Women and Negotiation: The Leadership Dimension - Building Gender Balanced Business

In the past two decades, a barrage of courses, seminars, and executive education programs have sprung up to teach leadership skills. Scholars ponder the philosophical underpinnings of ethical leadership as well as its economic benefits and costs. At the same time, books, articles, and training workshops teach better negotiation skills. Almost as many offer to show women how to succeed in the workplace, advance into senior positions, and prosper.

But so far, no one has really put all three together: Leadership, negotiation best practices, and women’s advancement. No one has explored the leadership issues generated by the ways women do and don’t negotiate. How do women negotiate? They typically take a collaborative, problem-solving approach. They share information, use interest-based bargaining techniques, and look for creative solutions that benefit both parties. Four decades of negotiation scholarship and the experience of many trained professionals have proven the value of this approach. But here’s the catch: Women readily use these skills to benefit their employers, clients, customers, and patients, as well as their causes, family members, and friends. When it comes to negotiating on their own behalf, however, women pull up short. A heavy load of social pressure discourages women from speaking up for their own interests, directly pursuing greater responsibility, and recommending themselves for larger roles within their organizations. Women have been taught not to ask for what they need, want, and deserve, and as a result, they often settle for less. Not just getting less, but doing less.

Herein lies the leadership opportunity. Around the globe, women are sitting in jobs that don’t take advantage of all their capabilities, jobs that prevent them from contributing fully to their organizations. The impact on their employers is immense. When senior management under-utilizes half of one of the firm’s most important resources—its human capital—they limit productivity, which limits global competitiveness. The more productive your workforce, the more effectively your organization can meet the challenges of a rapidly changing business environment and perform to the highest standards. Any leaders who are not managing their people for maximum productivity are wasting talent and money.

There’s another dimension as well. When women sit in jobs for which they’re over-qualified, when they feel under-appreciated and underpaid, and when they watch equally (or less) qualified men pass them by, they often decide to leave. Rather than going to their supervisors and asking for a raise or a promotion or a chance to do more (as men often do, knowing this is an effective strategy for them), women look for better opportunities elsewhere. Attrition is fantastically expensive. To replace a professional worker costs 150% of that person’s annual salary. One (conservative) estimate puts the total annual cost of attrition to American companies at $438 billion a year.

Women now earn far more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men, which means women are beginning to dominate the educated workforce. What leader can afford to let a large proportion of the educated professionals on his or her staff leave because they’re not advancing? Who wants to take such a heavy hit to his bottom line because powerful social forces have taught women that it’s not okay, not feminine, not attractive, and not safe for them to ask for promotions, titles, raises, and resources?

Ambitious leaders need to recognize this phenomenon and take steps to change their organizational culture accordingly. They need to make it more permissible for women to speak up when they’re ready to do more, move ahead, and expand their spheres of influence. They need to communicate to women that they, senior management, can do their own jobs better if they understand what women need to do their jobs well, and what they want to do next. They need to convince women that senior management is invested in the long-term professional goals of their female employees. And they need to make everyone in their organizations understand that it’s good for women to ask for what they want, and good for business too.