BME Women: Breaking through the ‘concrete ceiling’ to achieve career success

Posted on: 6 March 2023 by Professor Lilian Otaye-Ebede and Dr Samah Shaffakat in Research

As BME women remain dramatically underrepresented in the corporate world, Professor Lilian Otaye-Ebede and Dr Samah Shaffakat look into the experiences of ethnic minority female leaders to understand how they have overcome the ‘concrete ceiling’.

Black and minority ethnic (BME) women remain significantly underrepresented in senior leadership roles due to persistent obstacles within career progression.

A 2022 study, conducted by McKinsey and Company and LeanIn.org, on 333 companies and over 40,000 employees, compared BME women to other social categories and found they are the least likely to be promoted and put forward for opportunities by management.

In addition, BME women were found to have limited interaction with senior management, which means reduced chances of sponsorship and limited upward mobility.

Similarly, research conducted by Catalyst, found that although BAME women constitute 16.5% of the S&P 500 workforce (Catalyst, 2015), only six women of colour hold a CEO position at S&P 500 companies.

Here in the UK, only 10 BME women are among the ‘most powerful’ people, and while they make up 1% of the country’s elite, females from ethnic minorities account for 7% of the population.

Even in sectors traditionally open to multiculturalism and equality, like the UK’s Higher Education, the figures paint a rather underwhelming picture.

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, just 160 out of 22,855 professors in 2020/21 were Black (defined as Black/African/Caribbean/Black British) with the numbers further reduced to 41 for those identifying as Black Female Professors, i.e. less than 1%.

Impact on leadership aspirations

ese figures suggest a growing urgency in the need to understand and support female BME employees on their leadership journeys.

The obstacles BME women face can often result in perceptions that career success is beyond their reach, further resulting in feelings of powerlessness, dependency, detachment, and resentment.

Unlike their white counterparts who do face ‘glass ceilings’, ethnic minority women who have less support, and fewer opportunities to advance, encounter a ‘concrete ceiling’ or ‘concrete walls’ which are more difficult to break.

Societal and organisational structures often place prejudicial barriers in their path, which overlook merit, thereby impeding their advancement into senior positions.

Being constantly overlooked, despite being competent, can negatively impact leadership aspirations.

Overcoming the ‘concrete ceiling’ for BME women

So how do these women shield themselves from the frustration and marginalisation that comes with the racial and gender prejudice they face, and how do they achieve career success?

To understand this, in our research “Breaking Through Despite the Odds: Learning from the Career Experiences of Successful BAME Women”, we interviewed 50 ethnic minority women in senior leadership positions.

We chose this group, as they are uniquely positioned to share their insight into both the positive and negative experience of navigating a leadership journey.

Deviating from the norm in business and management literature, we adopt a positive psychology perspective and delineate elements of ‘Hope’ to examine their career goals, motivation to reach these goals, and how they go about achieving them.

Specifically, we explore and analyse the attributes senior BME women possess, and strategies they have used to navigate through their difficult career journey, and overcome barriers to success.

We found the women in our study were hopeful in the pursuit of their goal, aware of the disadvantages they faced, anticipated these, and successfully identified pathways to advance their careers.

These approaches were intentional and varied from cognitive to behavioural strategies, to enable career success.

These women are exemplary in their approach to climbing the career ladder, they are forward thinkers, with a huge sense of integrity, were tenacious, resilient, accountable, and had a strong sense of awareness of self and others.

They were not afraid to challenge the status-quo, did not conform to stereotypes, and remained determined to make a positive difference.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, we draw on the learning and inspiration of these women in our research to encourage young black and minority ethnic women to reach for the top.

Authors
	Professor Lilian Otaye-Ebede Professor in HRM & OB and Director of Studies for the MSC HRM Programme, University of Liverpool Management School
	Dr Samah Shaffakat Senior Lecturer in Work, Organisation and Management, University of Liverpool Management School