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Gender May Play a Role in Coaching
Experts disagreed over a recent finding that women received less executive coaching then men. But most agreed executives should take the initiative by asking for help instead of waiting for coaching to be offered.
The glass ceiling may be cracking, but according to one recent survey, women in the corporate world still lag behind men in one important area: executive coaching.
One-fifth of 334 senior human resource professionals who responded to a survey by Novations Group Inc., a Boston-based global consulting and training organization, said their women executives are coached at a lower rate than their proportion in the work force; 74.5 percent said women are coached at the same rate; and 5.6 percent said at a higher rate. "[Men] generally have stronger informal networks and understand the 'unwritten rules' of the organization, so coaching is that much more crucial for women, who sometimes find it hard to ask for help because of their socialization," according to Novations senior consultant Deborah Felton. The survey did not specify formal coaching versus informal coaching. Women ask for help differently than men do, says Verna Ford, a Novations executive consultant in Atlanta. Women seek help with tasks, while "men often take the initiative. They'll walk up [to a manager] and talk about their excitement [with the company] and how they fit in," she says. "It may also be the socialization of women to ask for smaller favors and not assume the organization will grant them these larger, grander opportunities," Ford says. Many of her female coaching clients pay their own fees because "they don't want their male colleagues to know they're getting that support." "I think the guys get more than the women do," agrees Jean Stafford, founder of Executive Coaching for Women, in Great Falls, Va. For one thing, Stafford says, companies usually offer coaching to top-ranked executives, who are typically male. Secondly, women don't ask the company to pay for coaching. "They're doing themselves a disservice and doing the organization a disservice when they don't realize what they need to do to be successful." Not everyone agrees that women executives are being short-changed. "My experience is that women ask for help more openly. ... Men as a group are more reluctant," says Howard Ross, president of Cook Ross Inc., of Silver Spring, Md., which offers diversity and leadership development. Indeed, when corporate coaching became popular in the early 1990s, most of the clients, as well as coaches, were women. Women were breaking into the board room and needed support to compensate for the "old boys network," Ross says. "Women generally acknowledge [the support] more. Men, to a greater extent, attribute their success to themselves and don't see the invisibility of the structure around them." Unfortunately, women, like minorities, know that asking for help "in certain environments" can be risky because it might be taken as "proof" they can't do the job, Ross says. "I personally don't have that experience" that women have less coaching, says Madeleine Homan, vice president of coaching for The Ken Blanchard Cos. in New York. Homan pointed to two random samples of 100 clients she has coached from 34 organizations, where the proportion of male to female was only 53 men to 47 women, and 56 men to 44 women. Executives are picked for coaching not by gender but by senior position or their high potential, Homan says. "I would say what's reflected is there are more men in these positions. ... I also think women need to take more responsibility. ... To ask for coaching means being willing to [say] 'I need development,' showing weakness. "I've tried to make clear my impatience with the 'gender conversation.' I think people who think of themselves as victims get victimized. ... I think HR should be alert to make sure people get what they need." Women shouldn't have to ask, says Betty Spence, president of the National Association for Female Executives. Smart companies will help women advance, especially to the profit-and-loss jobs that are "the only path to the top." "Obviously, I do feel women are not getting the coaching they need. It's up to a company to make sure they're tapping the talent they have, or the talent will walk out."
January 12, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications |
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