The labyrinth metaphor : obstacles for women's advancement to high-managerial and executive positions

Abstract

This project explores why women remain underrepresented in high-ranking leadership roles as well as what can be done in an attempt to facilitate their indirect paths in attaining influential and powerful positions. Men have fewer challenges in obtaining leadership roles because they match agentic stereotypes normally associated with those roles. In contrast, women find themselves navigating through indirect and obstructed pathways or even dead ends when attaining executive managerial roles. Using “the Labyrinth Metaphor” has been the basis to give a complete explanation and analyse what makes more challenging their advancement. This metaphor relates to how issues of discrimination, gendered mental associations and organizational obstacles are connected to women’s hurdling advancement in management. Hence, the solutions given in the project are directly related to the reasons and issues explored.