Demystifying Women’s Success

“With this month’s cover story we wanted to offer readers – women especially – some actionable solutions.”

by Michael McCullough

Whatever strides women have made in the workplace over the past half-century, they run up against a brick wall when it comes to positions of power, especially in business. At any time, the women heading up Fortune 500 companies typically number in the single digits. Our own Venture 100 is no different, with just three women-helmed companies and just two women (Nancy Southern, doing double duty at Atco Ltd. and Canadian Utilities, and Sue Riddell Rose, at Paramount Energy Trust) tempering the testosterone.

There are many theories to explain this. My favourite is one once articulated by Margaret Wente, the columnist and former editor of the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business: that, psychologically, women tend to occupy the happy middle of the personality spectrum (hence they have no difficulty becoming doctors and lawyers), whereas men are spread from one extreme to the other, and being CEO of a large company takes character traits – aggression and attraction to risk, especially – that border on psychosis. That would also explain why those women who do attain the highest levels of corporate power (Southern and Riddell Rose are textbook examples) are often heirs rather than first-generation entrepreneurs or hired hands.

Rather than rehash this debate, which we could never hope to resolve, with this month’s cover story (“Speaking to Power”) we wanted to offer readers – women especially – some actionable solutions. With guidance from our publisher, Ruth Kelly (who’s something of an overachiever herself, having won the Canadian Women in Communications Woman of the Year award in 2008), assistant editor Stephanie Sparks sought out women who had succeeded in smashing the proverbial glass ceiling and attained positions among Alberta’s executive elite. She asked them to reflect on their experience and share their opinions on the complicated relationship between women and power. Their sometimes surprising responses – one senses little bitterness or frustration here, but rather, thoughtful optimism – is valuable to both women and men with lofty aspirations who on the personality spectrum fall somewhere this side of Gordon Gekko.

That still left us with another of those perplexing realities about women in business, particularly as it pertains to magazine publishing: when business titles run editions with women on the cover, they consistently fail to match the newsstand sales of those featuring men. It’s been true of this magazine in the past and well-documented in the experience of international business publications. In all likelihood, this issue will be no different.

Ah, well. Here’s another business truism, one I sincerely believe: sometimes you have to try to lead your customers’ tastes and challenge their assumptions, not just pander to them.

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