7 Reasons Not to Hire a Female CEO
At CEOX, we always say, “If you aren’t considering women when looking for your next CEO, you are likely missing out on finding the best person for the job.” We also regularly hear, “We don’t care if our leaders are male or female, we just want the best person for the job.” We totally agree, but if that’s the case, why is it that women still only make up 6.6% of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies? So we thought it would be fun to dig into why you would NOT want to hire a woman for a CEO role. It turns out there are a lot of reasons why you don’t want a woman in charge, but here are our top seven.
7. You don’t want someone who has the most sought-after leadership skills
When you get a group of experts together to discuss leadership skills, they compile a list of the top-ranking skills a successful leader needs to exhibit. Turns out, women score higher in the most valued leadership skills including taking initiative; resilience; self-development; integrity and honesty; inspiring, motivating and developing others; bold leadership; and relationship building, among others. Clearly you should not hire a woman if you value exemplary leadership.
6. You want unhappy employees
Peakon recently surveyed 60,000 employees in 43 countries and found that both men and women were happier and more satisfied in their jobs at women-led companies. Happier employees are shown to be more productive and have less turnover, but who wants productivity? And who doesn’t like it when employees quit and you have to hire and train someone new? With companies like Glassdoor, people are looking at employee turnover as a sign of the culture they are considering joining. If you don’t want the best and happiest employees, you really don’t want to hire a woman.
5. You think poor communication is a good thing
The same Peakon study that surveyed employee happiness, found that one of the reasons for the happiness at women-led companies was that communication was more effective, which made their company’s mission better defined. This, in turn, led to a greater belief in their company’s product or service. I’m sure you can come up with hundreds of examples where poor communication helped solve some big problems, so definitely don’t hire a woman to lead your company if you value opaque communication.
4. You want lower stock prices
No one cares about stock prices, right? You should definitely not hire a woman if you want your stock prices to go down. Per a recent S&P Global study of 5,825 companies with new executives, the stock price for companies with female chief executives outperformed those with men at the helm by an average of 20%. Your stockholders are going to love seeing their investment decrease in value, so definitely don’t hire a woman.
3. You don’t want the company to grow
Womenable studied women-led versus male-led companies between 1997-2014, and found that businesses owned by women experienced 72.3% growth while, male-owned businesses, only grew by 45.1%. A BizWomen survey of 1,366 business owners revealed that 32% of female-owned businesses are actively expanding compared to only 27% of male-owned businesses. Another interesting study from the Centre for Entrepreneurs checked in with over 400 entrepreneurs and executives and nearly half of women polled plan to start another business within the next three years, while only 18% of men plan to. We all know growth means the death of a business, so definitely don’t hire a woman if you like the status quo.
2. You don’t want your company to create more jobs
Data analyzed from the Census Bureau from 2007-2015 showed that the number of employees who worked at businesses owned by men grew at 0.37% while employees at women-led companies grew by 18.39%. That is a whopping 1.24 million more jobs over eight years than the comparable male-owned companies. More jobs don’t only impact your own business but contribute significantly to the health of our economy as a whole. We certainly don’t want that.
And the number one reason you should not hire a woman to be CEO:
1. You don’t want the company to make more money
You’ve heard that money is the root of all evil, so whatever you do, make sure you don’t make more of it. Karen Rubin at Quantopia has been analyzing different performance scenarios over the past few years and in each one, she has found that companies with women at the helm outperform the S&P 500, where 93.4% of the CEOs are men. If you are a data nerd, dig in and see for yourself. Then there is the recent Morgan Stanley report that found venture capital is leaving four trillion dollars on the table by not investing more in women-led companies. Another analysis from First Round covering 10 years of their portfolio’s performance found female-led companies perform 63% better than male-led. If you often find yourself yelling, “Don’t show me the money!!” you should definitely not hire a woman.
Have any more reasons there should be fewer female CEOs? Please let us know!