You Might Be Destined To Be CEO One Day Even If You Never Wanted It

You Might Be Destined To Be CEO One Day Even If You Never Wanted It New research published in the Harvard Business Review suggests that notlage all women have earning the title of CEO as their end goal not even some women who do end up as CEOs.Only 6.4 percent of Fortune 500 companies are run byfemale CEOs, which means that there are 32of them this year. While the percentage feels insignificant, this is the highest number weve yet to see, up from 21 last year. And some women in these positions are surprised to even find themselves there.As part of their 10025 initiative, whichpushes for female CEOs to lead100 of the Fortune 500 by 2025, the Rockefeller Foundation provided a grant for Korn Ferry to design and execute aresearch projectthat would develop action-oriented initiatives to create a sustainable pipeline offemale CEOs.Researchers secured the participation of 57 female CEOs, from Fortune 1000 companies to large privately held companies, and they conducted a series of in-depth individual interviews with each. They dove into pivotal experiences in each womans person history and career progression, and they used Korn Ferrys executive online assessment to measure key personality traits and other factors that had an impact on their careers. The goal welches to unpack womens success in an effort to help organizations better identify and leverage their highest-potential female leaders. In theory, this shouldensure mora women success going forward.They discovered that female CEOs actually worked in a slightly higher number of roles, functions, companies and industries than men leading companies of comparable sizes they were also four years older, when compared to benchmark data, before becoming CEO. In short Women expend more energy, effort and years to earn the title of CEO than men.That said, the researchers also found that, of those 57 women, only five had always wanted to be CEO, three never wanted to be and two-thirds said they never realized they could be CEO until someone told them so.Another key finding might explain why women said they never wanted to be CEO. For one, the study found that women are more driven by achieving business results and making a positive impact. More than two-thirds of the CEOs the gruppe assessed were motivated by a sense of purpose and believed that the company could have a positive impact on its community, its employees or the world, and nearly one quarter said that creating a positive culture was one of their most important accomplishments.Whilefemale CEOs were comparably motivated by collaborating with other people, taking on more responsibility, power and scope, the interviews strongly suggest that status, power and reward were not enough to attract women to the role, the researchers write. Ambitious women may be hesitant to self-promote, driven more by a sense of purpose and a desire to contribute value and shape culture.As for the women who didnt know they could be? They described themselves as inte nsely focused on driving results rather than on their advancement and success.The recognition by a boss or mentor was key to sparking long-term ambition in many of the women, the researchers explained, referencing one woman who said shed really just wanted a good job with a good company, and never imagined anything past manager, forget CEO.In eight cases, women didnt even realize theyd wanted to be CEO until the position was offered to them.Women with backgrounds in STEM, business, finance or economics made up the bulk of female CEOs in the study (40 percent) they had an advantage as theyve been enabled to build their credibility in disciplines with clear, definable outcomes. On the contrary, none of the women started in HR a field in which women are disproportionately represented.What does this all mean? Even if you havent considered it or cant predictit, you could be a CEO some day, too especially if youre equipped with one of the aforementioned backgrounds.The researchers sugge st ways in which companies can also take steps to sustain a pipeline of female CEOs. They include identifying early potential, illuminating the path to CEO, ensuring sponsors, articulating roles in terms that engage women and keeping cognizant of the glass cliff (the fact that women are more likely to be selected for senior positions in roles associated with states of crisis or high risks of failure).For more, check out the studys summary here.--AnnaMarie Houlis is a multimedia journalist and an adventure aficionado with a keen cultural curiosity and an affinity for solo travel. Shes an editor by day and a travel blogger atHerReport.orgby night.