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INTRODUCTION

The role of women in the world of work, and the consequent impact it will have on corporate cultures, is at a crucial transitional point as we approach the Millennium. How organizations respond will determine to a large extent the future of business and the economic success of the nation.

The world of work is undergoing a significant transformation and is learning, through necessity, to manage that change. Organizations of all sizes are rethinking not only how they are structured but, above all, how they are run and what types of directing and managing styles are appropriate.

Growing recognition and acceptance that women bring different and unique talents to the workplace has resulted in women making remarkable headway in organizations during the latter years of this century. That awareness must now be taken a step further – by fully integrating men and women within corporate cultures – so that organizations may reap the benefit of the combination of both sexes’ abilities and qualities.

First, the statistics: all indicators point to significant changes in the future composition of the working population of the United Kingdom. Social Trends 27 – the 1997 edition of the annual survey of life in the UK published by the Office for National Statistics – reports that, by 2006, the number of full-time jobs is not expected to show any significant increase or decrease, but that the existing trend for more part-time and self-employed workers is likely to be reinforced.

It is anticipated that, by 2006, women will account for 46% of the entire workforce; and of the additional 1.4 million people expected in the workforce, 1 million will be women. The number of part-time workers is set to rise by 10% and those in self-employment by 25%. Traditionally, women are more likely to be in part-time work, but that trend, too, is changing. Between 1986 and 1996, the numbers of women in part-time work rose by 17% to 5.3 million, but the number of men doubled to 1.2 million. Social Trends 27 also reports that, in 1995, the UK had a higher proportion of people working from home than any other EU country, with 30% of males and 25% of females working at home for at least part of the year.

If these statistics are borne out, then the number of women within all spheres of the workplace will increase dramatically and the nature of organizations will undoubtedly change. As modern companies recognize the need to be people-oriented and family-friendly in order to move forward and succeed, they will need to build on the ‘feminine’ characteristics which complement the ‘masculine’ traits that have traditionally typified corporate cultures. The workplace would then not drive women away, but become much more attractive to them.

As society re-evaluates the way it conducts itself, and as businesses search for healthier ways of organizing themselves, the old ways are being called into question. Characteristics of traditional, male-dominated organizations – where women have been judged by masculine yardsticks – are no longer accepted as the norm. The competitive, controlling, hierarchical, dictatorial, critical approaches epitomized by the Army, the Church and the State, and practised by many business organizations, are being strongly challenged by supporters of the more intuitive feminine qualities of co-operation, facilitation, coaching and an ability to listen to and encourage other people.

Already, a great number of highly successful women have paved the way to a point where their influence is beginning to be felt and appreciated. Marjorie Scardino, Chairman of the Pearson Group, has become the first female chairman of a FT-SE 100 company. By example, such women have highlighted alternative approaches to the traditional managerial styles of the past, and are teaching organizations to react positively in their attitudes to employing women. In turn, organizations are accepting that women’s capabilities provide a useful, complementary and necessary foil to the skills and qualities of their male employees. This is why there is such a strong and determined move towards establishing equality of opportunity in the workplace.

In the aftermath of the publication of GCSE and A level results in 1994, there were several articles remarking on the fact that girls’ schools had ‘forged ahead’ in the league tables. In an article featured in The Times of 3 September 1994, a professor of education was quoted as saying ‘Ten years of equal opportunities has focused on raising the standards achieved by girls, and has proved brilliantly successful.’

This trend has continued to the point where girls in all types of school have been outperforming the boys at GCSE and are now beginning to do so at A level, too. In the spring of 1996, the Chief Inspector of Schools described the under-achieving of boys as one of the most disturbing problems facing the education system. Schools are now having to turn their attention to raising the standards of boys’ work, but understand that they will have to tackle the problem in a fresh way – taking into account the specific needs and culture of boys’ groups, whilst maintaining girls’ progress – thereby allowing the two groups to work together naturally and to the benefit of both.

We are reminded that this is undoubtedly a period of dramatic change, time and time again, through the reactions of the media, the presence of ever-successful management gurus and the constant demand for training courses. The result of this turbulence is that the majority of us have experienced the consequences, either stimulating or depressing, of those changes and, if we have not been affected directly, we know someone who has.

The shape and structures of organizations are altering rapidly as we move towards the twenty-first century. This may manifest itself in the transformation from public to corporatized or privatized companies, from strict hierarchies to flatter structures, or from centralized to de-centralized businesses.

As this trend continues, organizations increasingly have to look at new ways of working; of how to react continuously to the turbulence around them, internally and externally, and, above all, how to learn from all these experiences.

Directors, senior managers and executives are facing difficult questions and dilemmas about the best way to meet these challenges. This is especially true as employees are beginning to reel from the effects of too much change and are instead looking forward to a period of consolidation where new ways of working and operating are given a chance to succeed.

Organizations suffer when their workforce begins to feel jaded and worn down by continuous upheaval. It becomes difficult to judge the relative success or failure of different initiatives if they have not been subjected to rigorous benchmarking before more changes occur, if they are not given time to work, or if insufficient thought to their introduction means they are not properly implemented.

