The Succession Gap and the Growing Value of Your Leadership Aspirations

Jan 16, 2024

Episode 437 | Author: Emilie Aries

Your decision to lead is more valuable than ever.

Here at Bossed Up, I see so many savvy people passionate about transitioning into leadership and people management roles every day, and yet, the research suggests this interest is trending downward.

Did you know…

A succession gap is growing

In August, Visier (a people analytics platform) surveyed 1000 full-time individual contributors—employees who are responsible only for themselves and their own work. The goal of the survey was to gauge this demographic’s appetite for moving into management, and the results indicated that interest is low.

Fewer than 40% of the people Visier surveyed aspired to manage others in the future. This wasn’t just an indicator of dissatisfaction at their current organizations, either; just 38% of people expressed interest in management at their current company, and almost the same number, 36%, expressed interest in seeking a management role at a different company.

Once upon a time, the goal of becoming a boss was one of tantalizing prestige and appeal. It was career progress that offered respect and celebrated a professional ideal. Today, the “opportunity” to take responsibility for others seems more likely to be seen as a deterrent.

The gender gap feeds the succession gap

Other studies, like a 2022 academic meta-analysis of over 170 research papers, suggest that women aren’t any more interested in pursuing management positions today than in decades prior. The number of folks interested in management—44% of men to 32% of women —highlights a significant gender gap in leadership aspiration that has not decreased over time. This holds true even as more and more initiatives are launched to bring women into the C-suite and organizations like Bossed Up have worked diligently to facilitate leadership development.

The will to lead: it’s about more than compensation

Management roles call for more responsibility, time, effort, and stress. An expectation of increased financial compensation is certainly warranted, but money isn’t actually the main reason for this reticence, according to the Visier survey.

Work–life balance is being recognized more and more as a top-tier requirement; it’s the lack of flexibility and downtime that is synonymous with the concept of leadership that most people report makes them hesitant to take on the positions.

Organizations that want to effectively close the succession gap must change the ethos and optics around what is expected of management if they want to preserve work-life balance for managers and entice employees up the corporate ladder.

The importance of leadership training

Fewer people willing to accept leadership roles means it’s even more vital that companies actively improve their succession strategies and make sure they’re developing and retaining the people who do want to take the lead.

Quality mentorships and focused leadership training are essential, especially for women and Gen Z. Despite being quite interested in people management (55% compared to 38%), this younger generation is also 10% more likely than millennials to worry about failing in the leadership roles they want to pursue.

The researchers of the meta-analysis I mentioned point out that the gender gap in leadership ambition is not indicative of some inherent or biological female trait, but rather a reflection of our patriarchal society and the impossible double-binds women leaders face. Women aren’t “born followers” any more than men are “born leaders.”

Leadership is a choice

Those of us who do aspire to become people managers need to recognize the value of that choice. A new leadership role always comes with a learning curve, and many of us might wonder if we have what it takes. While you’re planning and negotiating your move into management, remember: you’ve already communicated your value to your company simply by being willing to take on the additional responsibility!

Do these stats on the succession gap shock you, or have you seen evidence of this decline in your own organization? Pop into the Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn to share your take or your own experience!

LEVEL UP YOUR NETWORK:

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EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 437. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today we're talking all about the succession gap.
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Back in August of last year, people analytics platform, Visier, surveyed 1000 U.S. full time employees who identify as individual contributors. And what they were looking for was to gauge their appetite for management, whether or not they wanted to become or aspired to become people managers in or outside of their workplace, so in the future of their careers. And what they found is that people's appetite in today's workforce for managing other people is down, is declining. I don't know if this is surprising or totally understandable, probably a little bit of both. But people's ambition for managing others is pretty low. Only 38% of the individual contributors that they surveyed were interested in becoming a people manager at their current organization, and only 36% of individual contributors were interested in becoming a people manager at a different organization, which really tells us that it's not where they're currently working. It's the entire idea of becoming a people manager that is not particularly appetizing for the vast majority of the workforce.
And 40% of folks who said that they would prefer to just remain an individual contributor say that the top reason is the perception of increased stress, which I can totally understand. Managing people, getting in the business of people by becoming a people manager is kind of like becoming a novice all over again. Maybe you've mastered your craft as an individual contributor. The buck stops with you. You are responsible for yourself and yourself alone. And the idea of becoming responsible for others, while it used to have some more appeal and prestige, and this idea of climbing, uh, a ladder might have been more revered or respected in the past, it's a pretty big deterrent for folks who would rather have the simplicity of an individual contributor role. And so I wish they had more historical data. Like, one thing about this study that I find a little lacking is that it doesn't really give us context over the course of history, but the way that they talk about their findings, and again, this is not an academic, peer reviewed study, but the way that they talk about the findings of their survey is that this is a trend that's trending downwards because of people's rising value of work life balance and having a life outside of work, decentering careers from their identity, which is really interesting. Now, what was further interesting to me is the differences that emerge across gender and age.
Visier, in their study, found a pretty big gender gap. 44% of men said that they were interested in becoming managers someday versus only 32% of women. So over a 10% difference. So, that got me on the path of looking further into this, because I don't want to be peddling nonsensical folklore around women having less ambition for leadership. That certainly doesn't align with my personal worldview, which I spend all my time talking to ambitious women here at Bossed Up who are seeking out leadership development support, who are coming through our Level Up leadership accelerator to become the best people managers they can be. And so that really struck me, and it got me curious. And with a little more research and digging, I found a 2022 academically published meta analysis. So, a study that reviewed other studies, and in it, the scholars reviewed and analyzed 174 past studies with a sample size totalling over 138,000 individuals over the course of the past six decades. And researchers confirmed that there is a small, but significant gender gap when it comes to leadership aspirations. They write, quote, “we confirm that men exhibit greater leadership aspirations than women, find that this effect has not significantly decreased over time, and show that it appears to widen as individuals reach college age and within male dominated industries”. In other words, women in very heavily male dominated industries, like the ones I tend to focus on here at Bossed Up, have even less leadership aspirations than women in more gender equitable, uh, environments. And they show that this sort of decreased appetite for management and leadership ambition really increases and widens the gender gap. So women's ambitions drop as they reach college age. How depressing. I've seen studies like this before that show the more women get educated in college environments, the less confident they feel in themselves in terms of their smarts. It's like the more you know, the more you know, you don't know, and the more humble that leaves women. And the opposite can be true for some men and a lot of more men, frankly, who reach college age. Their ambition becomes greater because they're like, look, I just got this degree. I'm even more qualified. So it's a startling finding that really stood out to me when it comes to contributing to, not explaining by any means, but contributing to the gender leadership gap that we've set out here at Bossed Up to really curb and curtail.
Now, the scholars in this published study, which I'll link to, it's a really interesting study, they go to great lengths to explain that they're not saying women are biologically, innately adverse or less ambitious when it comes to management and leadership positions, but rather, they believe this is internalized socialization of a patriarchal society. So it's not like this is all our fault by any means. But women do have less of an appetite for seeking out management and leadership positions, which I can imagine if you're an organization that's looking to recruit and develop more women leaders to try to close that gender leadership gap. This doesn't help the fact that we have a decreasing appetite for leadership ambition over time, and particularly in very male dominated fields where you might not want to manage the ten person male team that you work alongside, because you can imagine what a nightmare that would be. So depressing, but significant.
