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Sarah Jane, KSL Newsradio It is 2007, but women business leaders are still pretty scarce.
Women graduate with business degrees and MBA's at slightly higher rates than men these days, but there's still a huge gap when it comes to leadership positions. So are women just not as naturally ambitious as their male counterparts? That's hogwash to Zion's Bank's Vice President of Private Banking Susan Spear.
Susan Spear, Vice President of Private Banking, Zion's Bank: "I've always been competitive and into sports."
Spear is in 8th place nationally for the 25 most powerful women in banking. However, she's an anomaly in the business world. According to Catalyst Research, only about ten percent of women hold titles of significance, and only 6.4 percent of them are top earners in Fortune 500 companies.
Kara Helander, Vice President of Catalyst, says that's because business still runs on a boy's club mentality.
Kara Helander, Vice President of Catalyst: "It's like the old golf club that is the classic example. Women find it difficult to gain access to those kinds of networks."
You'd think in this day and age that women would be an acceptable part of those social networks, or that they are slowly gaining that acceptance in these leadership roles, but Helander says actually it's the reverse.
Kara Helander, Vice President of Catalyst: "What is shocking is that the rate of improvement has actually slowed to less than a quarter of a percent lower each year."
What? Did the women's movement mean nothing? Helander says certain perceptions by both men and women are holding us back.
Kara Helander, Vice President of Catalyst: "The kind of characteristics that are associated with leadership are not associated with women so women showing assertive behaviors are judged negatively where the same behaviors in men are rewarded."
And Spear says women, especially those with children, are sometimes perceived as not dedicated enough to their work.
Susan Spear, Vice President of Private Banking, Zion's Bank: "A lot of women take time out to have children or they're not perceived as committed if they do have children."
But according to Catalyst Research, women with children are actually more eager to perform.
Kara Helander, Vice President of Catalyst: "Women with children are even slightly more ambitious than their counterparts without children."
Helander says companies can overcome these stereotypes by educating their members. She says they can also take steps to ensure evaluations are based on performance and not on stereotypical perceptions. But she says, based on the current rate of change, it will take at least 40 years for women to reach parity with men in corporate officer roles, and 70 years for women to reach parody with men in the boardroom.
