Two decades after entering the workforce, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, former VP at Google, former economist at the World Bank and a director on multiple boards is impatient with the progress of women in the workplace, particularly in the boardroom.
"Our revolution has stalled," she writes in Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.
In the book, released last month, Sandberg discusses how when she entered the workforce in the early 1990s, she was surprised at how few women were in the executive positions, but thought this would change dramatically over the course of her career.
Today she is 43 years old, in the C-suite of one of the most successful companies in the United States, and serves as a director at many others including Starbucks, the Brookings Institution, the Google Foundation, and until a year ago, ehealth, Inc. But she's not finding the parity she had anticipated.
The numbers are bleak. Women held 4.2% of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 CEO positions in 2012. That's only 4.2% growth since 1995, when there were four female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list.
With women representing 46% of the workforce of the United States, but only barely breaking through the Fortune 500 list, twenty years' worth of progress doesn't feel like much.
Having entered the workforce only a few years ago myself, this isn't what I had anticipated either. At the current pace of progress, when I reach retirement age, only 16.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs will be women.
Healthcare is no exception to these dismal stats. According to 2012 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up 75% of the healthcare workforce, but only 18% of hospital CEOs are women. In fact, the American College of Healthcare Executives, an organization that advocates for diversity in the healthcare executive community elected its first female president this year.
This is also the first time ACHE has had an all-female executive team. Deborah J. Bowen, FACHE, CAE, who was formerly the association's COO, officially begins her position as president and CEO this May, taking the place of her retiring male predecessor and mentor Thomas C. Dolan, PhD, FACHE, CAE, who has led the organization for 22 years.
"Twenty-two years ago a woman probably wasn't even on the radar," says Bowen. "[Healthcare] will probably [remain] a largely female-dominated career field in another decade. But healthcare has a long way to go. It's a female-dominated industry, so the leadership should reflect that population."
"What you should be able to do… is to look at the population, and then glance at the board room representation, and see a correlation there. I think healthcare is falling short in that arena," says Bowen. "I think seeing more women in the C-suite can be an added advantage to any system, and in the board room, to be honest… Certainly we know that diverse management teams have the benefit of more perspectives and that's got to be good for decision-making. "
Standing in the way of more women advancing is just that—there are fewer women advancing to the executive level than men, and this disparity creates a lack of senior mentors for women. Men are likely to have more senior mentors than women, because there are more of them, therefore their professional relationships are likely to result in greater compensation and higher-level positions.
Having more women in executive roles also benefits future leaders, both male and female. According to a June 2012 report from Catalyst, although women and men benefit equally from developing others, women are more likely to develop others than men. Sixty-five percent of women who had been developed by mentors were paying it forward, compared to 56% of men, according to Catalyst.
The research also demonstrated the sociological truth that like typically attracts like and women are more likely to have mentors when more women are in leadership (73% of women who were developing others were developing female talent compared to 30% of men who were developing female talent).
Women don't even let long hours get in their way. Between male and female executives working more than 60 hours a week, 76% of women were developing others compared to 57% of men.
We know that clinical background experience is becoming increasingly relevant to the C-suite. According to ACHE, 56% of women have achieved leadership through a clinical path versus a healthcare administration educational background. Only 31% of men had clinical experience before their executive-level positions.
"Certainly in healthcare, collaboration is key, teamwork is key, and communication is key. So I think all of those essential qualities are things women are known to possess and will serve them well in those executive ranks.… You have to demonstrate collaboration and teamwork in order to be a successful leader, because of the demands of integration and partnering with new players and all the things that are on the to-do list of the hospital C-suite," says Bowen.
The leadership at the top of healthcare should reflect the workforce it's leading and the community it's serving. Women have the essential skills for leadership in this era of reform. They're natural collaborators, more likely to have the clinical knowledge to improve patient care, and they regularly invest to build future leaders. It's time for a shift in the industry that recognizes these strengths, and a shift in the minds of the women waiting in the wings for their moment.
"Women need to recognize the power that they have and leverage it," says Bowen
In Lean In, Sandberg cites a 2011 McKinsey & Company report that says men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments. Let's start promoting women for the strengths they can bring to the table, and build the potential for the future of the industry.
"When more people get in this race, more records will be broken. And the achievements will extend beyond those individuals to benefit us all," writes Sandberg.
Chelsea Rice is an associate editor for HealthLeaders Media.
