Conclusions

Actual achievements and outstanding personal qualities are certainly necessary to make a career in Russia. However, the study revealed that they may not always be sufficient. Executives – men and women – are competing for a place under the sun in the same environment but in different conditions. The path to desired goals is strewn with internal and external barriers. Climbing up the career ladder is also directly and indirectly affected by traditions and stereotypes. It should be noted that most of the surveyed executives (72%) took conscious steps to build their careers. They admit they always had leadership potential and strived to get to a high position. Only 28% of the respondents didn’t plan their careers and their promotion was largely due to chance.

1. The study clearly showed that Russian executives – men and women alike – believe the main career builders are professionalism and competency (97%), personal qualities (91%), commitment (89%) and education (77%). These factors are traditionally considered the key career “enablers” by managers the world over.

Other important factors affecting Russian managers’ careers include luck, support by a wise mentor and by peers, and financial considerations. However, peer support in Russia has certain “local colour”. 46% of the respondents noted importance of good connections for successful career development; men executives valued this factor higher than women did (55% against 41%).

Motivating factors of upwardly mobile women include overcoming genderrelated stereotypes, proving to themselves and to others their leadership potential. Outstanding personal qualities are certainly required to achieve that, which fact was noted by almost all female respondents (99% against 89% for men).

2. The study discovered significant differences between Russian and foreign-owned companies’ approaches to business operations, selection of managers and career development. E.g. having good connections is a much less important career development factor in foreign companies (35%, against 50% in Russian organisations). Gender-related stereotypes and blocking by superiors are much more common in Russian companies than in foreign ones (24% against 5% and 23% against 3%, respectively).

Obviously, the above explains the fact that compared with Russian companies’ personnel, employees of foreign firms more often build their careers systematically – as opposed to reacting to changing external circumstances (81% against 68%).

The surveyed representatives of Russian and foreign companies had different opinions about female presence on management teams. 84% of foreign-owned companies’ personnel agreed that women must take part in management. The share of Russian companies’ managers who agreed with that was only 52%. The different approaches seem to be determined by different business environments. Many foreign companies actively implement programmes specifically designed to support young women and develop their leadership potential. Russian business is just starting to move in that direction, and even at the top corporate management level prejudices about female executives still remain quite strong.

3. Unfortunately we must note that stereotypes about women managers continue to play a significant role in Russia’s business environment. E.g. 45% of the respondents agreed that it was impossible for women to combine a successful career with an adequate family life, while 36% believed that by pursuing success in business, “women cease being women”.

Indeed, when companies place their executive vacancies with Russian recruiting agencies they still not infrequently specify that only male candidates will be considered. The in-depth interviews and the quantitative survey revealed that people still see some jobs as “men’s” and others as “women’s”, and most of them believe that management jobs are for men while a third of the respondents (31%) thought female executives were “rather an exception”.

A biased approach to assessing women’s leadership potential still remains common, which of course slows down their career development. For example, many of the respondents believed that female leaders “can’t take sufficiently tough positions” (29%), “can be successful only in traditional for them spheres” (21%) and “are not willing to take risks when making decisions” (32%).

Gender structures of most companies’ management teams are evolving very slowly; the traditional perception of women just as “family hearth keepers” remains quite strong in the Russian society. Major internal barriers hindering women’s careers are closely connected with the need to spend time with their families. Aspirations to win peer respect and recognition are still seen by many as a revolt, an attempt to break these prejudices. Women struggling to cope with their home and career at the same time, to meet their work and family responsibilities – often without any support from her immediate circle of friends or colleagues – on top of that have to prove all the time, to themselves and others, that they’re good managers worthy of their positions. At the same time, trying on “the man’s role”, not every female executive is willing to see their family as a “project” and combine it with their career, or they simply don’t know how to do that. Still, actual examples of successful female executives in Russian companies show that can be done.

There’s no doubt that companies’ – and whole nations’ – competitive edge these days as never before depends on abilities and competencies of the companies’ staff and management. Innovation, ability to offer unique services to clients and the great diversity of clients create new challenges for executives in the new decade. Are they ready to deal with them? How are they going to ensure sustainable development of their organisations?

There are increasingly more voices in favour of putting together diverse teams, but in actual reality, only few executives are willing to accept different styles, approaches and ways of thinking. Still, a balanced management team is the call of the time. More than half of the surveyed executives (60%) believed women must take part in managing their companies. According to the in-depth interviews participants, bringing a few women on the company’s board of directors would make the management – and the whole company – more efficient. Companies should keep that in mind trying to get an edge over their competition.

Overcoming gender-related stereotypes and prejudices will take years or even decades. But we must start now. Problems highlighted in this study, which executives have to deal with, are not insurmountable. Getting over external obstacles combined with conscious efforts to break internal barriers would gradually change the existing situation. By introducing gender-related educational courses in schools and colleges, disseminating success stories, designing special programmes for women managers and those still at the early stages of their professional development, we’ll contribute to Russia’s overall dynamic