Findings and Analysis

We used chi-square tests to see if reasons given for promotion differed for women and men. In cases where chi-squares were inappropriate, a Fisher’s exact 2 x 2 test was used. Because this was an exploratory study with a small sample, we considered differences between men and women significant if there was less than 10% probability the differences occurred by chance (Hays, 1973).

We found more commonalities than differences between women and men. All promotions were based on the combination of proven competencies and the potential for development. For both groups, credentials, experience, track record, skills, work ethic, ability to work on a team, interpersonal skills, and the potential for growth were frequently mentioned reasons.

There were, however, some differential trends in the accounts of promotions of men and women (see Figure 1). These differences involve some of the more subjective features of the promotion process and are consistent with some of the forces outlined earlier in this paper.

Table 1

Reasons for Promotion of Men and Women Candidates

PREPARATION

Track Record of Success: Has a track record of succeeding in projects, indicating he or she has been tested and proven.

Change Agent: Has successfully implemented a change in the past, thereby improving a situation. The change may be in any arena: technological, administrative, quality, interpersonal, managerial, commercial, or manufacturing. He or she is results-oriented and proactive.

Right Combination of Credentials: Has the right blend of experiences, training, and competencies for the job.

Broad Knowledge of the Organization: Experience in the organization has varied and provides a basis for understanding events outside the home division. Understands the culture, what makes the company tick. Knows where bodies are buried; who knows what.

Experience Adds Utility to Group: Brought an experience that added to the collective expertise of the group.

Technical Skills: Has outstanding expertise in a functional area.

Readiness: Has put in the appropriate amount of time. Has paid his or her dues. Has received recognition for work already done.

ATTITUDES

Work Ethic: Has demonstrated commitment to the company, department, or product with lots of initiative and a can-do attitude. Has shown an eagerness to get things done and is dedicated.

Good Citizen of the Organization: Has made contributions outside the scope of his or her job, such as recruiting a diverse work group, acting as a mentor, or championing a company-wide initiative.

PEOPLE SKILLS

Interpersonal Skills: Has strong interpersonal and communication skills which were noted in a general way.

Team Player: Has acceptance by other members of the staff and adds value to the team.

Team Builder/Leadership: Able to demonstrate the ability to get people to commit and to work together as part of a team without kicking them in the process. Able to coach and develop people. Can mobilize and marshal people to achieve a goal.

Influence Skills: Has credibility with other units, customers, partners, or industry representatives and can effectively interface with them.

Comfort Level with Superiors/Known Quantity: Was a known entity and could successfully interface with the boss or his or her superiors. The boss was comfortable with and had trust in the candidate. Is credible to upper levels of management.

Emotional Competence: Demonstrates a genuine sensitivity and caring for others.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

Intelligence: Exercises good judgment, articulate, bright, able to extract the essence of complex situations. Is quick on one’s feet.

Analytical Abilities: Is rational and practical when making decisions.

Potential for Growth: Demonstrates capacity for growth and is considered a possibility for further advancement in the system. Is able to pick up new knowledge.

Creative: Has innovative problem-solving abilities. Is a novel thinker who sees new directions and possibilities.

Personal Strength/Character: Is willing to take risks, demonstrates maturity, accepts responsibility, and is able to handle tough business decisions. Is able to challenge superiors when necessary. Has self-confidence in uncharted waters, and speaks own mind.

Style: Has presence, stature, and shows sizzle in presentations. Projects an image of a leader. Is smooth and a good socializer.

Business Smarts: Has a strong sense of the business and how to identify and solve business problems. Has a sixth sense for making deals. Is able to read customers’ requirements and turn them into plans.

Accountable and Responsible: Follows through relentlessly. Understands responsibilities. Has high integrity.

Able to Work the System: Can bring resources together. Can make large organizations respond.

Strategic Thinker: Is able to think broadly beyond one’s own area to the bigger picture; engages in long-range planning.

CONTEXT

Right Place/Right Time: Happened to have the necessary mix of skills and qualifications at just the time when the job became available.

Groomed for Job: Was supported by someone higher in the hierarchy and was prepared for the job or one like it. In some cases someone higher than the boss pushed for him or her to be offered the job.

Developmental: The job was seen as a growth opportunity which would develop specific skills or prepare the person for a specific job. In some cases the job was seen as a growth opportunity because the boss was good at developing people. In some cases the job was a test or proving ground.

Available: Was freed up from previous job responsibilities usually because of some type of reorganization.

Indispensable to Function: Was essential to the business or project because he or she had substantial background and history that could not be duplicated.

Pushed for Job: Played a major role in convincing the boss or company that he or she deserved a promotion.

Equity: Was promoted for purposes of fairness. May have been led to believe that he or she would be promoted into that job or may have complained to the boss that previous incumbents had been at a higher level. In some cases the promotion was to recognize an increased level of responsibilities or to ameliorate the awkwardness of not having received another job.

Retention: Was promoted in order to keep his or her talents in the company or division. Without the promotion he or she might have left.

Diversity: Adds to the number of high-level white women or people of color in leadership roles, supporting the organization’s policies.

Vacancy Demanded Attention: The job had been vacant so long or was vacant at such a crucial time that the pressures to fill it were overwhelming.

Continuity in Location, Function, or Business: Was an insider who knows the culture, technology, and values of the organization.

