Should She Lead? Why Colleagues of Women, and Women Themselves, Often Think the Answer is No with Alison Wood Brooks

Should women lead? We here at WAPPP strongly believe yes, but many people, including women themselves, often think the answer is no. This year’s first WAPPP seminar featured Alison Wood Brooks, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Brooks presented results from two published papers regarding perceptions of women in leadership roles and women’s experiences of those roles, as well as two earlier-stage projects.

We know women are underrepresented in leadership positions: less than 15% of executive officers are women, less than 11% of US firms with venture capital backing have been founded or led by women, and less than 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. To understand why, Professor Brooks examines both demand-side factors (how people perceive and react to women in the workplace) and supply-side factors (how women themselves think and behave in the workplace, including individual differences in personality and preferences).

The Demand Side: How Gender and Attractiveness Affect Entrepreneurial Pitch Success

On the demand side, Professor Brooks presented a study demonstrating that investors prefer entrepreneurial ventures pitched by attractive men. An analysis of the pitches given at the three largest entrepreneurial pitch competitions across the US over three years revealed that male entrepreneurs were 60% more likely than female entrepreneurs to win the competition and earn investor funding. In their study, Professor Brooks and her colleagues asked 521 people to watch two entrepreneurial pitch videos and choose one to invest in, switching whether the video was narrated by a male or a female voice. Sixty-eight percent of participants chose a venture pitched by a male voice, at a very high level of statistical significance, controlling for the pitch itself, the order the pitches were presented, participant gender, and participant age.

However, field data reveals that this effect is not just about gender: attractive male entrepreneurs were statistically significantly more likely to win pitch competitions than less-attractive male entrepreneurs. Interestingly, in the field data, there was no statistically significant impact of attractiveness on female entrepreneurial success. In the next stage of the study, to understand whether attractive people might just be better at pitching, the researchers asked 194 people to watch one pitch video and rate it. The researchers varied whether participants heard a male or female voice, and whether the photo of the narrator they were shown was more or less attractive. Participants were asked how likely they were to invest in the venture and to what extent the pitch was persuasive, fact-based, and logical. Again, attractive male entrepreneurs were significantly more likely to secure investment than less-attractive men, while there was no statistically significant difference for women. However, male-narrated pitches were rated as more persuasive, fact-based, and logical. These findings indicate that male entrepreneurs – especially attractive ones—are more likely to receive investor funding than are female entrepreneurs based on their gender and physical attractiveness rather than the content of their ideas.

Extending the Analysis: Data from Kickstarter

Professor Brooks embarked on a new project to replicate and extend this study using big data from Kickstarter.com, a large crowdfunding platform. Professor Brooks and her colleagues took a sample of 1,249 projects from Kickstarter that included a picture of a single entrepreneur whose gender could easily be identified. Ten independent judges rated the age and attractiveness of the entrepreneurs in every photo. The researchers used the number of investors as a measure of pitch success and included other available information (including number of days left in the campaign) as control variables. Analysis of the Kickstarter data replicates Professor Brooks’ earlier findings. Male entrepreneurs had about twice as many investors compared to female investors, and for male investors (but not female investors) attractiveness garnered more investors.

Professor Brooks also included two follow-up experiments. The first was designed to test the relationship between entrepreneur gender, entrepreneur attractiveness, and investor gender. The results reveal that male investors are more likely to fund good-looking male and female entrepreneurs, but that female investors are more likely to fund attractive male entrepreneurs and less likely to fund attractive female entrepreneurs. The second experiment was to test to what extend these results are about threat. Are women threatened by attractive women? Are men threatened by successful men? The data bears out this initial hypothesis: women are less likely than men to invest in ventures run by attractive women, but are more likely than men to invest in ventures run by successful men.

The Supply Side: How Do Women Themselves View Professional Advancement?

On the supply side, Professor Brooks presented a study indicating that compared to men, women view professional advancement as equally attainable, but less desirable. When asked to list their core goals in life, female participants listed more goals than men overall, but a smaller proportion of women’s goals were related to achieving power at work. These findings hold when people make their own lists of goals, when they select goals from a pre-determined list, and when they reject goals from a pre-determined list. When asked to what extent they expect certain positive or negative outcomes resulting from a promotion to a higher-power position at work, men and women report equivalent levels of positive reactions to the promotion, but women report stronger negative reactions to the promotion. Men and women rate the promotion as equally attainable, but women rate the promotion as less desirable and, compared to men, are less likely to accept the position. These results are consistent across high-level executives, mid-level managers, recent MBA alumni, and undergraduate students.

Importantly, these findings are descriptive, not prescriptive. It may be that men and women are correctly predicting the unique experiences they will each face in high-power positions; alternatively, women may be overestimating the negative consequences associated with power, men may be underestimating the negative consequences associated with power, or both.

New Areas for Research: Gender, Power, Laughter, and Happiness

In a new project, Professor Brooks is working to investigate the relationships between gender, power, laughter, and happiness. Two sources of data provide converging evidence that men and women might use laughter differently: the U.S. Gallup Poll 2013 and speed-dating conversations. In the Gallup poll, women report laughing and smiling more than men in their daily lives, but also report experiencing more negative emotions (worry, sadness, anger, stress). In the speed dating context, women are more likely to laugh during their dates, regardless of how funny they find their partner. However, female laughter is a worse indicator of interest in a second date compared to male laughter. Said differently, women laugh more often, irrespective of humor, but not in a way that is necessarily connected to interest. As there has been little research done on the supply-side dimension of women’s unique experiences, particularly in leadership roles, this is an area ripe for exploration.

