Cranfield School of Management
Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career
Management
Susan Vinnicombe and John Bank
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2003
ISBN: 0415287421, 306 pages
Theme of the Book
Behind this book is the question: why are there so few women in top
management? Career narratives of successful women business leaders
reveal the question may be straightforward but remains difficult to answer:
some top women managers never experience gender-laden problems, some
are intensely conscious of playing in a male-designed ball park, still others
experience being a women manager as an advantage.
Veuve Clicquot for 30 years has recognised outstanding women business
leaders through their annual ‘Woman of the Year’ Award. This book combines
‘life studies’ of 19 of these award winners (16 from the United Kingdom) with
cutting-edge research on women in management.
The distinction is made between career success for a woman leader in a
corporate setting and for one acting as an entrepreneur. The achievements of
the 16 UK award winners (six in corporate careers, ten entrepreneurs) are
examined also from the strategic functions of leadership and boardroom
participation.
Ten core factors are identified for corporate-woman career success, and five
gender-specific roles are proposed for successful women entrepreneur
leaders.
Cranfield School of Management
Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
The book concludes with a Career Strategy Checklist based on successful
corporate careers. Ten factors emerge from the authors’ analysis of the
private and public sector award winners and their previous research.
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
Key Learning Points
•
These narratives offer persuasive evidence of the business case for
greater gender diversity at the top of organisations.
•
Businessmen as well as businesswomen will be engaged by the
distinctive attitudes behind these personal success stories of women
leaders.
‘Their insights may illuminate the way for other women, clarify some of the issues
that are theorized about and make a contribution to the wider discussion abut the
role women should play in Britain’s economic life.’
•
The ten key success factors for women’s corporate careers include
personal attributes (confidence, risk-taking), positioning (visibility,
career acceleration) and business opportunities (portfolio careers, role
models). These are contrasted with popular elements of male career
success.
‘None of these [six] corporate women went to private school and only four went to university
. . . [five of the six] expressed no idea of a career, or no career preference . . . None of the
six women followed this [MBA] route.’
•
Five kinds of leaders are found among the ten entrepreneurial
winners – from the reluctant to the ‘primed-by-corporate business’, to
those connected with family. Again, the analysis, when compared to
men, reveals gender-specific characteristics for women, for example,
their greater attention to life-balance.
‘The spectacular rise in the number of women entrepreneurs over the last three
decades conveniently parallels the time-frame of this book, the three decades in
which the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award has been in
existence in Britain.’
•
The diagnostic Career Strategy Checklist at the end of the book
provides 60 probing questions for accelerating one’s career. This
‘take-away’ inventory can help any business reader to self-evaluate
attitudes and behaviours central to career success.
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
An example of the six diagnostic questions in the checklist, under the first of the ten
key factors in corporate career success i.e. confidence is given below:
•
How proud are you of your accomplishments?
•
Do you find it easy to accept compliments at work?
•
Do you worry that you will not be able to meet others’ expectations in
completing projects or assignments?
•
Do you hesitate to apply for interesting jobs because you feel you do not meet
all the criteria?
•
Do you maintain an up-to-date curriculum vitae (CV) which conscientiously
records all your career success?
•
Do you have an appetite for taking on greater responsibilities beyond your
boss’s job?
Every manager can profit from such searching self-scrutiny. This is what the book
offers: a fascinating range of experiences to define factors contributing to women’s
success that can be utilised by others – not just other ‘women of attitude’ but also
men who respect them, who identify with them, who work alongside them. Or simply
seek to understand them . . .
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
The Profile of Exceptional Women’s Careers
The 19 Successful ‘Women with Attitude’
Barbara Cassani, CEO, Go Fly
Mair Barnes, former CEO,
Dianne Thompson, CEO, Camelot
Woolworths
Nikki Beckett, CEO, NSB Retail
Sophie Mirman OBE, founder, Sock
Systems plc
Shop and CEO, Trotters
Anne Wood CBE, found and
Anita Roddick OBE, founder, The
creative director, Ragdoll
Body Shop
Productions
Debbie Moore, CEO Pineapple
Dame Marjorie Scardino, CEO,
Verity Lambert, chief executive,
Pearson
Cinema Verity
Patricia Vaz, executive director, BE
Ann Burdus, former chairman and
Retail
chief executive, McCann and
Patsy Bloom, founder and former
Company Group
chief executive, Pet Plan Group
Ase Aulie Michelet, president of
Phyllis Cunningham CBE, former
Amersham Health, Norway
chief executive, The Royal Mardsen
Marianne Nilson, managing director,
Hospital
Atlet, a family-owned truck
Prue Leith OBE, founder, Leith
manufacturer, Sweden
School of Food and Wine
Monique Moulle-Zetterstrom,
Ann Gloag, founder, Stagecoach
managing director, Orange mobile
phones, Denmark
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
Success Factors: Corporate Careers
The profiles of the six corporate leaders above, plus other research into top
women in management, reveal ten key success factors:
•
Confidence: the key to self-esteem and resilience in overcoming
obstacles
•
Self-promotion: the capacity to manage upwards, communicating
your successes and ambitions
‘I hate talking about myself or pontificating. One of the things I do not like
about some businessmen is that they appear to know all the answers. They
know how to do thiongs. They have been terribly successful in their jobs
because they are so clever. They then go on to tell the rest of the world how
they should behave in business. I think that is ridiculous. Everyone does it
differently. Some of succeed and some of us fail and some of us do both.’
