We asked Adelphi alumnae and academics who study workplace and family issues to share their best strategies for women to get ahead.
Article by Samantha Stainburn
Illustrations by Einat Peled
A few years ago, received a call from a former manager, suggesting that she apply for a position that had just opened up at The World Bank in Washington, D.C., the international financial institution that provides loans to projects that are intended to improve the lives of the poor in developing countries.
The job, operations officer for the bankâs Sustainable Development unit, sounded perfect for Ms. Sobczynska, who was working at a nonprofit international development organization after earning a degree in international studies from Adelphiâs Honors College and a masterâs degree in human rights and international development from Georgetown University.
Ms. Sobczynska has a passion for development work, having grown up in Poland during the years the country was transitioning from communism to democracy. There, she saw how economic and political change can improve lives.
âThe job I was in was interesting, but I was doing mostly research, and I didnât find I was using all the skills Iâd acquired,â she says. âI wanted to be pushed.â
But Ms. Sobczynska was also thinking about starting a family, and she wondered if it was too much to take on. Ultimately, she decided to ignore her fears and go for the job. âI thought, âIâm just going to do it and see how it works out,ââ she recalls.
It turned out to be the right choice. She loves her work, briefing senior managers for meetings and advising internal staff teams on how to incorporate sustainable practices into their projects. And when she had a baby about a year ago, the bank allowed her to take a five-month maternity leave, which made it possible for her to bond with her child before returning to work.
It hasnât been easy, but Ms. Sobczynskaâs happy to be working and parenting at the same time. âIâm following my passion,â she says. âAnd having a family is an amazing experience. You really grow as a person when you become a parent.â
Ms. Sobczynskaâs leap of faith that she could figure out how to do both sets her apart from the many working women who start scaling back on time-intensive projects and passing on challenging job opportunities once they anticipate having children.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg calls this phenomenon âleaving before you leave.â In Lean In, her new book about what it takes for women to achieve their full potential, Ms. Sandberg argues that itâs one of several factors that prevent women from reaching top positions in companies and institutions.
The lack of women in the highest-level jobs is striking. More college degrees are awarded to women than men: In 2012, female graduates earned about 57 percent of all bachelorâs degrees and 60 percent of all masterâs degrees. Women, however, hold only about 14 percent of executive officer positions in companies and lead just 21 of the Fortune 500 firms. Women occupy only 18 percent of seats in the U.S. Congress. Women lag behind in compensation too, making just 77 cents for every dollar men make.
During the feminist movement of the 1960s, â70s and â80s, when the institutional barriers holding women back from equal participation in the workforce were being dismantled, it seemed as if it was only a matter of time before women would be running half our companies.
As a director of human resources at DuPont in the 1980s, was on the frontlines of that fight, introducing policies and programs that made it easier for women to climb the ladder at the chemical company, including on-site child care, family leave and flexible work practices. Later, she oversaw 100 child care centers in federal buildings across 31 states as director of the Clinton administrationâs Office of Workplace Initiatives and advocated for universal prekindergarten as president of the Child Care Action Campaign.
But today, Ms. Wohl says, progress on building up services to support working mothers has stalled.
âWe havenât built the infrastructure to support women,â she says. âWe have lightly regulated child care options that are not integrated into a national education or health system, which they have in other countries.â Interest in expanding and improving child care faded during the recent recession, she notes. âIn the short term, child care is not a priority of the government, and there is not a lot of money to invest in it.â
Ms. Wohl is a believer in social and corporate support for working parents because, she says, âLife is unplanned. You need support when something happens,â whether itâs a sick child or a work emergency that requires you and your team to stay late in the office. Today, in the absence of social structures, she says, âEveryone has to work it out for themselves.â
Given this landscape, what can be done to help more women rise to the top of their professions?
We asked Adelphi alumnae and academics who study workplace and family issues to share their best strategies for getting ahead.
Ignore the Naysayers
Itâs not a lack of ambition that causes women to scale back or ultimately drop out of the workforce, says Beverly Greene, M.A. â77, Ph.D. â83, a psychology professor at St. Johnâs University and a clinical psychologist.
âWomen live in a sexist society, and there are realistic negative consequences to pursuing leadership positions in certain environments that women have to be prepared to tolerate,â she says. âIf some people would choose not to tolerate that, itâs unfair to suggest they lack ambition. Itâs actually healthy for people who are in no-win situations to get out if they can.â
Women are presumed to be incompetent, Dr. Greene says. âSo thereâs a way that one has to go in and prove oneself, even more than your male counterparts, which basically means you have to do more work.â
Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies Professor Janice Steil notes that problems arise for women when they deviate from expected female behavior. Unfortunately, the stereotypical traits women are expected to display, like being warm and nurturing, are not the behaviors most prized in the workplace.
Dr. Steil did a study that examined what happened when men and women used direct and indirect strategies to accomplish tasks at work. In the workplace, direct strategies, like giving orders and confrontation, are considered more effective at getting business done than indirect strategies like smiling, suggesting or avoiding confrontation. Direct strategies are stereotypically associated with men and indirect strategies with women.
