Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work

Women have made up roughly half of the college-educated workforce for years, and before the onset of the economic crisis of 2020, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the labor force was the lowest on record. But women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status. The gender pay gap, for example, shows little movement, largely because high-paying jobs are the most gender-imbalanced. Even in areas where there are roughly equal numbers of men and women, or where women actually make up the majority, leadership ranks remain male-dominated. The endurance of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? Ammerman and Groysberg focus on the pervasive organizational obstacles and managerial actions that create gender imbalance. Bringing to light the key findings from the latest research in psychology, sociology, and economics, Glass Half-Broken shows that along their entire career path, women get pushed out of the leadership pipeline and, at each point, for different reasons. Presenting institutional and managerial strategies designed to overcome and mitigate these barriers at each step in the career path, Glass Half-Broken is the authoritative resource that managers and leaders at all levels can use to finally shatter the glass ceiling.

About the Author :
Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the organizational behavior unit at Harvard Business School. He has won numerous awards for his research, which focuses on the challenge of managing human capital in small and large organizations across the world. Groysberg is the author of the award-winning book Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance and coauthor (with Michael Slind) of Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power Their Organizations. A frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, he has written many articles and case studies on how firms hire, engage, develop, retain, and communicate with their talented employees. Before joining the Harvard Business School faculty, he worked at IBM. Colleen Ammerman is director of the Harvard Business School Gender Initiative, which catalyzes and translates cutting-edge research to transform practice, enable leaders to drive change, and advance equality in business and society. Ammerman oversees the initiative's portfolio of activities, including alumni engagement, events, scholarly collaborations, and research dissemination. Since the launch of the Gender Initiative in 2015, its research has been featured in outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, CBS, WNYC, and WBUR. Ammerman has authored teaching materials on gender and work and is a researcher with Life & Leadership After HBS, a longitudinal study of the lives and careers of Harvard Business School alumni. Chloe Cannon is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.