One of the key differences relates to personal judgments of confidence in the candidates. Executives making a staffing decision basically look for someone they have confidence will succeed. This sense of confidence was described differently for men and women candidates. When decision-makers spoke about promotions of men, they often (75% of the cases) mentioned a high level of comfort with the candidate. This meant they knew the candidate and had successfully interacted with him before. For example, one boss said, “I feel very comfortable with him. I know his strengths and weaknesses. I know how he’s going to behave. Our relationship is an effective one. I know I can count on it being stable and consistent throughout time.” Additionally, bosses reported that prior to the promotion, their superiors or top management found the candidate credible. Comfort level was mentioned less often for women (23% of the cases). Instead, confidence in women candidates was described in terms of their personal strength (31% of the cases). Bosses said that these women had demonstrated a willingness to take risks, to challenge superiors when necessary, and to accept responsibility. For example, one woman was described as a risk-taker with “fire in her belly,” willing to challenge past practices and ideas. Such strength of character was never offered as a rationale for men; only women were described this way.

Another key difference relates to the degree to which the new job was unfamiliar to the person promoted. We noticed that some of the women in the study had been working for the promoting boss before they got the promotion. When they originally started working for that boss, they were put in at a level below the one customary for that job and were told that if they did extremely well they would get a promotion. The first job was described as some kind of apprentice or trial period. Women tended to have to lobby to get the second job by convincing the boss they were ready for promotion. This situation was reflected in the reason for promotion called pushed for job—31% of the women were described as having done this. Only 6% of the men were described this way. Women were frustrated by this experience, which was not always appreciated by their bosses. One boss said:

She is very ambitious, and I thought that being offered this job, the creative playground it offered and the $3 million in resources would be enough for her. But when I brought her in at a level 59, she really wanted to know when she would become a level 60. I told her when the time was right, I’d promote her. I said “soon,” and “soon” is under one year. The next day I came into my office, and there was a big card on which there was a blown-up definition of “soon” from Webster’s. She got the level 60 soon after that.

The manager and her hiring boss had different impressions of this situation. He saw it as a chance to give her an opportunity to use her skills while she developed them. She was frustrated by the trial period and experienced it as a lack of faith. She pushed for the higher level job because she felt she deserved it.

The tendency to promote women to jobs with highly familiar responsibilities is evidenced in the degree to which continuity was mentioned as a reason for promotion for men and women. Continuity means that the person promoted already had intimate knowledge of part of the new job. Examples include moving from head of a key manufacturing department to plant manufacturing engineer or moving from product manager to senior product manager. Continuity was mentioned by 38% of the women and 6% of the men. Thus, bosses are more likely to move women to jobs strongly connected to previous experiences. One woman’s boss explained that although the woman had been well prepared for a higher level job for a period of time, he kept her in the same job until a slot opened up in her plant because he thought it would be easier for her to handle new responsibilities if the people were the same. He thought this was important because he believed women have to work harder than men to establish credibility with their co-workers, and it would be easier for her to succeed in a new job in a location where she already had credibility. Although she liked the plant, the woman in this situation found it restrictive to wait for the right opportunity to open up and would have preferred to have taken a similar opportunity sooner, elsewhere. For men, continuity was mentioned less often, and the degree of unfamiliarity between two jobs was greater.

Corporate personnel objectives played different roles in the promotions of men and women. For 69% of the women, the strong corporate emphasis on diversity was mentioned. Decision-makers explained that not only was the candidate well qualified, but the promotion had the extra benefit of adding to the number of women in upper-level positions. For example, one boss said, “She was the best overall for the corporation … technical background, MBA, credentials, line experience. In addition, we were looking to move women up the corporate hierarchy, and she looked like a good fit.” Obviously, diversity was not mentioned for any of the men. The citing of diversity as a reason for promotion showed that the diversity initiative was having an impact in the corporation.

Another reflection of corporate personnel objectives has to do with the desire to retain talented candidates who simply were available. One of the reasons given for promotion was that there were people who through no fault of their own were available at a time a particular vacancy occurred. Some of these people were left over from divisions that had been sold. Others were returning from foreign assignments, and still others were managers whose roles were phased out of joint venture projects. These managers were talented, and the corporation wanted to retain them. Availability was mentioned more often for men (38% of the cases) than for women (8%).

Essentially, these data on promotions suggest different dynamics for women and men. Managers seem to be more hesitant to promote women, requiring them to demonstrate personal strength and to prove themselves extensively before they get a promotion. Men were less likely to have their promotion accounted for in terms of familiarity with job responsibilities and were more likely to have bosses report a high level of personal comfort. Managers at this company saw asking women to prove themselves first as a means of providing a safety net for the promotion. The company saw this strategy as a way to give women entry into higher level positions with reduced risk. Unfortunately, the women didn’t always experience this as helpful. Although their work was enjoyable, they would have preferred to have had access to key jobs more readily. They felt they weren’t getting the same chance to fail or to succeed on their own as the men.

Although the diversity initiative itself was often mentioned as a reason for promotion and bosses were attuned to other corporate personnel objectives such as availability, hiring managers still were not adept at using promotions as a means of giving women challenge and recognition. Bosses tended to have a difficult time determining how much risk to take when making assignment decisions for women subordinates, and it appears that the risk was perceived as greater with women because bosses were less comfortable with these candidates.

In the next section we explore the explanations and implications of these findings. Although the dynamics of promotion we uncovered are thoroughly discussed, there are several caveats to our findings. The first concerns the generalizability of these findings to other organizations. This study was conducted at only one organization and used a small sample. Although our consultation work suggests that the dynamics discussed are experienced more broadly, additional research should be conducted in different settings. A second concern involves the use of retrospective interviews, which are subject to various memory-related biases. Although we interviewed multiple informants about each promotion, the retrospective nature of the study still remains an issue. Further research should explore additional methodologies for studying promotion.