Women are become rising leaders slowly but, surely in today’s diverse business world. There are a number of women who have risen to be successful leaders in this diverse world. Here are the women leaders that I keep circling back to: Indra Nooyi, Susan Wojcicki, Oprah Winfrey, and Melinda Gates. Each one of these women contributed to todays’ diverse business world and the global economy through their unique leadership. PSU, OLEAD 410, chapter 5, introduced a concept that I have heard but, never fully delve into and that is “glass ceiling which refers to barriers to reaching the upper echelons of organizations” (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014, p. 156). What does glass ceiling have to do with women leaders reaching a higher level of success in the business world? This concept of glass ceiling connects to some type of roadblock that stops an individual from achieving something they set out to accomplish. A roadblock could be color difference, gender difference, perhaps not having the educational level required for the job or cultural difference. Well, these women I was reflecting upon had to overcome some barriers that hindered them from reaching higher levels of success as women leaders in todays’ diverse business world. These women have broken the barriers and overcame many obstacles before reaching to higher levels of success in todays’ business world and they have attained successful leadership roles today. Nooyi, Wojcicki, Winfrey, and Gates have broken the glass ceiling-barriers making their way as top women leaders in the business world. This concept of glass ceiling is applicable to these women as they had to overcome many obstacles prior to reaching the height of their success as women leaders in the business world today.
Over the past years, I have cued into important and famous women but, I never thought that I would write about Nooyi, Wojcicki, Winfrey, and Gates as women leaders until today. I knew nothing about Indra Nooyi until I stopped drinking Coke and started to drink Pepsi a few years ago. When I started drinking Pepsi, I was curious about who founded it, who runs the business etc. I was amazed to find out that Indra Nooyi was Indian, as I am Indian myself. Indra Nooyi (born in India), an Indian American woman leader of Pepsi. She was the CEO of PepsiCo for 13 years with an annual earning of over a million dollars (Dierickx, 2018). There is a cultural difference barrier existing, one Nooyi apparently had to overcome to be the successful woman leader that she is, in today’s diverse business world.
A big part of our technological advancement has led me to take notice of Susan Wojcicki since I started to use YouTube a few years ago. Susan Wojcicki, is CEO of YouTube and was part of google founding. Wojcicki “played a vital role in Google, becoming one of the world’s most valuable companies” (Bastone, 2018). Can you imagine what barriers of female suppression she broke to get where she is today? Imagine what barriers Wojcicki had to break to attain her COE title at YouTube. Overcoming this barrier is one step towards higher level of success.
Who doesn’t know Oprah? Oprah Winfrey, owner of the dominating television talk show, Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah Winfrey magazine, the Oprah Winfrey network, The Oprah Winfrey Foundations, and she is an actress. Over the past 20 years, I have following Oprah life and success. Oprah Winfrey barrier is one of color difference. She overcame this barrier and became such a very influential woman leader in our business world. She has provided support to many nations across the continent. The Oprah Winfrey foundation run by Oprah focus on helping educate girls in South Africa. So many huge barriers she has broken as a woman leader. She has risen over the glass ceiling in her leadership as a woman.
Who doesn’t know Bill and Melinda Gates? When I first came to United states of America, I didn’t know who they were but, when I bought my first computer in 1995, I found out who they were, the founder of the world’s software. Melinda Gates along with her husband Bill Gates has established The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Melinda Gates broke the barriers to establish and lead the largest private foundation as a woman along side her husband. Thus, the Gates has the largest private foundation. This foundation leadership focus is to change the way the world uses technology, focusing on education, healthcare and fight against poverty. They have aimed to increase healthcare, reducing poverty, and widening the gap for education and information technology in numerous countries around the world. What an amazing journey of breaking barriers to reach such height of success in the life of this influential women leader in todays’ business world.
Indra Nooyi, Susan Wojcicki, Oprah Winfrey, and Melinda Gates are dynamic global leaders and role models for other women. Their success speaks volume gathered from their travel from continent to continent. Their success has stemmed from their diverse background. Their organizations have the competitive advantage because they are the women behind the scenes and that’s why their businesses and foundations have reached such great success. These women have had to face some challenging situation, racial tension and stereotyping somewhere along the line of the national and the international business world but, they have withstood these situations and trials and succeeded. This course concept is applicable as these women have broken the glass ceiling- barrier that would have hindered their success as women leaders in the business world. They have gone above and beyond, removing the glass ceiling barricade to their successful leadership role as women.
Indra Nooyi, Susan Wojcicki, Oprah Winfrey, and Melinda Gates have certainly broken the barriers – glass ceiling (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014, p. 156). The concept of glass ceiling being torn down applies to these women leaders as they strive to raise the bar to their success as leaders of the diverse business world. After reading Moran, Abramson and Moran lesson 5, Women leaders in global business, I don’t think that these successful business women leaders have had to experience a “double-take” from traveling from continent to continent (2014, p. 159). Each one of these women have their “own leadership style” (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014, p. 162). Despite, the urgency to break the glass ceiling, women like Nooyi, Wojcicki, Winfrey and Gates are aware that there is still work to be done to win women right to remove the barriers. There are “numerous barriers still existing for women across the globe” (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014, p. 165). Indra Nooyi, Susan Wojcicki, Oprah Winfrey, and Melinda Gates knows that there are many challenges that women leaders have to face and walls that have to be removed before they reach the highest level of success as leaders in the business world.
