Research Reports

Published: July 2007

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The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t is part of the Catalyst series examining barriers to women’s advancement. In this report, we analyze responses to the open-ended questions from two previous Catalyst studies, Women "Take Care," Men "Take Charge:" Stereotyping of U.S. Business Leaders Exposed and Different Cultures, Similar Perceptions: Stereotyping of Western European Business Leaders. These new analyses allow us to explore the contours of the misleading beliefs documented in the previous reports; they also provide examples and anecdotes from respondents’ experiences. We supplement these data with in-depth interviews of 13 women working at a large U.S.-headquartered global company, all of whom held leadership positions at the time of the interviews.

Methodology: The first part of the study includes a content analysis of open-ended responses collected in the two previous Catalyst studies, which examined senior executives’ perceptions of men and women leaders in the United States and Europe. The sample consisted of 296 U.S. senior managers and corporate leaders (168 women and 128 men) and 935 European managers and senior manages (282 women and 653 men), for a total of 1,231 participants.

The second part of the study describes the results of a qualitative analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 13 women leaders in a large U.S. corporation. The interviews were used to gain in-depth knowledge of the issues raised in the first part of the study, while also exploring specific strategies that women leaders used to cope with stereotypic bias in their careers.

Findings: Our analyses revealed that gender stereotypes can create several predicaments for women leaders. Because they are often evaluated against a “masculine” standard of leadership, women are left with limited and unfavorable options, no matter how they behave and perform as leaders. In this study we focus specifically on three predicaments, all of which put women in a double bind and can potentially undermine their leadership.

Predicament 1: Extreme Perceptions – Too Soft, Too Tough, and Never Just Right.

• When women act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes, they are viewed as less competent leaders.
• When women act in ways that are inconsistent with such stereotypes, they are considered unfeminine.

Predicament 2: The High Competence Threshold – Women Leaders Face Higher Standards and Lower Rewards Than Men Leaders. Respondents’ comments revealed that women leaders are subjected to higher competency standards. On top of doing their job, women have to:

• Prove that they can lead, over and over again.
• Manage stereotypical expectations constantly.

Predicament 3: Competent but Disliked – Women Leaders Are Perceived as Competent or Liked, but Rarely Both. Respondents’ comments revealed that when women behave in ways that are traditionally valued for men leaders (e.g., assertively), they are viewed as more competent, but also not as effective interpersonally as women who adopt a more stereotypically feminine style.

In sum, gender stereotypes misrepresent the true talents of women leaders and can potentially undermine women’s contributions to organizations as well as their own advancement options.

Sponsor: IBM Corporation