Question

Hoyt and Simon build a convincing argument for their case of “Glass Ceiling Turned Labyrinth” in this chapter. Was anyone put off by them starting off with the statement: “Although the predicament (emphasis added) of female leaders has improved significantly in recent decades, there is still a long way to go.”? The use of the pejorative word “predicament” left me wondering where they were headed with the conversation. Nevertheless, they present a persuasive argument over the following pages to demonstrate how feminine leadership is underrepresented in leadership positions. Perhaps they articulated it most clearly in their citation of: “Global phenomenon whereby women are disproportionately concentrated in lower-level and lower-authority leadership positions than men.” (Powell & Graves, 2003).

Despite the author’s admonitions against it, I found that their observation that: “…women [are] less likely to negotiate than men are…” with respect to promotions and raises to be interesting. It would seem to me a most important lesson to be learned by female students. Sallie Krawcheck (you can look her up for yourself—fired from Citibank and now running “85 Broads”) has stated repeatedly that, when it comes to negotiating salary, “men ask and women don’t.”

Question #2:

What is to be learned from this?

Answer 1

Answer: The major lesson that needs to be learned from this reading is that the females need to learn to negotiate if they really want to rise in the business World and get equal position as men. This reading clearly mentions that women are mostly concentrated at the lower levels in the organizations because when it comes to promotion, they prove to be bad negotiators. Hence if the women want to uplift themselves then they need to develop negotiation skills and should not settle for less. Without learning negotiation skills and negotiating, the women will not be able to reach the top positions in the corporate World at par with men.