AP, January 8, 2009
Black women face special challenges in their efforts to reach the top levels of corporate America, according to a new study.
Weaker or less strategic networks and inaccurate perceptions of their abilities are two leading barriers to their advancement to the positions of CEO, CFO or COO, according to the Executive Leadership Council, an organization for black executives.
One percent of senior corporate officers are black women, according to the ELC, compared with 3 percent for black men, 14 percent for white women and 77 percent for white men.
The ELC questioned 150 executives, ranging from vice presidents to CEOs and board members from a variety of industries and locations, about reasons for the disparities. Thirty-one percent cited networking and 24 percent cited a perception gap as hindering the advancement of black women. Fifteen percent cited racism.
Seventy-five percent of the respondents said it was important to have senior executives who are minorities in order to provide new ideas and innovation and better reflect the diversity of their customers.
“If you have the same group of people looking at the same issues, you will come up with the same solutions,” said Carl Brooks, CEO of the ELC.
To overcome these barriers, black women executives should seek challenging, high-profile assignments; create action plans for accomplishing their career goals; work with executive coaches; and take advantage of critical feedback, respondents said.
{snip}
The study, released Wednesday, was conducted by Harris Interactive from Nov. 4 to Dec. 2. Due to its small sample size, it is not scientifically representative of the business community at large.
Original article
(Posted on January 8, 2009)
Comments
Black females have difficulty networking because they are angry, bitter, obnoxious, overweight behemoths. No one likes to be around them — especially black males. Networking is a sophisticated game of interpersonal relationships, sensitivity and strategy. They don’t have the intelligence or impulse control to maneuver through this intricate game.
George Manuelian
“To overcome these barriers, black women executives should seek challenging, high-profile assignments; create action plans for accomplishing their career goals; work with executive coaches; and take advantage of critical feedback, respondents said.”
Critical feedback? Hmm I can’t imagine any black woman except perhaps Condi Rice accepting critical feedback. Presumably black women executives are civilized enough to bypass the usual volcano of hatred, agression and testostorene ghetto display, but a racism lawsuit would be filed within a week were any manager to give critical feed back or even normal instruction to any black woman in corporate America.
I have friends in the entertainment industry. Some are directors. They hate having to direct black actors because blacks find any kind of direction offensive and grounds for an argument. Even black extras or those with 1 or 2 lines tend to be very offended if an assistant director says, “You’re playing a shopper. I want you to stand over there and pick up a sweater.”
The arguing continues over parking, lunch, overtime, costumes and most of all “Quiet on the set!”
One percent? I’m surprised it is that high. Does that figure include those six figure make work jobs like Michelle Obama had?
Couldn’t it be just the fact that they don’t measure up? Interesting that question wasn’t asked.
Tom Iron…
“…inaccurate perceptions of their abilities..” is a leading cause of blah blah Black failure. I’d say that an accurate perception of their abilities would result in even fewer Blacks advancing. Lucky for them that openly discussing your accurate perceptions of non-Whites is grounds for dismissal in most workplaces.
If you would like to find a nice place to get away from non-whites, upper management is the place to be.
That means get a business degree, work 12 hour days and make a lot of money.
The most intrinsically, naturally “white” men you will find are execs.
Most blacks don’t have the social intelligence to network.
Putting things equal and fair for a change; how many black female owner/created corporations have White male presidents or C.E.O. now and in the last 60 years ? Now who looks bad, racially and gender speaking ?
…which is exactly 1 percentage point higher than the percentage of White starting cornerbacks and running backs in the NFL.
Flamethrower 6:46 reminds us about Michelle Obama’s job, which was as “diversity officer” or somesuch. In many organizations, executive performance is based on the promotion of “diversity” (i.e. quotas by another name). This is bad enough, but what happens is that these “executives”, really like the old fashioned Communits political commissars, are in staff, not line executive positions so they really do not gain the executive experience for CEO type work. Then they complain that they are not promoted. Memo to the diversity crowd: If a business believed that a particular Black, Chicano, Native American or a member of any other group would improve the bottom line, then that person would be selected. That is the beauty of the market. All these quotas and diversity hurt the market and the people.
