It would seem that the culturally rooted narrative of a male leader is long gone and that managerial competencies have no gender, right? A nationwide study, “Believe in yourself” conducted on a representative sample of Poles in collaboration with SAP allowed us to uncover a secret hidden under the cloak of declarations – until now.
Case overview
Client: SAP Poland
Research method: iCode Smart test
When: 2021
Goal: determining if there are hidden emotions and attitudes towards women holding managerial positions in companies
Results
- on a declarative level, 82% of Poles agree that women can hold managerial positions…
- …but, in fact, only 1 person out of 4 believes on an emotional level that women are suitable for managerial positions
Client’s challenge
SAP Poland wanted to build an organizational culture with an emphasis on self-confidence hoping that this approach will translate into the professional development of their employees. In order to do it right, they wanted to measure the emotional certainty of various statements regarding diversity in the workplace.
Research
The test was run on a group of over 1000 respondents. After the test, we compared averaged declarative answers (what respondents selected in the survey) with averaged emotional responses (the emotional certainty of the respondent when answering each question).
declarations
- 82% of Poles agree that women can hold managerial positions
- conclusion of results without iCode: the belief in managerial competencies of women does not need to be strengthened in either of the sexes. But is that really so?
with iCode
- the measurement of emotional certainty revealed that only 27% of respondents believe that women are suitable for holding managerial positions!
Results
Without iCode, this research would miss the point, passing over the gender bias entirely. By digging deeper, we found out that gender equity is still a song of the future when it comes to emotional certainty.
Thanks to iCode, we were able to establish that the belief in the managerial competencies of women should be strengthened among both women and men. Closing the gender gap in the perception of managerial competences is a challenge that both genders will have to face.
Thomas Duschek
Managing Director,
SAP Polska
„I believe that the results of the study will help us build an organizational culture in which it will be important to strengthen self-confidence and this approach will translate into the professional development
of our employees. I am convinced that the power of creativity and innovation lies in diversity.”
