We began with the glass ceiling, the boundary which most women are rarely able to negotiate in leadership positions in adult education and related fields. Therefore, it seemed a logical place for us to begin if we wanted to know more about women in leadership. While there has been some serious speculation about how women lead at this mid-leadership level and in organisations in general, empirical research has been limited. Instead, the majority of work on women leaders has been descriptions of or prescriptions for practice (for example, Caffarella 1992; Fagenson 1993; Snyder 1993; Perreault 1996). This has resulted in many 'ought to's' or 'shoulds' being adopted by those who have advocated advancement for women in leadership positions. Furthermore, much of the data-based research has been exploratory studies of those few women who make it to senior level positions (for example, Astin and Leland 1990; Bierema 1994; Helgesen 1990). The purpose of this study was to learn how women currently in mid-level positions, those who work just under the glass ceiling, understood themselves as leaders. We focused on women's perceptions of how they work as leaders, their career paths, the impact of careers on their personal lives, and their understanding of the role of gender in their careers.

Through hearing the stories of these women we hoped to better understand the boundary within which they have either chosen or been forced to remain.

Methodology

A qualitative research design was used and the research was conducted by a team of people who all had a mutual interest in gaining a deeper understanding about 'women's ways of leading'. The data collection and initial analysis were conducted by the whole team, with the final analysis, using the constant comparative method, completed jointly by two members of the group. A total of 23 women drawn from three contexts (educational organisations, both public and private; corporate organisations; and religious ministry) were interviewed in-depth for this study. The majority of these women were white, except for two Hispanic-Americans and three African-Americans, and in their late thirties to mid forties. Both married and single women were included.

Findings

Our study yielded an interesting picture of life at the glass ceiling for women in mid-level leadership positions. First, if there is one characteristic of mid-level women leaders it is their perception of their leadership style as sensitive and responsive, especially to the people with whom they work. They want to involve their people and use various terms to describe this - being collaborative, consensus -building, facilitative, team-building, and participatory. An executive in human resources expressed it directly:

I have learned to be part of a group. As much as a driver that I am, I also think that I have realised that I need to be very versatile to other people's styles ... I can work on that versatility by being in consensus. You can't shove ideas down people's throats, you have to work subtly. You don't have to manipulate people, but you have to know their styles, know the way they operate. Assess them and then respond accordingly. You can't just treat every person the same.

In their focus on the people aspect of leadership, an important component of their work is 'to bring out the best in people', to make them feel important and useful.

As well as being responsive and sensitive to others, these leaders also spoke about the need to be aware and adaptable to the changing context in which they worked. Many spoke of the rather complex calculations they make in responding to the ever changing equation of the situation, the task, and the people in their environments. In addition, these women leaders made decisions is in accord with a context-sensitive leadership style, but in two different ways. Some balanced an analytical thought process with a participative mode of gathering information; even more balanced analysis with intuition.

Second, it is generally assumed that most women follow a nonlinear career path, largely because they bear primary responsibility for family and child-care needs. We were surprised to discover that our findings did not support this view. Almost twice as many of our women described their career path as linear. Most of these were single women. Of those who were married, most characterised their spouse as particularly supportive. And of the remaining women with linear career paths, several acknowledged that they had sacrificed their marriages for their careers. For the women in our study, being single or having an egalitarian marriage was usually necessary if they wanted to give their careers priority.

As the women discussed the details of their career development, we discerned an interesting pattern: all described an experience or cluster of experiences that contributed significantly to their development of self-confidence. For most this meant childhood experiences, usually within their families; for others the critical experiences came later and were usually job-related. Self-confidence was also engendered by experiences later in life, usually related to work, and it seems to involve other people having confidence in them. A senior account executive speaks to this point:

I obviously have been to leadership training courses and all that, but the biggest influence has been with the people I've worked with and spent time with who have let me know that they have confidence in me, that they think I can pull it off. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If someone else thinks you can do something, many times you think you can do it, too.

A critical factor in ensuring women's career advancement is the lack of barriers in getting over the glass ceiling. Thus, we asked our women to describe the barriers that they have encountered in their careers, and while they named a variety of things, almost all of them could be categorised as experiences of gender-based discrimination. For them the single greatest barrier was the systematic devaluation of women in our society. This experience took several forms. The most dramatic, of course, were experiences of outright discrimination based on gender. One of our university administrators shared a blatant example:

What really kind of precipitated my leaving the job...is that I came in and hit the road running and did well. In my last review I had before I left there, I remember my boss saying, 'It's too bad you're a woman because otherwise you'd be ready to move up in the organisation now'.

Sometimes the discrimination from men was less overt but nonetheless clear. A number of women spoke of not being taken seriously by men, of being discounted, and, therefore, needing to assert themselves to be heard. Many agreed with a corporate consultant who said: 'As a woman, I found out I always had to work harder, longer, and I've always had to confront situations in order to get what I need. It's never been handed over and I've always had to pursue it'.