“Weaker or less strategic networks and inaccurate perceptions of their abilities are two leading barriers to their advancement to the positions of CEO, CFO or COO, according to the Executive Leadership Council, an organization for black executives.” Well, bring back the Wonderlic Test. My mother took it back in the 50s when she applied for work at a Wall Street investment firm back in the 1950s — basically, she walked in off the street. She did so well (missed only 1 of 50 questions) that they instantly hired her for an executive position.
Naturally the article totally ignores the typical lower intelligence of Blacks and therefore can’t be taken seriously except by ignorant wishful (non)thinkers. The article addresses aggregate numbers of Blacks so the AP can’t say that aggregate numbers of low IQ Blacks are not something to also factor into the discussion.
The article failed to mention that black women are vastly, vastly overrepresented in non profit and public sector upper management positions.
There are numerous black women pulling down $200,000 to $400,000 per year as school superintendents, heads of election commissions, and executive directors of various government funded non profits.
Just WHY does this tale sound like that about several Black female attorneys we read about, two or three years ago? Who claimed they were discriminated against… WHY? Because, per their claims, racist senior White attorneys would not mentor them and help them advance. The same old tale of woe… that Black females who are NOT CAPABLE of being promoted are stuck at their current job levels, job categories. But ADMITTING their lack of skills, experience, professional knowledge or statuture keeps them down… forget about it. You’ll NEVER get that admission of truth from Blacks.
Joe B. wrote: Well, bring back the Wonderlic Test.
Until today, I don’t think I’d heard of that, but here’s the scoop . Note that the test was revised in 2007 to include “questions deemed more appropriate to the 21st century.” Sounds like a euphemism for “dumbed down.”
Like yesterday’s anonymous poster, I also caught the “critical feedback” irony. But IMO the racism lawsuit would be filed within an hour, not a week, depending on how long it took for the black in question to recover from the inevitable temper tantrum.
Yeah, bring back the Wonderlic.
From the sample I got 40 - higher than the average Lawyer. Wouldn’t this be a fantastic time to go back to using all our natural resources if we were really going to pull ourselves out of this mess? But it won’t happen, as the “elite” don’t want any movement in the social structure.
So I continue on as “white trash.” But I know the truth. We all do, really.
Since only about 1/100th of a percent of the population are senior executives, I’m not going to worry about it. Are they really worried about this 1/100th of a percent or is what they really concerned about the rest of us?
Note that the test was revised in 2007 to include “questions deemed more appropriate to the 21st century.” Sounds like a euphemism for “dumbed down.”
The egalitarians are always eager for a new target to project blame for the failures of Blacks.
For the longest time, we were told that Blacks performed so poorly on academic measurements and standardized tests because the tests were of a racist construct. They argued that questions such as, “If Mary makes three hors d’oeuvres every 10 minutes for an hour, how many hors d’oeuvres can she make in one hour”, are “culturally-biased” because Blacks are not routinely exposed to terminology such as “hors d’oeuvres” and somehow become confused beyond the ability to see the real intent of the problem.
Of course, would we really expect a different outcome if the questions were more culturally relevant, such as “If Tyrone can rob two package liquor stores per night in da hood, how many package liquor stores can he knock off in a week?”
God only knows what they would make of that question.
Who cares? These women have the nerve to whine about not getting to the top of the corporate ladder. Maybe they’re not competent to lead.
Renee
Black women who have comparable qualifications to white women actually outearn the white females, according to Jared Taylor’s book on racial relations. The blacks may on the whole be less educated, but if you compare a black woman and a white one w/roughly equal education and qualifications, the black is likely to earn more. The reason is the black is likely to have more experience. Such has been the case for decades, says Taylor. In other words, black females are not necessarily hopeless victims.
BTW, I have attended many job networking meetings in various places in metro Atlanta and have never noticed that blacks are any “worse” at networking than whites.
I have attended many job networking meetings in various places in metro Atlanta and have never noticed that blacks are any “worse” at networking than whites.
I too have attended various networking meetings for management, where we have been urged to form networks with each other. However, I have noticed that the blacks DO network and share info WITH EACH OTHER… but they are much less willing to network and share with YOU. In other words, it’s all take but no give. Although they will call and ask you for information, references or favors; don’t you bother to call and ask them.