Dame Marjorie Scardino
•
Risk-taking: rising to the challenge of necessary risks; transcending
failure
‘Our attitude to failure has to change. People have to know that it is okay to
fail. The Americans’ attitude is: “How do you know you are any good if you
haven’t screwed anything up yet?” It’s how you recover from the inevitable
failures that counts.’ Nikki Bennett
•
Visibility: enhancing reputation and boosting your career by widening
your circle of recognition
•
Career acceleration: managing the pace of your career; moving on in
order to continue your learning and development
‘When she took 3 months off to have her first child she told BA: “I don’t want
to come back and do the job I did. I loved it, but I’ll be back in 3 months to
do whatever’s available.’ Barbara Cassani
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Cranfield School of Management
Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
•
Mentoring: elevating your success through the help, encouragement
and support of someone committed to your development
‘My grandfather showed me that what we do matters. . . and I was fortunate
enough to have parents who didn’t think that there were any limits to what
you could do.’ Dame Marjori Scardino
•
Portfolio careers: maximising options and potential career directions
by combining different roles (‘plate-spinning’)
•
International experience: honing your ‘edge’ through work
experience outside your own country
‘One of the most rewarding things in my life – more important to me than
where I have reached in terms of status – is the amazing experience of
working with people all round the world. You learn that there are different
ways of doing things . . . so your mind is a little bit more open.’ Ann burdus
•
Role models – seeing positive opportunities for career development
through awareness of high-profile women at the top
•
A management style compatible with that of male colleagues –
progressing your career by being sensitive to the styles of others.
The Career Strategy Checklist at the end of the book is built from this
framework. It enables the busy manager to make conscious and explicit the
goals that successful women pursue implicitly or intuitively. Another example
of the six questions posed in relation to the second of the ten career factors in
corporate success i.e. self-promotion is given below:
•
Does your manager know how ambitious you are and what positions
you are aspiring to as the next steps in your career?
•
If there is an opportunity to get publicity for one of your successful work
projects, do you take it?
•
How ready are you to volunteer for assignments beyond the confines of
your present job?
•
How often do you put yourself forward to lead a project?
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
•
In appraisal interviews, do you clearly articulate your achievements
and attribute them to your skills and competencies?
•
If someone tries to take credit for your accomplishments, do you
tactfully set the record straight?
Success Factors: Entrepreneurial Careers
The flexibility to exert control over their own lives was a key motivation cited
by the ten women who had moved into business ownership. Behind each of
the five roles below, which were revealed by the study, lies a ‘new female
class of entrepreneurs’ – women with networks, access to resources, and with
cutting edge business knowledge and skills:
•
Reluctant entrepreneurs: these are women who went into business
to survive, or to prove their worth; they may have lost previous jobs
through organisational reasons beyond their control
‘Reluctant entrepreneurs set up their own businesses out of selfdefence or reaction to intolerable conditions at work.’ Susan
Vinnicombe
•
Born-to-be entrepreneurs: a class of women who grew up with the
idea of running their own business
•
‘Corporate incubator’ entrepreneurs: women who acquire
management skills and competence in technology and networks within
large corporations, and then go out to set up businesses of their own
‘IBM was very good to me. They invested in me and for seven years I
went to college while I was working with IBM and enjoying the
management training.’ Nikki Beckett
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
•
Entrepreneurs through family connections or inheritance: women
from entrepreneurial families where businesses started by male family
members become run by women
•
Dual-career couple entrepreneurs: a new, growing category of
entrepreneurs in the UK where couples form an entrepreneurial
business together.
Personal Success Factors
How managers define success appears gender biased. Recent research into
women in management plus the 19 interviews of the study yield a four-point
framework to show how psychology leads to personal definitions of success:
•
Influencers: define success as connected to making an impact or
leaving a mark on the business; a well occupied category for male
managers too
•
Experts: describe success in terms of achieving a high level of
competency in their work and gaining recognition for that; women more
likely to be in this category than men
‘I set up a business so I could go on doing the work I loved to do.’ Anne
Wood
•
Climbers: see success as highly related to job title, status, promotion
and reward through pay; women less likely to be in this category than
men (when they are, women tend to be more competitively goalfocused than status-focused)
‘I moved up the organization by having a vision of where I wanted to be.
