently released a report on gender differences in management. The company reviewed data from manager effectiveness surveys completed by direct reports about their managers. The goal was to understand whether there were differences in managerial impact based on gender. While neither CultureAmp nor I believe that gender is strictly binary, there was not enough data to explore beyond differences between men and woman. In the future, they hope to have more data on other gender identities. What they found during this data analysis of male and female managers is both intriguing and potentially troubling.

There are two key findings from their research I want to call out:

1. Female managers were generally rated higher than male managers

2. Females reporting to male managers rated their manager the lowest

Female managers were generally rated higher than male managers

As they explored why female managers were generally rated higher than male managers, there were a few skills in particular where woman shined. Women were more highly skilled at creating a more fair and diverse environment. In particular, this shows up through genuinely valuing diversity, effectively managing the team’s work, and ensuring people's ideas are attributed correctly. This may in part also contributed to the highest manager ratings coming from men reporting to women managers (which also happened to be the smallest group represented). This is encouraging and supports previous research that women leaders bring different skillsets to the table than their male counterparts.

Females reporting to male managers rated their manager the lowest

When diving into the lower scores received by male managers of females, there were a few areas where they struggled the most. Female direct reports of male managers felt their manager was more unaware of their career goals, didn't recognize them for their work as often, and ultimately held them to different standards. Given these challenges, it’s unsurprising that fewer women make it into leadership positions. This is shown in the data where the percent of women managers decreases at each level of the organization. 41% of managers of individual contributors were women. However, only 24.5% of managers 3 levels above were women, with the percentage decreasing at each level in between.

This reality seems at odds with the data that shows that female managers were rated higher by their direct reports. It implies that the best managers (according to direct reports) are the least likely to get promoted. This may be related to the fact that while a female manager is appreciated by her team, she is increasingly likely to report to a male manager, which is where the starkest differences occur in experience. Meaning, female managers may struggle getting support and approval from their male managers above them, which then hampers their advancement opportunities. This seems at odds with the idea of meritocracy.

So what can we do about these findings?

CultureAmp identified two opportunities to combat these biases.

1. Identify objective criteria around the skills needed for managerial positions before you attempt to promote anyone. Then we need to hold ourselves accountable by collecting data to show that the people we are promoting are indeed the people who best demonstrate those skills.

2. Train managers at your organization so that they all have the same expectations set around what it means to be a “good” manager in your organization. 

If you are interested in training your managers in a bias-free manner, reach out to me to learn more about my Manager Training workshops and curriculum.