The Glass Ceiling: A Barrier to the Boardroom, Too
A Commentary

In 1977, a mere 46 women had made it to the boardrooms of America's top companies. Today, 500 women hold 721 board seats at the biggest 500 industrial and 500 service companies. But look beyond the raw numbers, and what sounds impressive isn't. Since 11,715 directors oversee those companies, women account for only 6.2% of the total. That's "insignificant," says Catalyst, the nonprofit women's research group that just released a census of women directors.

Nearly half the top companies have no women directors at all--Walt Disney, Lockheed, Salomon, Safeway, Apple Computer, Black & Decker, Digital Equipment, Federated Department Stores, Hospital Corp. of America, Zenith Electronics...and on and on. Only 166 can boast, if that's the word, of more than one woman director. Thirteen women sit on five or more boards, and 15 others serve on four boards. When it comes to the boardroom--even though 46% of the nation's managers and professionals are female--women are still on the outside looking in.

The gap has several causes. Many boards remain cozy clubs, where chief executives interact collegially with peers. Some CEOs fear that women won't know, or observe, the unspoken rules--such as saving sticky questions for private conversations. Female directors, the Catalyst survey shows, also sense that CEOs worry that women will want to devote more time to women's issues, such as family leave. Possibly as a result, these directors say they don't have a women's agenda.

CATCH-22. Since poor directors--male or female--are hard to shed, CEOs usually want directors with previous board experience--a Catch-22 for most women. And CEOs apparently doubt that a significant number of women make the directorial grade: In a poll of 46 CEOs, Catalyst found that 48% thought the nationwide pool of qualified women was fewer than 250.

Optimists argue that time will soon cure these problems. Women are only now reaching the upper echelons of Corporate America, and some of them soon could be CEOs. Men are getting used to women having power on the executive floor, and so are some boardrooms. "They don't say: 'Damn, we put that woman on the board, now we can't go fishing,"' quips financial journalist Terry Savage, the first and only woman on the board of McDonald's Corp.

Still, there is a more subtle factor preventing women from entering the boardroom that time alone won't address: Companies have been looking for directors in the wrong places. Because they want "name-brand" women, when highly visible businesswomen have not been available they have approached academics, government officials, community activists, even celebrities. Catalyst's survey shows that 49% of female directors have worked in education and 28% in government. There's no question that comparable figures for male directors are lower.It's no surprise that some of these women were found wanting. "The women that got on boards in the past have not added that much, it's true," notes Thomas J. Neff, president of search firm SpencerStuart. "That held the number back." It's a classic case of dropping the wrong women into the slots, then generalizing their failure.

If women are to be adequately represented in the boardroom any time soon, Corporate America will have to modify its selection criteria. Instead of looking only to CEOs, retired CEOs, and chief operating officers--who make up the vast majority of directors--nominating committees should reach deeper into corporations, to women who run divisions and to other top corporate offi-cials. They should tap moreprofessionals--investment bankers, corporate attorneys, and accountants--and entrepreneurs.

This isn't necessarily stooping. "There's a difference between lessening the criteria and broadening them," says Nell Minow, co-author of Power and Accountability, a book about boards. By comparison, she points out that fire fighters no longer have to meet height requirements once considered necessary for the job.

Requirements for the post of director may be more nebulous, but they have little to do with title. Professional accomplishment, sound judgment, and expertise in finance are key. All three may be found in many women in Corporate America--if companies look.

True, a few are. Executive recruiter E. Pendleton James says some clients are asking him to find women "who will be CEOs" to be directors. And Neff says that "a name-brand director is not as important with the new generation of CEOs." But this is just a start. Many more companies must follow if businesswomen are to wield the power and influence their numbers suggest they deserve.