Men and Women -
Differing Drivers in the Development of Senior Executive Talent

By Sally Helgesen and Marta Williams

Today’s best organisations are powerfully focused on developing talent, on unleashing the brains, passion, and creativity of their people.

Today’s best leaders understand that their ability to develop, access, and leverage talent constitutes their most powerful long-term competitive advantage. As knowledge is the most valuable resource in our economy, and because constant innovation is necessary for survival in the knowledge marketplace, talent is the only resource that can sustain an organisation over time.

As a result, it is not uncommon these days to hear an executive declare, “I’m really in the talent development
business”, as opposed to the technology business, the consumer products business, or professional
services. Such declarations are appropriate and important. However, we are concerned that talent
development is sometimes defined in a generic, onesize- fits-all fashion that results in organisations underusing or even discouraging the talents of women.

We offer this observation for two reasons. Firstly, we have analysed data that suggest women’s talent
development drivers differ in significant ways from those of men. Secondly, we have worked with a
variety of organisations - in Europe, and in North and South America - which, despite good intensions and
generous financing, are nevertheless struggling to develop women’s talents. Both our data and our experiences have clear operational implications for organisations, in terms of coaching, mentoring,
training and development, evaluating performance, and managing expectations. In this article, we will
explore these implications, but first we must share what we have learned about how talent development
drivers for women differ from those for men.

Our data was developed from an evaluation of studies conducted by the Washington Quality Group
(WQG), based upon the performance assessments of male and female executives using 25 specific items
or conducts. The assessment drew its sample from over 100 multinational (primarily American and
German-based) companies collected in the European offices of one country, and comprising leaders from a broad range of nationalities.

The data was gathered in Spain, and reflects a truly global sample. The data measures a respondent’s skill in five arenas: Developing Self, Developing Business, Developing Clients, Developing Others, and Developing the Future. Individuals assess themselves, and are assessed by their direct reports, peers, and bosses, in order to create a 360 degree profile. Assessments are repeated yearly, so that respondents’ growth and progress can be measured over time.

While WQG has analysed these assessments for many years, it did not begin to break down scores according to gender until 1997. Once it did, key differences in how men and women perceived themselves and were perceived by others began to emerge. The most obvious and significant difference was that the women in the study tended to underassess their own skills when compared with how they were assessed by direct reports, by peers, and by bosses in the majority of cases. Men, by contrast, tended to over-assess their skills.

Specific differences were telling. For example, direct reports, peers, and bosses assessed women more highly than women assessed themselves in regard to Developing Self, Developing Others, Developing Business, and Developing Clients, as reflected in the Self vs. Average scores. When it came to Developing Others, although women’s self-perception was lower than perception of others, their
bosses gave them especially high marks in this area.

This was not so in Developing the Future and especially in the item ‘questions what is done traditionally and advocates new ideas’, where bosses rated women substantially below men. The relative underperformance of women on this conduct as assessed by those higher-up suggests that diffidence, deference, and a lack of confidence among female respondents was viewed with particular concern by those at the top.

The women in the study started from a different position than the men, a position where the self-perception of their own capabilities and performance was negatively skewed. We believe this has profound consequences for talent development, since the ability of an individual to hone and leverage his or her talents - and the ability of an organisation to provide resources to help an individual to do so - ultimately depends upon that individual’s self-esteem and ability realistically to assess his or her performance.

Henry Ford once said, “whether you believe you can, or you believe you cannot, you will always be right.” We suggest a corollary; if a female executive does not perceive that she can do something, she will not be able to do it. As a result, we believe that the inaccurate self-perception that characterises women in the data must be dealt with before other talent development needs are addressed.

The data reflects our own experiences. For years, we have witnessed situations in which talent development efforts aimed at women have proceeded from assumptions that reflect particularly male needs. For example, we participated two years ago in a conference organised for 600 women at the partner or senior associate level in one of the world’s largest and most prestigious accounting firms.

