The Role of Men in Fostering Female Talent: Part 2

In his previous blog, Michael offered some fascinating perspectives on how managers and organizations both succeed and flounder in advancing their talented women. In this blog, Michael points us to Catalyst research that can be helpful in understanding gender bias and moving away from it.

–Dr. Rosina L. Racioppi, President & CEO, WOMEN Unlimited, Inc.

My organization, Catalyst, has spent the last half century providing research-based evidence of gender bias, the reasons for ending it and strategies for overcoming it. Over the years, things have gotten better for women, but we are clearly not there yet—far from it.

I’d like to share with you four recent Catalyst research initiatives aimed at helping corporations and their managers embrace gender diversity. All are downloadable in their entirety and I’ve provided links at the end of each synopsis.

Engaging Men In Gender Initiatives
This research series offers evidence-based advice about the most effective ways to partner with men in ending gender inequalities at work. The series includes four reports: What Change Agents Need to Know: Stacking the Deck for Success: Calling All White Men: Can Training Help Create Inclusive Workplaces? and Anatomy of Change: How Inclusive Cultures Evolve

The series also includes two tools to help your organization take action:

• Engaging Men in Gender Diversity Initiatives
• Actions Men Can Take to Create an Inclusive Workplace

Full report

High Potentials in the Pipeline: Leaders Pay It Forward
The Queen Bee syndrome suggests that women do not help other women get ahead, and that they may even actively keep them down, which some say contributes to the gender gap. Our findings support a growing body of research that unravels this myth.

We found that women who have received development themselves are developing others even more than men who have been developed. And not only are women offering career development support to others, they are, more than men, helping other women climb the corporate ladder.

While not all women are developing other women, it’s also true that not all men help other men. The main difference is that the failure by some men to pay it forward is not used to negatively characterize all men’s behavior. The failure of some women to pay it forward, however, is used to negatively characterize women’s behavior as a group. Full report

Feeling Different: Being the “Other” in the U.S. Workplace
We all have complex and multiple identities that define how we see ourselves and how others see us. These include personal attributes such as gender, race, ethnicity, or nationality. The more different we are and feel from our workgroup or workplace as a whole, the more we may feel like the “other” at the table.

This report examines the experience of otherness in the US workplace and how people with multiple sources of otherness are impacted in terms of their opportunities, advancement, and aspirations. For example they are less likely to have mentors, less likely to receive promotions and more likely to scale down their expectations.
Listening to the unique experiences of diverse employees and adopting inclusive approaches to talent management confer benefits on both employees and corporations. Full report

Finally, our most recent research:
Inclusive Leadership: The View from Six Countries
This study delves into the striking similarities across six countries (the United States, Germany, Australia, India, Mexico and China) on how employees characterize inclusion and the leadership behaviors that help to foster it. For example:

• The more included employees felt, the more innovative they reported being in their jobs
• The more included employees felt, the more they reported engaging in team citizenship behaviors—going above and beyond the “call of duty” to help other team members and meet workgroup objectives
• Perceiving similarities with coworkers engendered a feeling of belongingness while perceiving differences led to feelings of uniqueness Full report