Bosses' misconceptions cripple women's career

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 19 November 2009, 15:17 IST   |    158 Comments
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Bosses' misconceptions cripple women's career
Bangalore: According to a new research, women's career gets affected, due to bosses' misconceptions about them being prone to be in conflict between family commitments and workplace responsibilities. A study in the current issue of the Academy of Management Journal reveals that bosses generally perceive women workers to have more family-work conflict than men, even though this isn't the case. And this belief, mistaken though it is, leads supervisors to take a negative view of women employees' suitability for promotion. "Managers have a tendency to categorize women as experiencing greater family-work conflict, even after controlling for family responsibilities and women's own perceptions of family-work conflict," conclude the study's Authors, Jenny M. Hoobler, Sandy J. Wayne, and Grace Lemmon of the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Even though female employees actually reported slightly less family-work conflict than their male counterparts, their managers still perceived them as having greater family-work conflict, a perception that had significant implications for women's organizational advancement." Surprisingly, these perceptual biases held for both male and female managers, both of whom are prone to give credence to stereotypical attributes ascribed to women as responsible for family, which may be seen as incompatible with leadership/managerial positions. The study's findings, raise concerns about company-sponsored programs that assist employees with managing family-work conflict. Employees who participate in these programs may signal to their managers that they have family demands and need assistance in balancing home and work domains. Participation in these company-sponsored programs may reduce the likelihood that their managers view them as fitting with the job and organization, consequently reducing their promotion opportunities. The study's findings derive from surveys of 178 employees - 52 managers and 126 subordinates - of a large transportation company, a high-volume, goods-handling organization. In sum, responses of 126 supervisor - subordinate pairs were analyzed. Subordinates were questioned about their family status; demographics; family-work conflict; and whether or not they had been nominated for promotions. Managers provided information on demographics; their perceptions of subordinates' family-work conflict; subordinates' in-role performance; and their job fit, company fit, and promotability. Whatever subordinates' family situation happens to be and however workers view its relationship to their jobs, the mere fact that one is a woman significantly increases the degree of family-work conflict that one's boss perceived. And that negative perception, the professors found, significantly affected how bosses assessed workers' suitability for their jobs and for employment in the company and ultimately whether they deserved to be promoted.

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