âWhat we found was men were the most rewarded for using direct strategies in the workplace,â Dr. Steil says. âWomen didnât have negative outcomes for using direct strategies, but they didnât have positive ones. They did have negative outcomes for indirect strategies. If youâre just smiling and suggesting, how are you going to demonstrate leadership? How are you going to get promoted? You can be indirect sometimes, but youâre not going to be perceived as a leader if you rely on that.â
Women of color and low-income women have to battle additional stereotypes, making it even more difficult to get ahead, Dr. Greene says. âIf you are a member of a marginalized group, you are working harder because part of the work is neutralizing the reactions you elicit in people based on their belief of who you are.â The struggle is reflected in the statistics: Women of color hold just 4 percent of executive officer jobs and 5 percent of congressional seats.
Simply being aware that our culture typically punishes women for being successful in the workplace can help women dismiss self-doubt and keep on pushing toward ambitious professional goals, both Dr. Steil and Dr. Greene say.
âPeople who belong to a marginalized group have to understand that members of the dominant group may make problems for you, but you are not the problem,â says Dr. Greene. âDonât let someone elseâs limited view define what youâre going to be in your life.
âHaving grown up as an African American in the middle of the last century, I learned to expect that if I made choices that crossed certain lines, there were going to be people who didnât like it,â Dr. Greene adds. âI want to be liked as much as anybody, but I decided I wasnât going to organize my life around only doing what other people thought was okay.â
ÌęWork with Mentors
took a finance and accounting job in the New York office of international law firm Latham & Watkins LLP a few years after earning her B.B.A. at the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business. She became chief operating officer of the entire firm before she hit 40, with three kids under age 8.
Today, she leads a team responsible for strategic leadership, financial management, technology integration, marketing and general administration at Latham, one of the worldâs biggest law firms, with 2,100 lawyers and offices in 14 countries. Itâs an exciting job, she says. âAs COO, basically youâre running a business. Youâre leveraging many people and trying to improve client service, internally and externally.â
So whatâs the secret to her success? Ms. Black says she was helped by bosses who were supportive of her ambition and willing to give a younger woman opportunities to prove herself. âIn the legal industry, there are many firms where individuals donât have a seat at the table, and I worked for somebody who was extremely inclusive,â she observes.
To be successful in business, âYou need mentors, people to look up to, people who are going to advocate for you,â she says. âBut itâs a two-way street. You have to be high quality and put in the time and really deliver. You canât be afraid to work hard, and you canât make excuses.â
With three children, Ms. Black took steps to arrange her life so that she wouldnât need to make excuses. She and her husband chose to live in Manhattan so it was easier to take the children to dentist appointments or watch them play sports than if they lived farther away from work. They found an extremely responsible sitter who was never late and then made sure she was happy enough to stay and look after their kids for 15 years. And if Ms. Black had to step away to attend to her children before the dayâs work was done, she logged back into her computer after hours to finish it.
âItâs a lot of coming home at night and making sure homework is done, then youâre back on and youâre working,â Ms. Black says.
Find a Supportive Partner
A 2011 study by Richard Zweigenhaft of Guilford College and G. William Domhoff of the University of California, Santa Cruz, found that, of 28 women who had recently or currently held the job of CEO at a Fortune 500 company, 26 were married. (The 27th was divorced and the 28th never married.) Many of the female CEOs said they would not have succeeded if their husbands had not helped take care of the children, shared the household chores and showed a willingness to move.
Clearly, the person a woman picks as a partner can help her climb the career ladderâor derail her advancement.
Faith Wohlâs husband, who was 17 years older, volunteered to stay home with their two sons at a critical moment in her career, which allowed her to take necessary business trips. âHe was my pillar,â she says. The person whom âyou marry is critical,â she adds.
Ms. Black agrees. âIf you donât have support at home, itâs a problem, because itâs just one more battle youâre dealing with,â she says.
Ms. Black says her husbandâs belief that she could climb the corporate ladder helped keep her in the game when she had doubts that juggling a high-powered career and young children was working out. âI can remember saying, âAfter we pay the babysitter, and we take out taxes, Iâm earning like $2, so is it worth it?ââ she recalls. âHe kept saying to me, âOf course itâs worth it, because you canât think about today, you have to think about where your career is going.â â
, is general counsel, chief operating officer and corporate secretary for the New York Bankers Association, which represents more than 300,000 employees working at banks with more than $4 trillion in combined assets. After earning a teaching degree at the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education and an M.B.A. at the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business, she added a J.D. from Hofstra Law School while her son was a toddler.
When asked whatâs helped propel her career, she says, âI worked hard, and when I felt that I had an idea, I spoke up. I didnât sit in the back and let the men monopolize the conversation.â She also married the right person, she adds. âHeâs always considered my career as important as his, and he doesnât begrudge my time away from the house,â she says.