There were twenty nine males between me and the top. So I set a goal
which was roughly five years ahead . . .’ Patricia Vaz
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
•
Self-realisers: define success internally, based on a highly
personalised concept of achievement; a balance between work and
home, for example, accounts for more women being in this category
than men.
Transformational Women Leaders
In the corporate world, women managers in male-dominated industries tend to
lead in ways that are more similar than different to the men in those
industries. Both, for example, are typically intensely focused, hard working
and results-driven.
Women’s stories here also illustrate key differences between male and female
leadership – differences indicative of a transformational leadership style rather
‘In contrast to the short-term, hard, command control
than the traditional
style associated with men (‘transactional’ style),
transactional style
women were more likely to use a ‘transformational’
preferred by men.
style . . . actively encouraging participation, sharing
Contrasted with the male
power and information, enhancing the self-worth of
style, relying upon
others, and stimulating enthusiasm about work.’
Susan Vinnicombe
positional power and
formal authority, the
distinctive styles of the women reveal attributes of personal respect,
consultation and development of staff.
Three dimensions in particular are highlighted in the transformational
leadership styles of the six ‘corporate career’ award winners:
•
Openness: listening, empathising and managing conflict are
pronounced, integrity and their ‘ordinariness’ central, and heard in their
stories are words like ‘problem-sharing,’ ‘intimacy’ and ‘empathy’
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
•
Team player: clear connections are made between individuals’
contributions and career success and organizational profitability; a
clear business case justifies enabling people to run with projects and
ensuring credit is given where credit is due
•
Care, development of staff and diversity: people are treated
positively and not undermined, their talents and abilities enhanced
regardless of where they come from or who they are: awareness of
others is valued and linked to sound business imperatives.
Despite not having to work within conventional corporate constraints, the ten
successful entrepreneurs demonstrate more similarities than differences in
the study to their six
‘Leaders in world business are the first true global
corporate
citizens. We have world-wide capability and
counterparts. Their
responsibility. Our domains transcend national
boundaries. Our decisions affect not just economics
approach – similarly
but societies; not just the direct concerns of
goal-oriented and
business but world problems of poverty, environment
hard-working –
and security.’ Annita Roddick
remains characterised by the transformational leadership style above.
What distinguishes them is their commitment to social activism: they expend
money and energy to help the underprivileged in society.
Women on Corporate Boards
Women’s presence in the boardroom is now linked to fresh views on markets,
environmental and ethical issues as well as to greater optimism about
promotion for women managers in their organizations.
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
In 2001, just over half of the FTSE 100 companies had at least one female
director. More women are achieving board-level status and progress is linked
powerfully to the importance of role models: the firms already having women
directors are appointing others, suggesting that the ‘pioneer women’ have
done well.
So, when are women going to break through? Data from the Institute of
Management confirms the presence in organizations of ambitious and
motivated women: 33% in a recent survey are aiming to achieve a
directorship.
Women are known to respond well to mentoring, so the book concludes with
advice for would-be Non Executive Directors from two of the award winning
women. Between them they have sat on numerous boards and they counsel
the importance of the ‘comfort fit’ concept: manage a style with which male
colleagues are comfortable.
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Women with Attitude: Lessons for Career Management
Authors
SUSAN VINNICOMBE is Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Diversity
Management and Director of the Centre for Developing Women Business
Leaders. She directs the trailblazing executive programme for senior women
managers/ directors, ‘Women as Leaders’. In addition, she runs customised
programmes for women executives, which have won three national awards.
Susan’s particular research interests are women’s leadership styles, the
issues involved in women developing their managerial careers and gender
diversity on corporate boards. Her Research Centre is unique in the UK with
its focus on women leaders and the annual Female FTSE 100 Index is
regarded as the UK’s premier research resource on women directors. In 2004
the Research Centre was commissioned by the DTI to carry out a report on
the ethnic diversity of the FTSE 100 Directors.
Susan has written eight books and numerous articles. Alongside Susan’s
research activities at Cranfield she is also a founding member of Women
Directors on Boards, a consortium, of five senior women from industry,
academia and government who have come together to offer their expertise
and time as a catalyst for change in the UK.
JOHN BANK brings a wealth of experience in the human resources field as a
consultant, lecturer and author. He was formerly a lecturer in Human
Resource Management at Cranfield School of Management.
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Produced by the Learning Services Team
Cranfield School of Management
© Cranfield University 2007