“In the business world, women who are aggressive, assertive, and confident but who can turn these traits on and off, depending on the social circumstances, get more promotions than either men or other women, according to a recent study coming out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.” Such begins a brief article in the spring 2011 issue of Stanford Business Magazine Online describing research done recently by professors Olivia O’Neill at George Mason University and Charles O’Reilly at Stanford.
This is an important and exciting finding for women who have felt caught in the like-ability competence trap mentioned in an earlier blog of mine. The article notes that “The study resolves the conundrum that has plagued women in the business arena: To be successful, you must be assertive and confident, but if you are aggressive as a woman you are sometimes punished for behaving in ways that are contrary to the feminine stereotype. Such negative response to assertive women has been labeled the “backlash effect.”
“The effect of managing “masculine” traits is significant, say the researchers, since it can have a noticeable effect on success early in women’s careers. Even small differences in success rates at the beginning of one’s career have large long–term effects. They postulate that as more and more women understand and adopt the behavior pattern they describe, the lower percentages of women currently in the upper managerial ranks could reverse out over time.”
Hallelujah for a dab of good news on the topic. Of course, to benefit from these findings, women need to learn to be chameleons, no mean feat of course, but it does provide some direction on how a woman can be assertive and confident, which includes practicing skilled negotiating methods of course, and avoid the backlash researchers have pointed out in previous studies.
Read the whole article here:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/womencareerresearchbyoreilly.html?cmpid=alumni