More and More, She's the Boss

By Janice Castro

Ask most boys what they are going to be when they grow up, and they might answer that they want to be a policeman, an astronaut or whatever Daddy is. But when someone asked Jonathan Sheer, 12, that question, he answered without hesitation: "I want my mother's job."

Jonathan's mother Jane Evans is the president of Monet (estimated 1985 sales: $120 million), part of Crystal Brands. Evans sees her son's answer as a sign of the times. Says she: "If a boy had said that 20 years ago, people would have assumed that his mother was a secretary." Today Mom may be an executive.

Women are now setting their corporate goals high, and more and more are achieving their ambitions. Between 1972 and 1983, the number of executive women in U.S. business more than doubled, from 1.4 million to 3.5 million, and it is still climbing. Says Harvard Labor Economist David E. Bloom: "The growth of women in the work force is probably the single most important change that has ever taken place in the American labor market. Their arrival at high executive levels will be the major development for working women over the next 20 years."

Only one woman, Katharine Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Co. (1984 sales: $984 million), heads a FORTUNE 500 company. Her family controlled the Post when she took over in 1963. Like Graham, women who headed major firms in the past were usually the wives or daughters of the owners. Christie Hefner runs Playboy Enterprises, the company started by her father. Moya Lear became chairman of LearAvia, a maker of corporate jets, after her husband William died in 1978.

But a new class of women executives are heading upward in U.S. companies, climbing the corporate ladder one rung at a time. They are moving higher on the basis of talent, not family ties. Perhaps the most highly placed of these bootstrap female executives is Verna Gibson, who in May was named president of Limited Stores (see box). With estimated 1985 sales of $800 million, Limited Stores is the largest women's fashion chain in the U.S.

Behind those executives, advancing through the ranks in banks, manufacturing companies, retail firms and service corporations are thousands of ambitious young women. Says Rand Corp. Economist James P. Smith: "They are in the pipeline in middle management now. It is inevitable that after 20 years of work experience, a good number of those women will be at the top."

Companies have discovered that selecting only male candidates means ignoring about half of the best talent available, and many are now actively recruiting women managers. Says Caroline Nahas, a partner at Korn/Ferry International, a Los Angeles-based executive-search firm: "More and more companies realize that a good manager is a good manager regardless of sex."

Some firms were quicker than others to regard women as executive timber. In his latest book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Management Expert Peter Drucker reports that New York's Citibank was one of the first major companies to go after female M.B.A.s, in the 1970s. Recruiters who were sent out in search of the best male graduates in finance and marketing began reporting back to headquarters that many of the best graduates were women, not men. The bank told them simply to hire the best.

Wall Street has come a long way since Muriel Siebert became the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, in 1967. Shortly thereafter, Siebert, who has her own firm, became the first woman to trade on the floor of the exchange. Though only a handful of women have become partners at major trading houses, about one-third of Wall Street's younger professionals are now female.

As women have taken their place in management, both sexes have learned new ways of working together. Women have started taking more risks and competing more aggressively. Says Cathleen Black, publisher of USA Today: "Unfortunately, for a long time women were just grateful to get a position. Men, on the other hand, assumed that they were on the fast track." Women managers have also developed a more relaxed style, in contrast to the harsh manner of some of their predecessors. One reason for that change: men are becoming more comfortable with the new relationships.

Choosing a woman for a senior position used to be enough to spark speculation that the company was in trouble. Leanne Lachman, president of the Chicago-based Real Estate Research Corp. (estimated 1985 revenues: $7.8 million), recalls that her promotion in 1979 triggered such stories about her firm. Says she: "Appointing a woman as president was a high-risk thing to do at the time." Barbara Gardner Proctor avoided the problem in 1970 when she founded her Chicago advertising agency by naming it Proctor & Gardner. Some early clients, she recalls, "assumed that there was a Mr. Gardner who ran the business, and I was in sales. I did not dissuade them from believing this."

