In this Q&A, Catherine Fox discusses her new book, Breaking the Boss Bias, with BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman. Fox highlights the urgent need for gender equity in leadership. She addresses the stagnation of women in power roles and the systemic barriers they face, while emphasising the importance of diverse leadership styles. She offers hope and insight into how we can work together to create a more equitable future.
Why did you see the need to write your book “Breaking the Boss Bias”? What was the urgency, in your view?
I was alarmed to see the fragile progress made towards better gender equity actually plateauing or going backwards particularly in critical decision making roles. There is still only a handful of women running governments worldwide, in powerful CEO jobs, and they are lucky to make up 30% of senior ranks.
Even though there are more women in Australia’s federal parliament and in cabinet, men are over-represented in many influential roles across party lines and in the bureaucracy. The Global Economic Forum tracks leadership progress which has increased about 1% a year until last year when it went backwards. Yet instead of taking this seriously many signs suggest organisations are taking their eye off the ball or lapsing into complacency.
Let’s address the basics first. Why does it matter how many women are in charge? Some might argue it doesn’t actually help women at the other end of the scale – those in low-paid jobs like childcare or cleaning roles. How would you respond to that?
It does matter. Aside from being fundamentally unfair to marginalise half the population of a well-educated country from power jobs, the evidence shows it makes a difference to outcomes for all women.
When women run governments there’s usually more chance of gender legislation getting passed (I interviewed UTS law academic Ramona Vijeyarasa about this which was the focus of her book, (The Woman President: Leadership, Law and Legacy for Women’), the gender pay gap narrows and more women progress.
Not to mention that when there are more women on decision making bodies (not just one but two or more) the nature and scope of the discussion changes and so do the priorities. It’s not because women wave a magic wand or are ‘better’ than men. But they bring different experience and focus to the table, they are role models and their presence encourages more efforts to close the gap. Many also realise they have a vested interest in seeing things change.
You argue there’s a lot of talk about female leadership, but the numbers of women in those roles remains stubbornly low. Arguably the data you set out actually points to a decline. Why is this?
Power systems are very good at recycling themselves and so the cohort in charge has minimised the problem, or pointed to examples of women in top jobs as proof there is plenty of momentum underway. This is often accompanied by gender washing – painting a much rosier picture than the reality particularly with tokenism like celebrations of International Women’s Day.
This over-optimistic and compliance driven messaging has been disturbingly successful – not just in organisations but across society (nearly 60% of Australians think we are near or already have gender equity according to 2023 Gender Compass research). It’s supported by claiming workplaces are meritocracies, pointing to limited examples of change, misleading statistics (‘half our employees are women’) and corporate value statements as credentials.
But this is becoming increasingly risky. Some of Australia’s largest employers had significant gender pay gaps which were published for the first time earlier this year. The data showed that despite the rhetoric, men dominated higher paid senior jobs from banks to retailers and supermarkets. Far from solving the problem, there’s been lots of convenient denial and very little effective action.
Why are women generally given “glass cliff” leadership positions where the likelihood of them succeeding is extremely low?
There’s a lot of glass cliffs about – I think Qantas may be an example with constant pressure on Vanessa Hudson to turn around the damage done to the brand in very difficult circumstances. QU academic Alex Haslam, who was one of the original glass cliff researchers (with Michelle Ryan, now the head of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at ANU) described the dynamic as a line of potential male candidates looking at the mess they would be inheriting and all taking a step back leaving the only woman contender in the hot seat – a last resort choice.
Happens in politics often – former PMs Julia Gillard and Theresa May are examples. Stereotypes about women being good at tidying up a mess and settling things down also tend to play into this dynamic. When women then struggle in these tricky situations they also get less time to prove themselves – women CEOs have a much shorter tenure on average than men.
Author Catherine Fox says she “…was alarmed to see the fragile progress made towards better gender equity actually plateauing or going backwards.” Picture: Shurtterstock
What structural issues still prevent or act as barriers for women aspiring to leadership?
Many workplaces reward employees who can work set hours over continuous years without breaks and accrue experience to then progress. This clearly penalises care givers who are mostly women and this burden hasn’t shifted much, while caring carries a stigma too. Men who take parenting leave are also now finding they are judged as less serious workers and less likely to progress.
Most of the accepted leadership models have a masculine skills held up as models are overtly masculine, inaccessible and expensive childcare is a massive deterrent to women’s workforce participation and hours, while superannuation is still structured around a primary earner with unbroken tenure.
On top of this set of issues, women from further marginalised groups – racially diverse, LGBTQ+, disabled – are facing a double whammy and are far less likely to get the same opportunities as other women or men. We don’t have
Increasingly around the world we’re’ seeing a backlash against gender equity. How does that play into the situation with female bosses? How do we tackle this?
Backlash about the ‘unfairness’ of programs supporting women means there’s more reliance on stereotypes and workplace myths about meritocracies so women are even less likely to get the opportunity to succeed. The small number of women leaders stand out and are over-scrutinised, with their failings often attributed to their gender. The bar is set much higher for women – US research looking at women leaders in four female-dominated sectors which I quoted found that women are seen as ‘never quite right’ for leadership.
The reasons include age, race, parental status and attractiveness – many of which are usually not applied to men. The excuses are used as a red herring to avoid confronting inherent gender bias and the researchers dubbed it ‘we want what you aren’t’ discrimination. Progression assessment and promotion decisions need to be carefully vetted to avoid these traps and ensure decision making is not biased consciously or unconsciously.
Cover image: Breaking the Boss Bias. Picture: Supplied
Women lead in ways that are proven to be different from men. And also proven to be more collaborative, productive and effective. How do we make way for these leadership styles to be accepted in businesses and organisations (and celebrated)?
As a management writer and journalist I saw much lip service paid to a more collaborative style of leadership (which is also peddled by many management consultants). But the reality is a heroic, masculine, command and control style is still common in many workplaces, and reflected in business media profiles and even in case studies used in business schools where 90% feature male leaders (as I examined in the book).
I don’t think women are naturally more and men less collaborative but women are encouraged to be collegiate and likeable and penalised if they are not. I think the only way to broaden the idea of successful leading has to be intentionally elevating evidence showing different leadership examples. For years I heard that a new generation of younger leaders would change the dynamics of what leadership looks like, particularly in sectors such as IT, but in fact it has barely shifted.
That’s why we need more women in decision making to show a different approach and keep up pressure to shift the parameters – such as former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who spoke about kindness as a strength.
Is there anything else you want to say?
So much. But there’s plenty more in the book about what we can all do to break the bias and see fairer outcomes right now.
Picture at top: Catherine Fox. Supplied.
Ginger Gorman is a fearless and multi award-winning social justice journalist and feminist. Ginger’s bestselling book, Troll Hunting,came out in 2019. Since then, she’s been in demand both nationally and globally as an expert on cyberhate and the real-life harm predator trolling can do. She's also the editor of BroadAgenda and gender editor at HerCanberra. Ginger hosts the popular "Seriously Social" podcast for the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Follow her on Twitter.