References
Bastone, N. (2018). The career rise of Susan Wojcicki, who rented her garage to Google’s founders in 1998 and is now the CEO of YouTube. Business insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/susan-wojcicki-youtube-ceo-bio-career-life-2018-12
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Focus countries. Retrieved from https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Where-We-Work/Africa-Office/Focus-Countries
Dierickx. (2018). How Indra Nooyi teaches leadership. Forbes. Leadership strategy. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/constancedierickx/2018/08/06/how-indra-nooyi-teaches-leadership/#6d24419e4350
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Global leaders, culture, and a changing world. (9th ed.). Oxford: Routledge.
Iman Pady says
Hello,
Thank you for sharing your insights on women who break glass ceilings in a local and global climate. I found your personal connection to Indrya Nooyi powerful and think it is very important that we all, especially women, are able to see women who look like us taking the risks and paving the way for future generations.
Indrya Nooyi had a very interesting start in the business world as a young graduate in India; she was hired as “a brand manager for Johnson & Johnson to oversee the company’s first Stayfree (sanitary pad) account in India” (Northouse, 2015, p.9). This position is ironic because had it not have been for an account that dealt with women’s menstruation, in a culture where this subject at the time was taboo, she may not have had a leadership role so early on in her career as a woman.
Nooyi is an inspiring leader for women generally and Indian women specifically, for example when she moved to the US to pursue graduate school at Yale University “she didn’t have the money to buy a business suit, so she wore her traditional sari to work and later to job interviews, choosing to be herself rather than adhere to expected cultural norms” (Northouse, 2015, p. 9).
Regards,
Iman Pady
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
Steven Strauser says
I find it quite interesting that you end up discovering these leaders as a result of trying a product or switching to a similar product. That shows your curiosity and interest in the things you are consuming. You make some interesting references to CEO’s Indra Nooyi, Susan Wojcicki, Oprah Winfrey and Melinda Gates. You shared some of their stories, roles and accomplishments. As women and your hypothesis of women breaking barriers in today’s diverse business world, I have a few questions about that. One of the questions that first comes to mind is what specific obstacles have these women faced as it pertains specifically to gender biases. It’s not just women that have to break barriers but also men alike. Men and women have many of the same struggles, what separates that thought from this entry are the specific unjust actions like gender pay gap. One statistic that I found was that there is a nationwide $10 Billion dollar gap between men and women that are Chief executives. In my opinion this is a barrier that would be tough to swallow for anyone. Not being compensated for your efforts can be debilitating.
I suppose my overall question to you would be, what have you found to be the biggest hurdle for these mentioned women to conquer?
Overall I enjoyed reading this piece.
Vagins, D. (2018). The simple truth about the gender pay gap. Economic security. Retrieved on February 10th 2019 from
https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
esm5285 says
I’m really enjoying the amount of this class I’ve spent learning about women in global leadership positions. I especially found the glass ceiling concept an interesting one. Before this class I was only familiar with “breaking the glass ceiling” in the context of women rising up in a male dominated world. As we’ve learned more and more about diversity in this course, I’ve come to realize just how many “glass ceilings” and social status quo exists. After doing some research on various diverse leaders, I’ve found with each ethnicity/sex/age/etc comes its own set of obstacles. One obstacle in particular I’m curious to get your thoughts on is the maternal wall. The maternal wall is a set of stereotypes and all around discrimination that members of industry and government perpetuate upon pregnant woman and mothers of newborns (Ferrante, 2018.) So many ceiling shattering women like Ursula Burns, who was the first female black CEO of a Fortune 500 company, think having your dream career and raising children shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. In an interview with CNN Ursula reflected on the fact that more time should be given for parental leave and the fact that despite having two children her work got in the way of her having more (Horowitz, 2017.) The United States continues to be one of the only countries that doesn’t mandate paid time-off for maternity leave. My question in all of this is one I’m not sure can be answered. How do women who want to break the glass ceiling get past the maternity wall? I’m by no means saying all women should be expected to have children, it is a personal decision, but shouldn’t the women who want to rise to the heights of leadership also be able to have a family? It seems entirely unfair to me that so many woman are being made to choose one or the other.
1. Ferrante, M. B. (2018, October 31). Before Breaking The Glass Ceiling, Women Must Climb The Maternal Wall. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybethferrante/2018/10/31/before-breaking-the-glass-ceiling-women-must-climb-the-maternal-wall/#5066fe6dc519
2.Horowitz, J. (2017, July 18). Former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns: It’s a ‘time of power’ for women in tech. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/18/news/ursula-burns-american-opportunity-women/index.html
Nicole says
You have given some good examples of women who have achieved enormous personal and/or professional success. I have not followed their personal stories or careers, but would not be surprised if most, if not all of them, had experienced and overcame multiple obstacles to their success (and some due specifically to the fact that they are women). Even considering these women’s enormous successes, there is still unfortunately large gender disparities that we can examine. A recent CEO pay study found that although the average top female CEO salary was similar to the average male CEO salary, there were only 21 women in the study of the 346 CEOs. So unfortunately women only made up 6% of the CEOs. Although a small handful of women may have been able to climb ranks to the top, there is still a huge imbalance in their representation in the highest positions in companies. Additionally, the highest paid female CEO (formerly Indra Kooyi until she stepped down last year), is IBM’s Virginia Rometty who made $32 million, whereas the highest paid male CEO, Charter Communication’s Thomas Rutledge, made $99 million. This demonstrates another way that men are still way outperforming women in the workplace.
Reference
Berger, S. (2018). Research suggests female CEOs outearn their male peers—but it’s not that simple. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/research-suggests-female-ceos-outearn-men-but-its-not-that-simple.html