Last year, when Glassdoor released its annual ranking of employees’ highest rated CEOs based on their feedback during the year, just two women appeared among the top 50 (actually 51 due to an error), with one, Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer, nearly dead last.
This year, however, women have completely disappeared. Among the 50 CEOs that garner the highest praise from their employees, the faces are all male.
There are, of course, few female CEOs who might end up on the list to begin with. Among companies in the S&P; 500 index, just 23, or 4.6 percent, have a woman in the top position. Those ranks aren’t likely to swell anytime soon: women make up just 25 percent of executive and senior officers at these companies and those that are in the highest ranks are stuck in jobs unlikely to lead to the corner office.
But even women who do make it into leadership have to deal with the fact that Americans still like to see a man in charge. Both men and women say they prefer men as a senior executives at Fortune 500 companies. When asked, more Americans say they’d prefer to work for a man than for a woman.
Women also face a backlash when they try to act like bosses. They are penalized at work both personally and financially when they act assertively. Female leaders are more likely to be called abrasive, aggressive, strident, and emotional. Women are also more likely than men to get negative feedback on their work performance.
Women CEOs may come in set up to fail. A number of studies have found that they get a shot at leadership during tough times, while men are likely to be given the jobs when company performance is stable. That’s likely part of why women are more likely than men to be pushed out of chief executive jobs.