Given the significance of these barriers to career advancement, we were curious about what goals these women held. It was interesting that only three of the women we studied expressed any desire for further advancement. More striking was the large number of women who expressed contentment with the jobs they currently had: 'I'm pretty happy where I am'; 'I really enjoy this position'; '...as long as I continue to be challenged in what I'm doing, I'll probably stay and keep doing it'.

Third, these women often pay a significant personal price for their leadership roles. All spoke about their efforts to balance their professional and personal lives. Everyone, whether married or single, work hard at achieving this balance. A college administrator outlines the difficulties:

It's hard to separate personal and professional life, it really is, and especially when you live in a small community and the people that you are friends with are a part of where you work ... I think if anything suffers, it's your personal life. As a woman you have to sometimes do more to prove yourself and so you find yourself putting in more hours and doing more things than maybe you would as a man.

Many coped by separating or compartmentalising their professional and personal lives. Others did not identify a specific strategy but spoke of an on-going and often unresolved tension between the two realms.

A number of the women we spoke to described the significant personal cost they paid in their careers. It was in this area that we heard some particularly haunting stories. One of the university administrators described a recent dinner with friends:

We had two couples over last week and one of the other women is also a leader on campus. During the course of the conversation, she would say, 'Well, that was back when I had a real life'. She said that about three or four times over the course of the evening. I could identify with what she was saying because that's one of the things about leadership and administrative positions - they will absorb all your available time ... Part of my reasoning for not wanting to be a president or some visible leader like that is because I feel like they pay an even higher personal toll.

This concept of cost was also found in the stories of the single women in our study. All spoke of their personal lives being squeezed by their careers, and all sought ways to defend against that. One woman routinely made appointments with herself so that she could exercise to help handle her stress. Another, when necessary, gave herself permission to take time off for herself: 'I've been known to take an hour or two out of a work day and just go take a walk or whatever, just to clear the head....'

Those married women in our study who were more successful in balancing their professional and personal lives usually had a key resource - a supportive spouse. But it was the rare woman who had an easy time seeking a balance; it was an on-going challenge for everyone. While the women do experience increased self-esteem from being in leadership roles, they also pay a significant personal cost for their professional success.

And fourth, we found remarkably little gender awareness among our women. Despite the fact that they had earlier experiences of gender discrimination, most failed to see a sustained pattern of discrimination for themselves or for other women. It is as if they uncritically accepted these experiences as simply 'the way things are' and see their own negative experiences as merely 'the cost of doing business'.

We tried to assess the degree of gender-consciousness in a number of ways. One was to ask if they thought being a woman was advantageous for their careers. The various interpretations of this question were probably more revealing than the substance of the answers. A few interpreted it as asking whether or not women had a placement edge because of affirmative action, and they admitted that they did. Each was quick to argue, however, that she was hired for her professional capabilities, not her gender. Most of the women answered in terms of the feminine qualities that women are assumed to bring to their professional roles, such as empathetic listening, sensitivity, and conscientiousness.

Only two of the women we interviewed said that it was disadvantageous because of the inequitable treatment of women. Yet almost all the women had earlier given stories of gender-based discrimination when asked what obstacles or barriers they had faced in their careers. Significantly, though, many of those stories were not explained in terms of gender. For example, one of the human resource executives we interviewed said that her biggest obstacle was 'not being able to prove myself' when she first joined the firm. But she blames it not on her gender, but on the fact that she was viewed as an extension of the men with whom she worked.

Those women who did connect career obstacles to their gender often would downplay its overall significance. It was as if they saw experiences of gender discrimination as single events, not as evidence of a systematic pattern of discrimination against women to keep them in marginal roles. For example, recall the university administrator who early in her career was told 'It's too bad you're a woman because you'd be ready to move up in the organisation now'. When asked what it meant to be a woman in leadership, she discounted gender as a factor at all: 'The gender thing doesn't really enter into it'.

Coming at the issue of gender from another direction, we asked our participants if they saw themselves as feminists. It was no surprise that this was not a popular term among our women. Most viewed it as negative. One woman, a vice-president in retailing, explained her opposition to the word: 'I don't relate to being a feminist at all; I relate to being me. I relate to being an individual and I think that I don't deserve this label of feminism just because suddenly I have as much self-esteem as the man who sits next to me'.

The sense that these women in mid-level leadership positions lack significant awareness of the role of gender in their lives was particularly vivid at the end of our interviews. We asked each one what advice she would give to a young woman who aspired to a leadership role. The answers ran the gamut and had only one common characteristic - the advice was entirely generic. The suggestions they directed towards women were equally appropriate for men. Likewise, these women, for the most part, do not see themselves as role models for other women, and few function as mentors to women.

Discussion

A number of our findings are congruent with the current literature on women in leadership. Most significant in this category is the highly relational character of the leadership styles of our participants. As with the senior executives (Astin and Leland 1991; Helgesen 1990; Rosener 1990), these mid-level leaders also stressed ways of working that focused on the important of participation, collaborative interaction, and knowing and embracing the different styles of their people. These leaders want the best in their staff to emerge - to have the people they supervise feel 'important' and 'good about themselves' and the work they are doing.

