Enablers of advancement of women to top management positions in South Africa

Abstract

The glass ceiling continues to be a phenomenon that exists in the workplace where women find themselves able to move from junior roles to middle management roles but somehow find it hard to move into the upper echelons of management. There is sufficient research on the barriers that prevent women from moving into senior or top management but there is little research on how these barriers can be overcome. The purpose of this paper is to find out from women who managed to go beyond the glass ceiling, how that was possible and what organisations can do to enable women in top management positions.A qualitative study was undertaken by way of semi-structured interviews. A total of 11participants were interviewed consisting of 3 men and 8 women. A theoretical framework from the literature review was used to compare the data collected from the interviews.Based on the findings, both men and women indicated that the organisation must be intentional about enabling women to reach top management positions. Coaching and mentoring were identified by the women as the most effective contributing factor to enabling women to reach top management positions. One of the challenges that was identified by a few respondents included the impostor syndrome which left the women feeling inadequate for these roles.All participants agreed that sometimes there is a bias from men towards women which stems from a historical, patriarchal society and the respondents agreed that top managers and human resource managers have a role to play to change this landscape. There were other interventions that were identified to assist enabling women such as leadership programs, but these we redeemed not to be as effective especially when these programs are not designed for women specifically.