The other significant finding in the Visier study is about Gen Z. They found that Gen Z, uh, while very open to becoming people managers, more than half of Gen Z respondents, 55%, said that they're interested in becoming managers someday. They are twice as likely to say that part of the reason they're deterred from becoming a manager is a lack of confidence in their ability to lead and manage a team effectively. Furthermore, Gen Z respondents were ten percentage points more likely than millennials to be concerned about failing in the role when considering their next promotion or taking the role above them, the management role above them. That's so interesting. And it's even more significant when compared against Gen Z and baby boomer respondents. You know what's funny is that this flies in the face and runs totally contrary to the perception that youth, that young people are naively overconfident. Right? Gen Z is saying we really lack confidence in ourselves and we've got a lot to learn. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, right? Because it makes sense. You want more experience, you want more training, you want more support, uh, in order to get to the next level. That's reasonable and understandable and commendable. I would say it's kind of a humble characteristic of the Gen Z generation.
So what does this mean? What does all this data mean? What does this growing succession gap mean for workplaces? The first takeaway from my vantage point is that all the people, operations and learning and development and organizational development teams out there, they have to do some real work around succession planning. Planning for growing their bench of leaders. Because you as an organization, either spend the time and money growing and developing leadership skills and leadership capacity from within actively, or you end up having to recruit leaders from outside of your company, which can be a really expensive endeavor as well. If your workforce is growing, if your organization is growing, you need an active, not passive, strategy in order to build out your bench of leaders of tomorrow. That takes intentional effort. It also tells me that Gen Z, and women in particular, would benefit from increased training and support. The Visier survey found that women and Gen Z respondents said that a way to overcome the deterrence that left them feeling hesitant about pursuing leadership had to do with having mentorship, training programs and leadership development support from within the organization. So to me, I'm a little biased because I'm in the business of leadership development and helping companies, through our Level Up leadership accelerator, grow the leaders of tomorrow, particularly underrepresented leaders like women, and historically underrepresented folks like folks of color and queer leaders. But it really makes a very strong business case, doesn't it, for the ROI of investing in internal leadership development. And then finally, if there's anything this survey finds that workplaces have probably already been hearing quite a bit about, is that people really value their work life balance. This is hard because I know a lot of companies right now are wrestling their way through return to office mandates that just leave a lot of people feeling quite grouchy and infringed upon after 2020 and the rise of the remote workplace. But flexibility is top of the list for so many workers today. When it comes to your retention and leadership strategy in terms of growing and retaining leaders of tomorrow, knowing that people really value work life balance and flexibility, not just financial reward, but reward in the form of more work life balance and flexibility is going to be key for making sure we're not overburdening our managers, um, and driving them out of the organization. Because the fact of the matter is, when someone makes that transition from tactical individual contributor to people manager, they cannot continue to contribute at the same level that they were doing as an individual contributor. Right. We have to make sure that managers workloads are reasonable, that we acknowledge the time and energy and effort it takes to manage a team effectively, and that we support our managers in making the business of people and people leadership a priority.
Finally, what does this mean for you? I think we're entering an era where self awareness is a critical prerequisite for a solid career growth strategy. What I mean by that is, if you are just seeking out promotions for the sake of progress, for the sake of feeling the dopamine hit that you get by getting to that next gold star, that can become a real slippery slope fast. Do you actually want to lead a team? Do you want the challenge of becoming a people manager? I'm not here to deter you. If anything, I want more women to feel encouraged to seek that out. But I don't think we should feel like we have to seek out a people management role, in order to feel like we're making progress in our career. It's always a red flag for me if any of my clients say that they're going for a promotion because they just want more money, that means you should be asking for a raise, not a promotion, right? Like, more money is different than more responsibility. And so if you're looking for more money, go ask for that raise. Go download my free negotiation guide at bossedup.org/negotiation or start your job search. We've got tons of job search resources, too. But if it's more responsibility, if it's actually an appetite that you have for the challenge of leading other people, you should know that you and that ambition you have is becoming increasingly rare. So know the value that you bring to making the courageous choice to be a leader. And proceed with confidence that your willingness to lead is valuable to your organization. And if your organization doesn't agree with that, go find another organization that does. The bottom line here, and I always come back to this, is that leadership is a choice, not a trait. Choosing to lead is not the easiest path in a lot of instances, but it's not like some people are born leaders and some people are not. Choosing to step into a leadership role is a precious, and this sounds so hyperbolic, but I feel like it's a sacred responsibility that we should not take lightly and know that there's a lot of value in being willing to stick your neck out and take charge on behalf of others. As Simon Sinek says, quote, “leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in our charge”. So proceed knowing that that is a bold choice to make and that taking care of those who you're tasked with leading is becoming a rare thing in our business climate today.
I'd be curious to hear what you think about the succession gap. Does this surprise you? Does this totally align with what you're hearing in your workplace? Let's keep the conversation going, as always, in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook or in our Bossed Up group on LinkedIn.
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And as always, there's a fully written out blog post and transcript that you can find and share at bossedup.org/episode437 that's bossedup.org/episode437. Until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose and together, let's lift as we climb.
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