Business leaders in the United States have usually been white men who were blessed with the right birthplace, nationality, religion, education, social class, gender, and race.

But “outsiders” have also created their own paths to leadership, a trend on the rise today. Sometimes that path meant relocating to a new part of the country where opportunity and access were more open. Sometimes that path involved significant education—in essence, building social mobility through professional credentials. Sometimes the path involved entrepreneurship. With access to traditional opportunities blocked, founding a company to serve an affinity constituency was often the only choice for success in business. Paths to Power: How Insiders and Outsiders Shaped American Business Leadership, written by Harvard Business School’s Anthony J. Mayo and Nitin Nohria, and Boston College’s Laura G. Singleton, is the first book in fifty years to exhaustively analyze the demographics of leadership and access in business in the U.S., and how the face of American leadership might be changing. What doors are opening? Which remain closed?

Paths to power in American business have followed two tracks: The inside track favors white males with the right connections. In the early decades of the twentieth century, social networks played a significant role in who had access to power in business. Social networks were defined by who you were (your race and gender), where you were born, what religion you practiced, and how wealthy you were. The outside path is forged by individuals who overcome significant odds to achieve success. Conversely, those who did not win the “lottery” are often outsiders looking in. They have the wrong parents, the wrong skin color, the wrong nationality, the wrong birthplace, and the wrong gender. They don’t belong to the right organizations. Doors do not open. Opportunities are beyond their grasp.

Over the last seventy-five years, education has become more critical in creating a path to power; religion and family ties less so. Access to power appears to be widening. In the future, individuals who can operate and lead in a complex global world will be at an advantage in gaining leadership positions.Q: In what areas do paths to power still appear to be closed today? Who is being excluded?
A: The three areas that are still part of the outsider path are social class, gender, and race. There has been some progress, but there is still a long way to go. Less than 5% of the Fortune 500 companies are headed by a woman or non-white man. We expect that to change in some significant ways as the population who has benefited from the legislative actions of the ’60s and ’70s are coming into positions of power.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Business, That's Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.