For more on Professor Brooks’ research, check out our Gender Action Portal:

http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/investors-prefer-entrepreneurial-ventures-pitched-attractive-men

http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/compared-men-women-view-professional-advancement-equally-attainable-less-desirable

Why Are Women Underrepresented as Leaders? Two Ideas from Recent Psychological Research with Francesca Gino

Gender inequality in top leadership positions persists across a range of fields. At a high level, research projects in economics, psychology, and management that have tried to explain persistent gender inequality have fallen into two buckets. The first emphasizes “demand-side factors,” such as how gender stereotypes about men and women comport or conflict with our perceptions of leaders. The second emphasizes “supply-side factors,” examining differences in men and women’s behavior when it comes to reaching high-power positions. According to this line of research, men may demonstrate more behaviors associated with professional advancement, including dominance, confidence, and competitiveness, than women. This week’s WAPPP seminar features Francesca Gino, Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Gino and her colleagues study an additional strand of explanation closer to supply-side factors, namely gender differences in preferences. It may be that men and women have different preferences when it comes to achieving high-level positions.

The types of goals that we set out for ourselves have a big impact on our lives and our work. Professor Gino and her colleagues hypothesize that there may be a difference in the way men and women think about life goals more generally. While it’s very likely that our environment and sociocultural factors influence the types of goals that men and women have, these studies bracket those considerations and engage only with life goals as expressed by men and women. Professor Gino hypothesizes that women will have a larger number of life goals than men, likely across a wider range of roles in their lives. The second hypothesis is that in examining these goals, a smaller percentage of women’s goals will be associated with power as compared to men. These hypotheses are built on and consistent with literature that indicates that women are more motivated by relationships and men are more oriented toward achievement and power. Professor Gino noted at the outset that other audiences have responded angrily to portions of this talk, but urged us to look at the data and to remember that these findings are descriptive rather than normative.

If these hypotheses are correct, what are the implications for women and men’s desire to reach high-level positions? If women do have more life goals, and a smaller percentage are related to power, this may have implications for how women view professional advancement. Professor Gino and her colleagues expected that both men and women would be able to see the positive aspects associated with high-power positions, but that women would be more aware of and focused on the negative aspects associated with high-power positions than men. If women have more life goals that they care about, the logic goes, they will be more likely to see conflicts between their various goals and roles, and will likely see the need to make tradeoffs. Men and women, therefore, would see high-power positions as equally attainable, but women would see them as less desirable.

The first study of these hypotheses sampled 781 working adults and asked them to list their core life goals, up to 25 goals, within two minutes. Once each participant had listed their goals, they were asked to sort them into different categories based on existing research, such as power, affiliation, and personal growth. Research assistants looked over these categorizations to ensure that each goal was coded accurately. While the difference is not major, there is a gender difference in terms of listing goals, with men listing fewer compared to women. Similarly, this study produced the expected difference in terms of goals related to power, with a greater percentage of men’s goals related to power than women’s.

To control for concerns that women may have an advantage in thinking of and articulating their life goals under time pressure, the researchers conducted a second study that capped the number of life goals at 20 and asked participants to write down all of their favorite foods, up to 20, as a comparison task. The second study replicated the results of the first, with women listing a greater number of goals than men, but a smaller percentage of those goals were associated with power. These results obtain whether respondents list their own goals, pick their goals from a pre-written list, or are given a list and asked to reject goals that aren’t important to them. These findings therefore appear to be pretty robust.

Professor Gino then turned to the second question, whether men and women have different views of the positive and negative consequences of career advancement. In particular, this research asks whether women focus on conflict with other life goals in a way that makes them less interested in achieving high-level positions. Professor Gino and her colleagues sampled 635 Harvard Business School graduates and showed them a picture of a ladder representing professional advancement in their industry. Respondents were asked to indicate their current position on the ladder, what their ideal position would be, and their highest attainable position using the rungs on the ladder. The researchers found no difference in current position between men and women, but found the expected difference in ideal position. For men, their ideal position was higher on the ladder than women’s ideal position. However, when it comes to the highest attainable position, again there is no gender difference. Professor Gino describes this result as women saying “we can get there, it’s just not ideal for us.”

Why might we see this difference? Professor Gino and her colleagues anticipate that women see more negative aspects of professional advancement compared to men, despite seeing all the same positive aspects. In a companion study, respondents were asked to imagine that they had the opportunity for a promotion at work and to indicate on a scale from 1-7 their expectations of experiencing certain negative consequences, such as anxiety, stress, time pressure, and conflict, as well as certain positive consequences, such as happiness, job satisfaction, opportunity, money, and influence. The results tend in the expected direction – there is no statistically significant difference between men and women in terms of expected positive outcomes, but women report a greater likelihood of experiencing negative outcomes, especially conflict with other life goals. In this study, the researchers also asked whether respondents thought position was attainable and to what extent it was desirable. Again, women saw promotion to a higher-level position as attainable, but not necessarily desirable, and reported that they were less likely to accept the promotion.

These same results replicated across HBS alumni, executive education participants, undergraduate students, and working adults. While the data is descriptive and not prescriptive, there are all sorts of additional aspects to study. In terms of positive and negative expectations, women may be correct about the potential conflict and tradeoffs while men underestimate potential downsides of advancement. Alternatively, women may overestimate these costs. (It may also be that women accurately estimate the downsides of career advancement, knowing that they will have to shoulder much of the burden of conflict with other life goals!) Further, the study of undergraduate students implicates societal expectations in terms of life goals and institutional timelines for career advancement that may conflict with other roles and goals. One related study notes that there are significant gender differences in thinking about the future and that women have a much longer time horizon—whereas “long-term” is a period of years, for men “long-term” is measured in months. We look forward to more research to explore these complications further.