These women also cite responsiveness as a key value, not only to the people with whom they work, but also to the context of the situations in which they work. Again this is in step with what we know about women leaders. Helgesen (1990) provides us with the metaphor of 'the voice', of hearing others, versus that of visioning, to allow this responsiveness to both people and the context. The assumption underlying her observations on visioning is that in the visioning process leaders view their organisations in primarily objective and detached ways - they ''step-back' to view reality 'with a clear eye', ....record truth impassively, 'like a camera'' (p. 222) and then move their organisations towards the truth. In contrast, Helgesen emphasises that women leaders primarily base their work on what is being said around them - on hearing and listening to the voices that surround them. 'A vision may exist alone..., but a voice cannot be a voice unless someone is there to hear it; it finds its form in the process of interaction' (223) and allows for the sensibilities of other people and the situation at hand.

Our finding that the majority of our women had linear career paths, as noted earlier was a surprise to us. The literature on women's leadership argues that women, because of family responsibilities and moves required by the husband's job, follow a more indirect path of career development (Baker and Bootcheck 1985; Morrison 1992; Shakeshaft 1989) . On the other hand, what we learned about these career-oriented women is well supported in the literature: these women are usually either single or in non-traditional marriages. Clearly, the traditional model of marriage is not congruent with women's career development; as women choose to make their careers a priority, the model of marriage must change. The prevalence of linear career paths among the women in our study may indicate that these changes are beginning to take place.

The personal costs for women in mid-level leadership roles was a particularly strong theme in our study, and a troubling one. All the women spoke of the difficulties of balancing their personal and professional lives, and many told poignant stories of personal loss because of career demands, like the woman who missed her son's physics show because her flight home from Chicago was delayed: 'I missed the whole thing....I'm still sorry I missed it because...it will never come again'. Most of our women would agree with her that 'it's a very lop-sided life'. And it is lop-sided because the career model is designed for men, and women are expected to adjust to it. Organisations need to make major changes in the way they do business and structure their personnel policies in order to provide women the opportunity to integrate leadership roles with their personal lives. For example, organisations could 'change their recruitment and selection criteria so they do not favour men, encourage an organisational culture that rewards results rather than long hours, and...expand options for flexible work schedules' (Smith and Smits 1994:45). These changes may not be seen as feasible or even welcomed as they deviate from how many think leadership roles ought to be framed and carried out. Yet, by not making these changes, organisations are missing out on the special talents and competencies that women have demonstrated they can bring (Astin and Leland 1991; Helgesen 1990; Morrison 1992; Shakeshaft 1989). Until changes like these are made, women will be forced to choose between continuing to pay a high personal price for their leadership roles or leaving organisations and moving out on their own.

Perhaps the most striking finding of our study is the absence of gender awareness among the women we interviewed. While all of them told us about some form of gender discrimination in their careers, most did not generalise beyond their personal experience to detect a systematic pattern of gender discrimination in the careers of women. They essentially written-off experiences as something to be expected, 'the cost of doing business', rather than problematise them and seeing such experiences as evidence of a pervasive pattern of discrimination against women in our society. Refusing to see the underlying power relationships that support such discrimination, they see no need to challenge them, and hence have no interest in aligning themselves with feminist agendas for change. They likewise fail to see the need to advance the careers of other women. It is obvious that these women will present no challenge to the status quo within their organisations. It may well be that it is women with these benign attitudes whom men in upper administration consider safe to advance to positions of leadership. This dimension certainly merits further study.

References

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Baker, T. L., Bootcheck, J. A. (1985) The Relationship of Marital Status and Career Preparation to Changing Work Orientations of Young Women : a Longitudinal Study. Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization, 5:372-349.

Bierema, L. L. (1994) How Executive Businesswomen Develop and Function in Male Dominated Organizational Culture. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Georgia.

Caffarella, R. S. (1992) Psychosocial Development of Women. Linkages to Teaching and Leadership in Adult Education. Columbus, Ohio, ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education (Information Series No. 350).

Fagenson, E. A. (ed.) (1993) Women in Management : Trends, Issues, and Challenges in Managerial Diversity. Newbury Park : London.

Helgesen, S. (1990) The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership. New York : Doubleday Currency.

Morrison, A. M. (1992) The new leaders: guidelines on leadership diversity in America. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

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Perreault, G. (1996) Sharing the vision: leadership as friendship and feminist care ethics. A Leadership Journal: Women in Leadership-Sharing the Vision, 1(1):33-50.

Shakeshaft, S. (1989) Women in Educational Administration Update Edition. Newbury Park, CA : Sage.

Smith, P. L., Smits, S. (1994) 'The Feminisation of Leadership', Training and Development Journal, 48(2):43-46.

Snyder, R. A. (1993) 'The Glass Ceiling For Women: Things That Don't Cause It And Things That Won't Break It', Human Resource Development Quarterly, 4(1):97-106.

Wicke, P. (1990) Rock Music. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Caffarella, R. S. University of Northern Colorado, USA
Clark, C. M. & Ingram, P. Texas A & M University, USA

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