Glass Half-Broken
Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work
Why the gender gap persists and how we can close it
Women have made up roughly half of the college-educated workforce for years, and before the onset of the economic crisis of 2020, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the labor force was the lowest on record. But women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status. The gender pay gap, for example, shows little movement, largely because high-paying jobs are the most gender-imbalanced. Even in areas where there are roughly equal numbers of men and women, or where women actually make up the majority, leadership ranks remain male-dominated.
The endurance of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? A 2020 analysis by a team of sociologists affirms that progress, as measured by rates of women's employment, earnings, and the types of fields and jobs they work in, has either stalled completely or slowed.
With fifty years of sweeping reforms in educational and corporate policy, it's tempting to think that any remaining gender imbalances reflect differences in individual merit or behaviour, not organisational barriers. Much of the popular media supports this idea, with countless books and articles offering advice on what women should do to overcome challenges: lean in, speak up, do power poses, stop apologising, and delegate more.
Ammerman and Groysberg focus instead on the pervasive organisational obstacles and managerial actions that create gender imbalance. Bringing to light the key findings from the latest research in psychology, sociology, and economics, Glass Half-Broken shows that along their entire career path — from entry- to mid- to senior-level positions — women get pushed out of the leadership pipeline and, at each point, for different reasons. Presenting institutional and managerial strategies designed to overcome and mitigate these barriers at each step in the career path, Glass Half-Broken is the authoritative resource that managers and leaders at all levels can use to finally shatter the glass ceiling.
Colleen Ammerman is Director of the Harvard Business School Gender Initiative, which catalyzes and translates cutting-edge research to transform practice, enable leaders to drive change, and eradicate gender, race, and other forms of inequality in business and society. She has authored various articles and teaching materials on gender and work and is a researcher with Life and Leadership After HBS, a longitudinal study of the post-MBA paths of Harvard Business School alumni that examines how race, gender, and other factors shape their life and career experiences.
Boris Groysberg is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a faculty affiliate at the Gender Initiative. He has won numerous awards for his research, which focuses on the challenge of managing human capital in small and large organizations across the world. Groysberg is the author of the award-winning book Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance and the coauthor of Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power Their Organizations. A frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, he has written more than a hundred articles, notes, and case studies on how firms hire, engage, develop, retain, and communicate with diverse talent to create inclusive cultures.
You can find Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg on Twitter @colleenammerman, @bgroysberg, @HBSgender, and hbs.edu/gender.
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