If someone asked you whether the insurance industry is improving when it comes to gender diversity, how would you respond?
Eighty-six percent of respondents at the 2016 Women in Insurance Conference Series said yes, the industry has progressed. But only 35% of agencies that participated in the 2016 Future One Agency Universe Study have woman principals or senior managers.
It’s no surprise that so few women insurance professionals hold leadership positions today, considering that the percentage of American women in the workforce peaked in 1999 at 60%, according to Pew Research.
To help employers understand why certain organizations continue to lag in gender diversity—and why it’s important to push forward—Caliper published The Women Leaders Research Paper, a study that analyzes character traits of successful women in senior roles and identifies the barriers they must overcome to get there.
The Obstacles Women Face
Stereotypes are one of the biggest challenges that affect the way women perform at work. In particular, Tom Schoenfelder, senior vice president of research and development at Caliper, points out a phenomenon known as stereotype threat: the “awareness that there’s a negative stereotype about the demographic to which you belong, and the fear that you’re going to attain that stereotype.”
Some women respond to this anxiety by adopting a leadership approach that’s perceived as more masculine, while others unconsciously conform to the typical role society has cut out for them. Regardless, Schoenfelder suggests it’s a problem when women change their leadership behaviors according to external expectations.
“Women are expected to have a more communal type of approach that’s concerned about the well-being of people being led,” Schoenfelder explains. “And we think of men as having an approach that’s more competitive and independent. Unfortunately, even to this day, we find people migrating to that idea of leadership. It’s an outdated idea that was best left in the industrial revolution—but it has an impact on women as they ascend leadership ranks.”
To help diminish stereotype threat and create space for women to climb the ladder based on their own personal leadership style, Schoenfelder recommends that employers “create a workplace mindset that leadership can be cultivated—that leadership is not a stable trait.”
The mindset pays off: The Caliper study found that successful women leaders who were able to mitigate stereotype threat were more assertive and empathetic, and exhibited high stress tolerance. “They were willing to set their own rules and not be bogged down by structures of culture within an organization,” Schoenfelder explains.
Besides stereotype threat, Caliper also identified additional barriers that negatively impact women leaders. Chief among them are work-life balance issues, including feelings of guilt for not spending enough time with family because of work; family responsibilities interfering with work; and lack of support in the household when work is demanding.
In response to these pressures, Schoenfelder recommends developing a more flexible workplace—which benefits all employees. “First, reevaluate your company policy procedures. Revisit things like travel requirements and nontraditional work hours to help women mitigate challenges with work-life balance,” he suggests.
How Successful Women Lead
Many character traits of successful women leaders correlate with those of all leaders, like effective communication and decisiveness, Caliper reports.
But usually, women in senior roles don’t exhibit the same “politicking” skills. Schoenfelder explains, “Deliberate decision making and strategic talent management are reflective of what we’ve found in the last 15 years in the general leader population. They’re able to navigate politics and deal with the ‘boys club.’ But when you isolate women leaders, that doesn’t appear.”
This difference in approach is a matter of transformational vs. transactional leadership styles. Schoenfelder identifies the women leaders in Caliper’s assessment as transformational: “They tend to be more comfortable making their own rules and establishing their own procedures. They’re also more encouraging to employees, allowing them to take ownership of a mission, which gets people to perform beyond expectations and understand where they fit into the big picture.”
Transactional leaders, on the other hand, “tend to be more effective in manufacturing scenarios where there’s one way of doing things,” Schoenfelder says. “A transactional approach translates to ‘there’s a best way to do this around here, and we’re going to stick to that.’ And there are consequences when you don’t do something right.”
Although attributes of transformational leaders align with some female stereotypes, that’s not to say that these attributes are negative. “We think women are more communal and more concerned about individual development, which is a hallmark of transformational leadership,” Schoenfelder points out. “The degree to which professional development is a concern of yours is the degree to which you’re tapping into intrinsic motivation.”
In a service-based economy, “that type of leadership is just more effective,” Schoenfelder adds. “We find that women leaders are more transformational in their style simply because they have to be.”
Keep an eye on IAmagazine.com and upcoming editions of the News & Views e-newsletter to meet women leaders who are thriving in the insurance industry.
Jordan Reabold is IA assistant editor.
