By Ashley D. Bugeja, SIOP Blogger
In recent months, IBM released news that spurred a great deal of interest across the globe. The Fortune 500 Company announced that Virginia M. Rometty, currently a senior vice president at IBM, has been elected IBM President and CEO. According to ABC News, Rometty will be the first female CEO in the company’s prosperous 100-year history. Meanwhile, Rometty will join a small group of female CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies.
ABC News reports that when Rometty takes office in the start of the New Year the number of female CEOs of fortune 500 companies will reach a record at 18. This buzzing news poses a controversial question for Industrial/Organizational Psychologists - Has the glass ceiling been shattered?... Or just cracked?
The term “glass ceiling” was originally coined by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt in the Wall Street Journal in 1986. The term was meant to capture an invisible barrier, which prevents women from advancing into the highest top-level positions in corporations.
Since the original term was coined, psychologists Dr. Alice Eagly and Dr. Linda Carli have updated the terminology calling it more of a glass “labyrinth”. In their 2007 article in the Harvard Business Review, they wrote: “In truth, women aren’t turned away only as they reach the penultimate stage of distinguished career. They disappear in various numbers at many points leading up to that stage.”
These terms, the “glass ceiling” and the “labyrinth” have consistently been used to describe the unique challenges women face in taking leadership roles in organizations. However, female CEOs epitomize triumph over these obstacles. The record breaking numbers of women in these positions poses an intriguing question: Does this mean that the glass ceiling been shattered?... Or just cracked?
See ABC News for a list of the 18 Female CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies
Personally, I do not understand why anyone- man or women- would want to be a CEO of an enormous company anyway. For me, the sacrifices and stress level could never be worth the prestige and salary. Then again… perhaps I think this way because I’m a woman?!?
To answer your question, I say “neither” and, along the lines of Mindy’s comment, that we should take a lesson from positive psychology and strengths-based thinking and spend more time talking about what has and will continue to advance equality and less time dwelling on what might or used to hold us back!
Chin-Ning Chu in her book The Art of War for Women (http://chinningchu.com/theartofwarforwomen/pages/preface.php) wrote “it is not the glass ceiling itself that is mighty in and of itself- it is our belief that it will hold us back that gives it power” (p. 70). In a self-fulfilling prophesy, those who think it will hold them back create their own psychological barriers to success. I think she summarizes it well by noting that “Successful women worldwide have one thing in common: They don’t see the glass ceiling” (p. 75).
So, when can we expect there to be 250 female CEOs among the Fortune 500?
Posted by: Nuts4ideas | January 22, 2012 at 03:43 PM
Great point Mindy! Thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Ashley Bugeja | January 11, 2012 at 10:47 AM
If we have to ask the question about whether the glass ceiling is shattered, or even cracked, the answer is "no" for both. When the fact that a new CEO of a Fortune 500 is a woman is NOT the important part of the story, then we'll have achieved something.
Posted by: Mindy Bergman | January 10, 2012 at 09:48 PM