Women executives are now more likely to be judged solely on their performance. Says Madelyn Devine, a senior vice president at Wall Street's Oppenheimer & Co.: "The overwhelming objective is to make money. If you can produce, it doesn't matter what you look like or who you are." Susan Fisher, senior vice president of New York's Manufacturers and Traders Trust, agrees. Says she: "This bank wouldn't care if I was a purple frog. All that matters is what I can do for the bottom line." Atlantic Richfield Treasurer Camron Cooper manages $25 billion in company assets and insists that being a woman has nothing to do with her job. "I am the treasurer of Atlantic Richfield," she says, "not the female treasurer."

As the number of women managers grows, male views about them are changing. The Harvard Business Review in September published an update of a survey done in 1965 on opinions about women executives. While only 9% of the men questioned in 1965 said that they held "strongly favorable" attitudes toward women executives, 33% of those asked in 1985 said they held that view.

Similarly, the proportion of men who thought women were "temperamentally unfit for management" declined, from 51% in 1965 to 18% this year. Said one male corporate vice president interviewed for the survey: "Women run the gamut from poor to excellent, just as men do." Perhaps more significant, 47% of the male executives said they would feel comfortable working for a woman, compared with 27% earlier. Concluded the authors of the study: "Stereotypes once held as truth have begun slowly to crumble."

Still, while women are making dramatic progress through the lower and middle ranks of U.S. companies, many managers, male as well as female, say that an invisible line often seems to block qualified women from joining top management. Says Thomas Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence: "The number of women in executive positions today is truly revolutionary, but there is still an incredible barrier to women who want the few best jobs." He says that it will be far easier for a woman to become President of the U.S. than to head one of the "male bastions" in corporate America.

Peters attributes this reluctance to accept women at the pinnacle of the corporate world to "the clubby atmosphere, the unspoken rules at the top." Since so few senior executives can win the top jobs, talent and qualifications are not the only characteristics determining the victors. Some chief executives seem to be unable to think of the female manager as a stand-in, a potential successor. Says Monet's Evans: "The chief executives of most major U.S. corporations have never worked for or with a superbly qualified woman. They know us only as secretaries, wives and lovers. This group is simply not comfortable with us."

There is some evidence that this so-called comfort factor may not change significantly until younger men who have spent their careers working alongside competent women begin to run major U.S. companies. Among the men in the Harvard Business Review survey, those age 40 or younger were more likely to say that they would feel comfortable working for a woman boss.

Another sign that women have yet to be fully accepted as executives is a stubborn salary gap. Separate studies by Harvard, the Rand Corp., Stanford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Business have all documented the same trend. According to Mary Anne Devanna, who conducted the Columbia study released last year, female M.B.A.s entering the work force are paid the same starting salaries as men with the same qualifications (1985 average: $28,584). But within ten years, the women fall behind by 20% in pay, regardless of the company they work for or their jobs.

Most management experts think that several women will win the top jobs in FORTUNE 500 companies within the next 20 years. But few think that women will head half of America's larger companies any time soon. One reason cited by Rand's Smith: "There will always be women who will choose to stay home for family reasons, and either not have a career or drop out of their careers." But whether financial need or ambition sparks their pursuit of a career, the majority of women are choosing to work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more women are working today than ever before, 55% in the latest survey.

Many of those who are unwilling to accept the continuing salary gap or the frustrations in reaching the very top are leaving corporations to set up their own firms. Launching a company offers some indisputable advantages. Says Kay Koplovitz, founder and president of the cable firm USA Network: "The best way to get to the top for a woman is to start there." Says Sandra Kurtzig, founder and chairman of ASK Computer Systems in Los Altos, Calif. (estimated 1985 sales: $100 million): "My being a woman is just not an issue. I'm the boss. They'd better be comfortable with me--or else."

At a time when corporations are facing ever greater competition, especially from foreign firms, American companies are learning that they must reach out for talent and ignore sex. Says Thomas Peters: "It is competition in the market-place, not women, that is changing corporations." Now that women make up nearly half the U.S. labor force and are earning more than half of all bachelor's and master's degrees, tapping that pool of skills is nothing more than good business sense. Says Charles Brown, chairman of AT&T: "Removing the barriers that prevent women from realizing their potential is of critical importance for the stability, growth and competitive position of American business." --By Janice Castro. Reported by Rosemary Byrnes/New York and Cristina Garcia/San Francisco

With reporting by Reported by Rosemary Byrnes/New York, Cristina Garcia/San Francisco