Oxbridge education less of an advantage for women leaders and instead judged on personality, research finds

Women leaders are drastically less advantaged by going to Oxbridge or by their educational background than male counterparts and are instead judged on their personality, new research has found.

A report by Thomas International – which specialises in people assessments – found age and education could predict 25 per cent of the reason why a man was in a senior role, while personality and emotional intelligence accounted for 10 per cent.

But for women, the reverse was true, with age and education only 10 per cent of the reason why they had rose to the top, and 25 per cent due to their personality and emotional intelligence.

Study age and education are therefore 150 per cent more likely to predict why a man is a senior leader in comparison to a woman.

While the in-depth research found that women are judged more on their personality, it also revealed they are far more harshly scrutinised than men – with it being difficult to get ahead if their personality is not deemed to be “right”.

Thomas International assessed the personality traits and emotional intelligence of 137 director-level female leaders in organisations with at least 100 employees for the study. It then benchmarked them against a demographically, hierarchically and industry-matched male senior leadership sample.

“A man with an Oxbridge degree will be offered a huge advantage in their career efforts compared to a woman with an equivalent qualification, even if she has better leadership traits. The end result will be lots of average men getting ahead of more talented women.” Jayson Darby, head of psychology at Thomas International, told The Independent.

“You have got the unconscious bias at the recruitment stage, such as an older man being seen as more advantageous in business, but older women not being seen like this. You also have the fact Oxbridge can be an old boys’ club and the fact things are so much about who you know rather what you know. This means mediocre men are getting ahead of better women.”

The research – for what the authors say is the first time ever – found there is no difference in the emotional intelligence and personality traits of female and male leaders but that the problem lies in the fact the two genders are perceived totally differently.

Women are plagued by stereotypes and unconscious bias, with the research finding evidence to suggest some traits are perceived as positive if a man expresses them but negative if a woman displays them.

It found standing your ground and being direct is deemed as assertive if you are a man but bossy if you are a woman. Furthermore, women are expected to be more serious at work if they want to be seen as so-called “leadership material” and being too happy is seen as “flighty” and “not having what it takes”.

Another example the research cited was that losing your cool and showing strong emotions is often seen as passion in a man but hysteria in women.

Nevertheless, the study found that when you get past the stereotypes, female leaders are no more empathetic than male leaders and male leaders are no more assertive and composed than female leaders.

The research found that against every measure, including approach to risk, competitiveness, assertiveness, conscientiousness, emotion management, relationships and optimism, there is no discernible difference between successful male and female leaders.

In contrast to widespread opinion, women leaders have not needed to be more sensitive than their male counterparts to get to the top and the men were no more likely to be risk-takers or competitive than the females surveyed.

Mr Darby said that in some ways he found the findings surprising but in other ways not – drawing attention to the extreme double standards placed on female leaders.

“Me and you could behave exactly the same way in the meeting and someone could describe me as assertive and you as bossy. A man sends a quick email and he is being concise and getting to the point, a woman does the same and she is not taking the time to be appreciative,” he said.

He called for job recruiters to do personality assessments on people to recruit, promote and develop people and argued this would ensure there was less cultural bias in decision-making processes.

Nikki Walker, an experienced board level executive with over 20 years of commercial and general management experience, said she has struggled with gender stereotyping at various points in her career.

“Early in my career I was given feedback about being too assertive and adjusting my style to suit my gender,” she told The Independent. “There are a lot of people with a lot of views and that does impact how you feel, what you go for and how you progress. As you get more senior you get more used to it. You learn to navigate it.”

“Often [stereotyping] is not overt. Although early on in my career someone said to me ‘when a man is focused and perhaps a bit aggressive he is viewed as ambitious but when a woman adopts that style she is viewed completely differently so I suggest you adapt your style to suit your gender’.”

Ms Walker, who champions women’s leadership for a company called Elevate Talent, which helps organisations diversify their workforce, said in some ways she was surprised by the research.

“I was surprised it was so even. It challenged me to think about how we sometimes perceive that there are differences and people talk about all these reasons women do not progress because they have different traits. There are multiple reasons why women aren’t getting ahead. There is culture and stereotypes and we also are not enabling and helping women to step forward and meet their potential.

“We have managed to get a few women into very senior roles but if we do not have a pipeline when they retire we could go backwards. I would love to say it will be completely different in 10 years but if we follow the same trajectory then we are going to reverse.”