On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned by Transocean and leased by British Petroleum (BP), exploded, killing 11 crewmembers and injuring several more. Millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, with devastating consequences for the environment and significant economic impacts on the fishing and tourism industries.
“The ways in which we process information about risk make it difficult for us to understand how risky it is to be in contact with others,” professor Catherine Tinsley of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business told Fox News. “There is something called a ‘near miss’ bias, which is: when people engage in an activity that they know has some risk but then nothing bad happens to them, they tend to ignore that the good outcome was partly due to luck.”
The researchers, Catherine Tinsley, a professor of management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and faculty director of GU’s Women’s Leadership Institute, and Kate Purmal, an Institute senior industry fellow, wrote: “Our data suggests corporate boards have been finding a creative way out of this chicken-and-egg dilemma. Specifically, they seem to have relaxed the prior-CEO-experience requirement for women and are using prior corporate board service as a proxy qualification.”
The question for women leaders is not if they will fail, but how they recover, according to Catherine Tinsley, professor at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business and executive director of the university's Women's Leadership Institute. She says too much emphasis is placed on preventing failure and not enough on acknowledging that it is going to happen.
“If you see gender differences in placement, then you should first be asking if there is something about the context or the environment that is positioning men and women differently,” says Catherine Tinsley, the Raffini Family Professor of Management at Georgetown University.
“A billion women will enter the workforce in the next decade. Think about how important confidence will be to their success,” said Dr. Catherine H. Tinsley, the Raffini Professor of Management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Academic Director of the Georgetown University Women’s Leadership Institute. “Confident people are more likely to solve problems, be more innovative at work and work independently. Therefore, businesses have a real incentive to cultivate worker confidence.”
“A billion women will enter the workforce in the next decade. Think about how important confidence will be to their success,” said Dr. Catherine H. Tinsley, the Raffini Professor of Management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Academic Director of the Georgetown University Women’s Leadership Institute. “Confident people are more likely to solve problems, be more innovative at work and work independently. Therefore, businesses have a real incentive to cultivate worker confidence.”
In the U.S., even though the law has been in place for over 50 years, harassment persists, says Catherine Tinsley, PhD, because “men have more social status.” Tinsley, a professor of management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, says that such sexual advances are a power play and a way to put a woman who is being particularly “uppity” in her place. “That’s not the way it should be,” she underscores. “It’s the way it is.” Which is why it is important to report any instance of harassment.
Congratulations to the U.S. Treasury Department for its recent decision to put a woman on money. Harriet Tubman is set to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill by 2020. Naturally, there is poetic justice in replacing a slave holder with a woman who fought so tirelessly for emancipation. Yet, there are two other reasons why the face of a woman on U.S. currency notes is so healthy for American culture and why this current decision does not go far enough.
Much press has been dedicated to “the confidence gap” — the idea that women “self-handicap” because they lack confidence relative to men. Women who do not believe in themselves are less likely to try a new challenge, such as selling Tupperware, negotiating a raise, or leading a work team. Yet, without proof of their own success, these women never get the chance to change their own internal narratives about their abilities.
The artisans in Masoro are employees of Abahizi Dushygikirane Corporation or ADC, the supplier of Kate Spade & Company’s on purpose label, which launched in May 2014. Professors Catherine Tinsley and Edward Soule at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business are studying this socially responsible business model and its impact on the employees and their community.