Two years after Ms. Kotkin became a mother of twin girls, she was named general counsel for Citicorp Card Establishment Services. Her husband, Lawrence Kotkin, Ph.D., is a psychologist whose office was attached to their house. His willingness to share housework and check in with the kidsâwho were also looked after by a sitter on weekdaysâallowed her to put in long hours in the office âwithout angst,â she says.
Dr. Kotkin says he was happy to take on a more equal share of the domestic work than many men of his generation because his wifeâs success sent the right message to their three children. âWhat she represents is that you can do anything you want,â he says. âThat persistence wins, that you are only limited by your imagination and drive.â He also believes she deserves to go as far as she wants to go in her career. âSheâs really smart,â he says.
Itâs important for career-oriented parents to work out a way to give their young children enough time, because developing relationships with one or two primary caregivers before ages 3 to 5 is critical for a childâs healthy development, says Marcy Sayfer, director of Adelphiâs Institute for Parenting.
âHistorically, it was easy,â she says. âThe men went out and women stayed home. Now we know it doesnât have to be that way, but everybody canât go out and work from seven a.m. to ten p.m.â
On the positive side, increased sharing of home and child care tasks not only supports womenâs employment, but it improves marriages, according to the Derner Instituteâs Dr. Steil. âThe research is consistentâthe more equal say you have in decision making, the more equally domestic tasks are shared, the better the relationship,â she says. Dr. Steilâs own research has shown that the more equal the relationship, the more intimate the relationship. âWomen tend to do more of the work that creates intimacyâfor example, they listen and ask questions to elicit conversation,â she explains. âWhen men are primary caretakers and the women arenât there, they become just as competent at child care, and they become better listeners to their wives as well.â
ÌęNegotiate with Employers
Without national policies ensuring workplace benefits like paid time off or flexible work arrangements, the ability of employees to balance their work and home lives is very much dependent on their employers. That means picking the right employer is a critical step in getting ahead, observes MaryAnne Hyland, Ph.D., an associate professor of management, marketing and decision sciences at the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business.
âResearch shows a link between supervisor support and reduced work-life conflict,â Dr. Hyland, who studies work-life balance, says. Therefore, ambitious women would be wise to seek work on teams led by managers who arenât put off by flexible work arrangements, she says. They might be âpeople whoâve dealt with work-life matters and so understand what employees might need or managers who are outcomeâfocused rather than face timeâfocused,â she says.
Some companies are willing to negotiate flexible work schedules for employees if the employees can make a good business case for the arrangement and show how they will accomplish the work. âIf a company wants to have the right talent in place, and it has an employee who wants to work flexibly, itâs in their best interest to implement the flexibility, at least on a trial basis,â she says.
But not all jobs are flexible, Dr. Hyland cautions. âYahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is discouraging telecommuting because it doesnât promote collaboration,â she notes.
Roberta Kotkin ran into that wall one summer when she was drawn into some mergers and acquisitions work at her company. âMy twins were five or six, and I wasnât home almost the whole summer,â she recalls. âIt was the worst summer of my life, and I said, âThis is not going to be my career path.ââ
Struggling with the culture of a particular company or specialization doesnât mean you have to scale back your ambitions, Ms. Kotkin notes. âThere are lots of jobs out there, and you can find a successful position that fits your needs. If you canât be an executive vice president in one firm, it doesnât mean you have to settle for being a manager. Maybe you can be an EVP in another firm. If you look around, you can find jobs that suit you.â
Dream Big
has had an important and busy career. The first in her family to go to college, she worked as a prosecuting attorney for the Manhattan district attorneyâs office after graduating from Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey, and then moved to the Bronx D.A.âs office, where she developed its community affairs initiative. Today sheâs a principal court attorney for New York State, working for its Appellate Division First Department Departmental Disciplinary Committee, which investigates and prosecutes charges of unethical conduct committed by attorneys in the Bronx and Manhattan.
But she doesnât want her 28-year-old daughter, a 2012 law school graduate, to do what she didâshe wants her to dream bigger.
âThe ambition for me was to get to college, get through college, get to law school, pass the bar and get a legal job. I accomplished it,â she says.
But she believes she could have gone farther if she had simply had a bigger vision. âAs opposed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who decided she wanted to be a federal court judge while she was at Princeton, getting a job was my end-all,â she says.
The ambition gap between men and women is a real problem, Ms. Melendez says. âWomen donât tend to think of themselves as leaders; we think of ourselves as foot soldiers,â she says. âWeâre happy showing we can follow orders well.â In order for more women to move into leadership positions, she says, âWe have to change our mind-set.â
And once you decide to go after that directorâs spot, you have to make a plan and work the steps, Ms. Melendez says. Choose where you work based on promotion possibilities and continually assess if you are on track.
When women do this, the skyâs the limit on what they can accomplish, she says.
For further information, please contact:
Todd Wilson
Strategic Communications DirectorÌę
p â 516.237.8634
e â twilson@adelphi.edu