Newspapers, journals, TV and radio, and the professional associations which deal primarily with the management and direction of organizations are looking carefully at how the art of managing will evolve over the next few years. Management Development to the Millennium (1996), published by the Institute of Management, says that ‘he (The Boss) is just as likely to be a she, because female ways of managing will be more appropriate in the millennium’.

One of the key features of change already in place is the implosion of middle management, which indicates that the emphasis of the managerial role is being altered. Many traditional roles, such as personnel, administration and accounting, have been devolved to line managers who consequently find that their jobs now include extra tasks for which they may be ill-equipped. The combination of an increased sphere of responsibility and often only a superficial knowledge of their new tasks can result in feelings of professional anxiety and insecurity unless they adapt their management style from coercing and telling to co-operating and encouraging. This is where women will come into their own.

Yet, at a time when women are increasingly seen to be treated on an equal footing with their male counterparts, there are rumblings of discontent among the ranks of women managers about the world of work within which they are expected to operate. Many successful women managers are beginning to realize that achieving high corporate status is not as rewarding as they anticipated and they are baulking at the idea of giving up their entire lives to an organization.

In 1997, it was reported in the press on both sides of the Atlantic that the President and Chief Executive of PepsiCo, Brenda Barnes, had decided to stand down from her highly prestigious job in order to spend time watching her sons play football. She is only one of a series of established and successful career women who have decided that they cannot, or do not want to, ‘have it all’ – the concept championed by Nicola Horlick, the City financier who claims that women can combine a high-flying career with a strong marriage and successful motherhood.

The question, as far as many women are concerned, is not ‘can we have it all?’ but ‘do we want to have it all?’

What has caused this transitional stage? Why should women be discontented just as they are beginning to achieve what they have been aiming for over so many years? And, if this trend continues, where will it leave women’s position within the workplace?

But, while it is true that many women managers are fighting a daily battle for recognition and equality of opportunity at work, it is also clear that others are increasingly able to grow and develop. Progress is being made as attitudes, together with company structures, change in women’s favour. We have, at least, moved away from the situation which existed up until the late 1950s and early 1960s when guides for graduates clearly indicated which companies did not employ females. Men are becoming more family conscious. Women have mentioned the increasing number of male bosses who, with families of their own, are more sympathetic to their female colleagues’ attempts to achieve a tenable balance between work, home and leisure. I hope this book gives heart and shows what is possible. Perhaps for those who are unable to change the status quo of where they work now, merely knowing that more enlightened people and organizations do exist will be encouragement enough for those who are unhappy with their current situation to look for jobs elsewhere. This, and the need to re-educate and re-train men, is now seen as urgent if equality of opportunities is to become a reality.

As the attitudes of society and employers towards childcare provision and parenting also develop and improve, more choices will be open to employees to begin to achieve the desired balance of home, leisure and work that is one of the major causes of stress among women today. Susan Hay, a leading provider of workplace nurseries, has seen many changes over the past ten years and suggests that women have become more successful at making their jobs work for them. ‘I suppose the fact is that people who are in work do work very hard. They have become more valuable and companies want to keep them. You get the feeling that there is not nearly as much deadwood as there was, so the people who are in work are in a strong position to make sense of their working lives and, provided they can demonstrate that the employer is gaining rather than losing from an arrangement, they do at least receive a warm hearing. The facts are that women are becoming more tenacious and there is a change in approach by HR people. I think these two trends have come together quite well.’

Part and parcel of an important drive towards building an effective workforce – with the consequent positive effect on the bottom line – is an initiative launched in October 1991 to advance the causes of women at work, Opportunity 2000. This campaign, chaired by Lady Howe, has one clear objective: to increase the quality and quantity of women’s employment opportunities in both private and public sector organizations. There are currently 293 members representing over 25% of the UK workforce. As an example of what the campaign has achieved, listed below are some figures relating to women at work, taken from the 1994/95 review of members’ progress:

1 the percentage of women directors in member organizations has doubled in one year from 8% to 16%

2 women now account for 32% of all managers – up from 25% last year

3 the percentage of women in senior management is up from 12% to 17%, and middle managers from 24% to 28%

4 45% of all graduate entrants are women

Opportunity 2000 also makes positive steps towards recognizing and publicizing the achievement of organizations in increasing the participation of women in the workforce by giving awards to businesses which show demonstrable progress in this field. In 1997, for example, they awarded Yorkshire Bank an award for ‘dismantling the glass ceiling’. When a new chief executive arrived at the bank, he was shocked by the bank’s poor record on promoting women. He and the equal opportunities manager introduced a scheme whereby female employees were encouraged to seek promotion and this has increased the number of women moving into the first level of management by 29% in a year. The chief executive points out that this scheme is rooted in straightforward business sense and that, if 70% of the people in the bank were women, then the bank would not be able to achieve its objectives if it drew its management only from the other 30% of the workforce.

A report, A Question of Balance? A survey of managers’ changing professional and personal values, discusses the gap between managers and their organizations in terms of the cultural values which impact on performance. Modern managers are seen to hold positive attitudes which do not sit comfortably alongside the less enlightened cultures still found in many businesses.

