By Kathryn Dodson

I was incredibly disappointed that “the premier organization of professional local government leaders” led its monthly publication [January/February 2015 Public Management magazine] with an article on women in government that felt like it was written in 1981. As a female assistant city manager, I found two major shortcomings in the article.

The first is that after citing the fact: “that only 13 percent of all chief administrative officer (CAO) positions are filled by women, the same percentage as in 1981,” speculation ensued instead of research and discovery. ICMA is in a unique position to be able to find out why women aren’t being hired.

Do women CAOs get promoted into their positions more or less often than their male counterparts? Are the councils and commissions that hire women CAOs different than those who hire men? Are they younger, in more progressive or conservative communities, are they located in different parts of the country?

What percentage of qualified women make it past the first-stage screening as opposed to men? Given ICMA’s connections to local governments and executive search firms, these are questions that can be answered, and answering them will help women find career advancement opportunities.

Find Out Why

The second major shortcoming of the article is that rather than researching why women aren’t advancing as CAOs, it went straight into speculation that women aren’t getting hired because they are doing something wrong. The article’s headlines on “challenges to career advancement” for women insinuate that women: overestimate the experience they need, are challenged with trying to achieve work/family harmony, and have issues with being assertive.

Whether or not women overestimate the experience they need does not address why they are not getting hired (especially if, as the article suggests, they are more experienced than their male counterparts by the time they apply for CAO jobs). Everyone is challenged with achieving work/life balance, from the single mother who is an administrative assistant to the male who is working on a master’s degree while staying in shape and spending time with family and friends.

Having families does not hamper women in the workforce more than anyone else. In fact, the women I’ve talked to usually think that being working mothers not only makes them better employees, but often makes them better mothers. Unless you can come up with some facts as to why working mothers are worse employees or should not be considered for the CAO position, then it is time (long past time) to stop highlighting this as a reason women don’t have CAO positions.

Again, find out why women really aren’t being hired, don’t blame the women for being too focused on their families to advance their careers.

As to the assertiveness dilemma, this is another old and tired argument. Do you really think that women aren’t being hired because the hiring bodies think they might be too passive or too aggressive? Is this really a deciding factor in post-interview discussions?

Individuals, regardless of gender, can be great or lousy interviewees, but I do not think there is any evidence that women as a whole are worse interviewees because of the assertiveness dilemma.

Time for Research

Your final point is that “a woman’s career progression may be hampered by the attitudes of hiring authorities and supervisors.” While this may in fact be the crux of this issue, something only further research can validate, this article goes in a truly unfortunate direction.

Inappropriate or illegal behavior certainly needs to be addressed, but is a completely separate issue from why women aren’t getting hired for CAO positions.

Regarding the “checklist” of items to improve opportunities for women CAOs, I would argue that women are already prepared for the next leap in their careers. After all, the article states that women are more educated than their male counterparts, and the experience issue is addressed above.

As to what ICMA can do—instead of finding ways to prepare these already prepared women, find out the facts behind this story. Only when we understand why women aren’t being hired into CAO positions will be able to address, individually and as a profession, how to move the needle on hiring. 

From the Authors:

We greatly appreciate and express thanks to Kathy Dodson for her comments on our article “Women Leading Government” published in the January/February 2015 issue of PM. We unquestionably agree with her that additional research is essential to understanding why women are not holding more chief administrative officer positions.

We hope that the article, along with the conversation it has started and the conversations that are occurring in numerous other industries, will lead to valuable research.

It was not our intention to convey a message that women are “doing something wrong.” We do believe that it is empowering women to point out that they can have a tendency to overestimate the experience they may need, and as a result, not apply for positions for which they would be competitive. It absolutely could relate to the 13 percent issue—applying for the job is the first step to getting the job.

The Illinois chief administrative officer research we cited in our article supports Ms. Dodson’s point that having a family does not hamper women in the Illinois CAO workforce; however, we do stand by the additional research in our article and elsewhere with respect to workload issues at home that can be challenging for two-career families.

We believe the assertiveness dilemma women face is real, and that the research we cited in our article supports this.

--Heidi Voorhees is co-owner, GovHRUSA, Northbrook, Illinois (hvoorhees@GovHRusa.com), and Rachel Lange-Skaggs is management analyst, Schaumburg, Illinois (rlange@villageofschaumburg.com).