I recently read the article “The Black Ceiling: Why African-American Women Aren’t Making it to the Top in Corporate America” by Ellen McGirt. The article highlights Ursula Burns achievement of becoming CEO and touches on specific reasons why African-African women aren’t making it to C-level positions in the business world.
Ursula Burns was the only African-American woman to make it on the list of Fortune 500 Companies as a CEO in 2009. After her departure in 2016 as Xerox’s CEO, there are currently zero African-American women as CEOs in the Fortune 500. Due to the lack of black women in the Fortune 500, when Burns finally made it to CEO, rather than it being considered an achievement or a milestone, it seemed more like an anomaly.
Burn’s background was a perfect example of growth and success, as she comes from a humble childhood and family. She grew up poor living in New York’s Lower East Side; her mother used to wash and iron other people’s clothes for a living.
Burns made her way through school thanks to her math abilities that led her to earn scholarships and an internship at Xerox where she became CEO. Before Burns accomplished the CEO position, Xerox invested in her early, largely due to her dedication and performance. That was how she finally made it to the C-Suite at Xerox.
After Burns left her position at Xerox, many people were surprised why another African-American woman hasn’t been able to fill her place, and based on her experience in Corporate America, she has an idea why.
- First she says, public schools and communities do not give the importance they should to low-income children and prepare them to be business professionals before they graduate.
- It takes 20 years to prepare someone for an entry-level position. It takes even longer to prepare someone for a specialty that corporations want such as STEM. Although black women are graduating out of college in record numbers many don’t study fields that lead to the C-Suite. And for the black women that do make it into corporations, they tend to end up going into support roles. In order to make it to the C-Suite, you need to be close to the product and/or the money.
Another alarming statistic that I uncovered after reading the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business was that there was only one African-American woman listed, Ann-Marie Campbell from Home Depot. Campbell is the EVP for U.S stores and was ranked at number 18. This year, there were 32 women CEOs leading fortune 500 companies. That number is up 21% since 2016 and although there are cracks in the glass ceiling, for African American women a barrier is still in place.
Another important factor why black women are not succeeding or making it in Corporate America, is because black women are considered to be “double outsiders” according to talent and management research firm Catalyst. Because they are neither white nor men and as a result they aren’t involved in informal networks that help others find jobs, mentors and sponsors.
Research from the Catalyst survey also shows that black women often feel overlooked and demoralized in the workplace. Black women report that in their working environments they often feel continually overlooked, their accomplishments diminished and that people pile on cultural slights—about their hair, appearance, even their parenting skills. And, they often have fraught relationships with white women, who tend to take the lead on issues of women and diversity.
In order to change black women’s situations in Corporate America, it’s indispensable that companies work in regulating relationships between managers and their employees. In 2015, Intel invested 300 million in diversity initiatives and one of those initiatives was a warmline. A warmline is a service that Intel created which operates as a safety net for employees who are feeling overlooked or have a grievance with a manager. The call line has a staff of people to help the employee assess the problem and work with them towards a solution. The warmline is providing predictive analytics to help Intel become proactive to some of the challenges and for managers who are on the wrong end get individualized coaching.
While there is no panacea for corporate diversity challenges, there are many people stepping up to challenge it in interesting ways. For us, at Black Heights, we are focusing specifically on training, coaching and exposure.
Luckily, we have women like Ursula Burns, that although she has already resigned from her position as Xerox’s CEO, she is willing to help make a change.
BH Nugget:
Black Heights was founded with a specific vision to prepare African-Americans for upward mobility in management and leadership positions around the world. We do this by training, providing coaching and bringing exposure from multiple perspectives to the challenges that we face as people in Corporate America. As we become familiar with the truths of one another, we will build a better understanding of how to work together which will contribute to building a more inclusive world.
Sources:
Ellen McGirt, (2017, September, 27) “The Black Ceiling: Why African-American Women Aren’t Making It to the Top in Corporate America”, https://fortune.com/2017/09/27/black-female-ceos-fortune-500-companies/, Fortune, Accessed 11/01/2018
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