Even though the business environment is changing to enable ‘female ways of managing’ to develop, I suspect that we lost a whole generation of women managers during the 1980s – probably because many of the women who reached the top during that self-centred, brittle decade did not help and support other women and may have, on occasions, actively impeded their progress. This has also resulted in many of the surviving fifty-plus year-olds saying that they have little in common with the younger women and either feel more in tune with their male peers, or feel completely isolated. Now, however, there is a strong feeling that this attitude is disappearing and that successful women are increasingly aware of the need to broadcast their achievements and act as role models, coaches and mentors for the up and coming generation.

We should also bear in mind that, as long as women tend not to measure success solely in terms of status, money and celebrity, there will not be equal numbers of men and women at senior management level. We need to think in terms of equal satisfaction in what women managers are achieving. An example of women’s broader approach is, ‘Although I was in a very senior, prestigious position, I have recently taken a (slightly) downwards step to another post in order to improve the quality of my private life and to maximize the time available for it. That was probably the hardest career decision I have ever taken’. I suspect that women would score higher on this criterion than the men, although it is true that the men are beginning to realize the issues and change their behaviours.

I feel, however, that the real differences will become clear as the current generation of teenagers moves into the world of work. I recently spent some time with the sixth formers at a co-ed public school and was impressed with the attitudes of the boys and girls towards the concept of working together. One of the issues we discussed at length was the occasional pitfalls of men and women working together in business and I was heartened by the positive and sensitive attitudes of both boys and girls to the subject. In fact they almost dismissed it, as it seemed obvious to them that working together on an equal footing was the natural and sensible way of doing things.

I sincerely hope that, as they encounter the current prejudices in organizational cultures, they will have the courage to hold on to the partnership idea and carry it through their lives at work, at home and at play. I trust that the boys won’t be persuaded to adopt the superior, ‘macho’ views of their male colleagues and managers and that the girls will not lose their self-confidence and begin to believe that they are the passive, second-class sex.

If our hopes for the future lie with these young people, then we have to do all we can to pass on what we have learned so that they, too, may learn and take that learning forward to the benefit of everyone.

I have been working with young people and feel strongly about the need to equip them to deal with the changing world of work. I now want to assess the changes that have affected women in management so that they may:

 learn from the past and present and so approach the future confidently, with full knowledge of the challenges they will have to face

 clarify how they may contribute fully to managing their organizations, businesses and communities as they strive to survive and flourish in the next century.

There is a feeling of optimism about the future for women in business. This revolves around an increasing compatibility between the sexes in the workplace, rather than the unrealistic expectation that male and female managers will ever be equal in numbers. The domestic factor of female employees with families is the main reason for this, although ‘family-friendly’ employment policies are gaining some ground. It is also significant that more and more women are either setting up their own small businesses, or becoming self-employed, as an alternative to having to fit into a corporate culture which is, for many, an alien way of working.

Demographic pressures and trends, education, male views of sharing family responsibilities, among other issues, are all building towards a peak that suggests we are on the brink of a fundamental change in the role women will play in the world of management. Women must prepare themselves to make full use of these changes and the consequent opportunities to take their appropriate places as directors and managers. They will introduce female perspectives and behaviours to complement those currently held in traditional, male-dominated organizations and bring a much-needed balance to the corporate world, thus enabling it to be more successful in its competitive environment.

Women are now in a position to excel as they grow in confidence and begin to understand the benefits of diversity in the workplace. As one manager says, ‘All successful women need to share their experiences – tips on success, motivation and confidence, as well as revealing failures – so all women will see it is not an easy ladder to climb’. They will, however, see that it is possible to climb that ladder.

Networking and the need for coaches and mentors have also been mentioned time and time again as an important way of building up a store of experiences which may be used to increase confidence in two ways: first, that to employ behaviours with which you feel comfortable is the best approach and, second, that you have learned and absorbed all the skills and knowledge required to do the job.

What I hope will prove interesting and helpful are the comments and opinions of women who have found themselves in a variety of situations and how they have dealt with them. They are typical of the many thousands of women managers throughout the country who have a strong feeling of their worth and who are beginning to make their presence felt.

Through the examples of case studies and interviews, through long discussions with friends and work colleagues, through articles in various publications and from my own experiences as an employee, manager, teacher, developer, trainer, and consultant to organizations, my aim in this book is threefold:

1 to look at what has happened to women managers in the past so that we may learn from their experiences

2 to set the benchmarks of where women managers are now and where they would like/expect to be as we approach the next century (because only if we do that will we know later if any change has actually taken place)

3 to suggest ways in which women may prepare themselves for the different environments of the next century

It is crucial that women

 become aware of the major challenges facing management

 understand what qualities and skills managers will need to deal with those challenges

 discuss what women, in particular, will bring to the different organizational structures and cultures

 work with men to achieve the balance and strength that diversity brings

Having learned from the past and present, women can approach the future confidently knowing what challenges they will have to face, and how they can contribute fully to managing their organizations, businesses and communities in the next century.