Gender differences in how male and female CEOs rise to the top: childhood experiences are pivotal says Australian researcher

Women who survive a significant trauma in childhood and comes from a small business background are the most likely to become corporate chief executives. However, men from stable households with a mother who remains at home and a father who has a professional career are the most likely to become corporate chief executives. It also helps to captain the school football team (Canberra Times, May 27, 2012).

That is the research findings of Terrance Fitzsimmons from the University of Queensland business school. For his thesis, Navigating CEO Appointments: Do Australia’s Top Male and Female CEOs Differ in How They Made It to the Top? he interviewed chief executives from Australia’s largest companies, and the people who hired them. Currently 55% of Australian university graduates are female, but only six of the country’s top 200 publicly listed companies are managed by women. Fitzsimmon’s research revealed that their childhood experiences were pivotal in determining who ultimately rose to the top.

Nearly all of the 31 women that Fitzsimmons interviewed had experienced significant childhood upheaval, such as a seriously ill parent, a close relative’s suicide, family violence, or frequent home relocations, which forced them to assume an adult role at a young age. In addition, their parents were usually self-employed, operating a small business.

Examples are Therese Rein, who has a highly successful training business, and is the wife of former Australian Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd; Julia Ross, the head of a recruitment company; and Katie Page, the head of Australia’s leading retail store, Harvey Norman. Therese Rein grew up with a father who was left paraplegic when he was injured in World War II. Rein recently joined the exclusive club of Business Review’s Weekly’s Rich 200 list with an estimated fortune of $210 million. Julia Ross, the youngest of eight children, grew up in poverty, and was affected by her eldest brother’s drowning when she was 10 years old. Katie Page was constantly on the move as a child due to her father’s job as a bank manager.

Dr. Fitzsimmon maintains that the women CEOs difficult childhood engendered in them a resilience and self-confidence, which were traits that later enabled them to succeed in the corporate workplace. He said that they all had a major trauma that they had to overcome.

Each of the 30 male CEOs interviewed by Dr. Fitzsimmon had a happy, settled childhood, reared by a stay-at-home mother and a professionally employed father. Only two of them did not captain their school football team. Fitzsimmon maintains that the male CEOs learned their leadership skills through childhood adventures, risk-taking, and playing team sporting games.

Further research findings were that the male CEOs had wives who did not work, but stayed at home to care for their children, whereas female CEOs all had working husbands. The 66% of female CEOs who had children said that they were the primary carer. Hence, Fitzsimmons believes that family responsibilities are still seen as an impediment to a woman’s progress up the career ladder. He said that people who hired people often thought that women in part-time jobs were not committed to a career. The 31 women CEOs that Fitzsimmon interviewed had their children in their late teens or early 20s and spent very little time out of the workforce.

Australian Gina Rinehart, not interviewed as part of Fitzsimmon’s research, has just been named the richest person on the planet. Rinehart, an iron ore magnate from Western Australia, made history last month when she became the first woman to top the BRW Rich 200 list after her fortune nearly tripled to $29.2 billion over the past year. She topped American Christy Walton, of retail giant Wal-Mart fame, who is reputedly worth $25 billion. The 57 year old Rinehart could become the world’s richest person as she has new resource projects in the design or approval stages. According to business website SmartCompany, Rinehart's projects will catapult her to the top of the list because she owns all of hers, whereas other companies share their wealth with shareholders. Rinehart married at 19, divorced when she was 27, and later wed her second husband. She commenced her fortune following the death of her father in 1992, giving her his mining millions. In the same year she appeared for the first time in the BRW Rich 200 list and has appeared in it every year since. From millions, she has created billions. 

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).