Are supervisors hindering women’s career advancement?
Men and women differ in how they approach challenging tasks
There are many very successful Chinese women. In business, there is SOHO China chief executive Zhang Xin, the real estate developer who is transforming Beijing’s skyline. Or Gong Haiyan, China’s No 1 matchmaker, whose online dating site, Jiayuan (Beautiful Destiny), has more than 100 million users. In politics, Liu Yandong was appointed one of China’s four new vice-premiers in 2013, making her one of the most powerful women in the world.
Yet these are exceptional stories. According to a recent report by The New York Times, fewer than one in 10 board members of China’s top 300 companies are women. This data is drawn from the 2013 annual reports of the 300 companies in the China Securities Index (CSI). Of these, 126 have no women on their boards at all. The CSI is a capitalisation-weighted index of the top 300 A-share stocks listed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges.
In this modern era, especially when gender equality and boardroom representation of women have been in focus, one would expect more female leaders to be promoted and represented at the board level.
After all, a recent McKinsey study found that advancing women’s equality can add US$12 trillion to global growth.
Managers often delegate difficult tasks to those whom they trust to do well – specifically, subordinates who are like them
With International Women’s Day just round the corner, it may be timely to assess this bias in a woman’s career advancement.