A professional staff of HR executives and diversity professionals within the firm laboured for months to make the conference a success. Part of the effort included finding an appropriate theme for the conference. In the pre-interviews we conducted, we found that the most pervasive problem faced even by senior women at the firm was bringing visibility and notice to their achievements. The women often felt abashed and uncomfortable drawing notice to themselves as individuals, fearful lest they be perceived as boasting or claiming too much credit for themselves at the expense of others.

As a result of our interviews, we suggested that the firm focus developmental efforts on encouraging women to speak about their contributions and providing support to help them do so. In other words, the organisation needed to start by bolstering the women’s self-esteem in order to give them the confidence to articulate their strengths.

However, the conference organisers, in consultation with the training and development division of the company, settled on a conference theme that totally contradicted and undermined the women’s most urgent developmental need. On a banner above the entrance to the conference, and printed at the top of every handout, was the overused slogan “There Is No ‘I’ in Team.” This was astonishing. The women in the company were in fact undercutting their own ability to lead and contribute by being too team-oriented, yet here the company was suggesting that they were not team-oriented enough!

How did this occur? The explanation turned out to be quite simple. A company-wide survey given the year before (at significant expense) revealed that overemphasising personal achievement at the expense of others was a rampant problem in executive ranks, which of course were predominantly male. As a result, the women, in the guise of talent and leadership development, were being given a lesson that the men actually needed, but which undercut their own potential.

We find this to be typical of what happens when talent development is conceived of in a generic manner, and draws upon data or observations that do not distinguish male and female challenges. Instead, women’s talent development efforts need to be customised to take into account their negatively skewed self-perception and their reluctance to promote themselves, challenges women face far more often than men. However, to truly maximise women’s development, organisations also need to understand, support, and maximise women’s particular strengths.

One such strength is women’s ability and willingness to change, which we have seen demonstrated both in the data and in our experience. For example, as WQG analysed its performance assessments over a period of years in regard to gender, it became apparent that the women surveyed were better perceived than men in the opinion of others year after year. In fact, comparing data from 2000 with data to 2004, it has taken men 4 years to reach the point where women already were in the year 2000.

Nevertheless it seems that men are closing the gap to a certain extent, mainly influenced by the opinions of their bosses. In fact, data suggests that the men surveyed tended to dismiss the perception of anyone except their bosses. As one analyst noted, “the men accept the need to change only when the top person basically orders them to do so. The women don’t need ‘The Word of the Lord’ in order to alter their behaviour. They’re more open to change, more influenced by what others think, and more flexible in their behaviour.”

The differences in male and female self-perceptions, and in their relative willingness to change, have clear operational implications for organisations. These include:

Coaching: Coaching for women must aim first at improving self-perception and bolstering self-esteem by helping them to understand the exact nature of their contributions. That said, coaches can generally expect women to be more open to change and more responsive to coaching.

Mentoring: Mentors for women must focus their efforts on helping women to identify and articulate their strengths. They must then help women use this articulation to improve their own self-perception and the perceptions of others - in particular, the perception among their bosses in regard to their ability to question tradition and to serve as advocates for new ideas.

Networking: Women’s networks or affiliate programmes must help women build broader and stronger support within their organisations by establishing a platform of sel

Leadership Development: Leadership programmes aimed at women must start with a realistic understanding of the challenges unique to women, rather than relying on employee surveys that reflect
an undifferentiated pool.

Skills Training: Trainers need to recognise that women need less convincing than men about their liabilities, but more help in identifying and seeing the value of their strengths.

Managing Expectations: In setting performance objectives, managers must understand that women may need more support and encouragement than men. They should also know that, once women have this, they tend to make more rapid improvements.

In conclusion, we believe organisations must keep gender differences in mind when approaching the development of talent. Women have particular challenges that need to be understood and addressed, but they also have particular strengths that can be leveraged. The WQG data suggests that this is occurring. Since 2003, self-perception among women has begun to improve. This bodes well for women, and for organisations.

Published in Issue 14 of CriticalEYE REVIEW: The Journal of Europe’s Centre for Business Leaders www.CriticalEYE.net