Week 1 of my leadership master’s degree, and the research finding that called me out personally.
Let me open with three questions. Sit with them before you answer.
- If you removed every name from every resume you’ve ever screened, would you have hired the same people?
- Do you believe you’re a fair evaluator? (Careful…your answer might be the problem.)
- When was the last time a woman on your team was penalized not for failing, but for wanting it too much?
I just finished the first week of my master’s in organizational leadership; this course is called Women and Leadership, and I’m taking you with me through the whole degree. Real readings, real research, real reactions. I’ve been in tech for over a decade, mostly in product and program management before expanding into organizational structure, compliance, and people leadership. I’m all about authenticity and being direct from the jump, so here’s what week one actually taught me, and where it stepped on my toes.
The screen that changed orchestras
In 2000, economists Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse published a study on symphony orchestras. For decades, top U.S. orchestras were under 12% female, and famous conductors openly said women played worse. Then orchestras started putting a physical screen between the musician and the judges during auditions. Nobody could see who was playing; they could only hear.
The result: the screen significantly increased the probability that a woman would advance and get hired. Same musicians. Same music. The only thing that changed was what the judges could see.
Here’s the part that got me: female graduates from elite music schools had been increasing for years before hiring budged. The talent was already there. The pipeline wasn’t the problem. The evaluation was.
How many industries are still blaming the pipeline?
Nobody stereotyped the candidate. They rewrote the job.
The study that rearranged my brain this week was by Uhlmann and Cohen (2005). Participants evaluated candidates for police chief. The researchers expected people to rate the female candidate as less qualified. They didn’t. They did something sneakier: they redefined the job around whatever credentials the male candidate happened to have. If he was educated, education became essential. If he was streetwise, street experience became essential. Merit bent itself around the preferred person.
And the finding that should keep every leader up at night: the participants who rated themselves most objective showed the most bias. Feeling fair didn’t protect them. It made it worse, because when you’re confident in your own objectivity, you stop checking yourself.
I can see that. Arrogance ultimately leads to mistakes. Arrogance is something I actively work on, so this finding hit close to home.
There was hope in the study too: when evaluators committed to the hiring criteria before learning the candidate’s gender, the discrimination disappeared. Structure beat intention.
Even women voted for the man
Steinpreis, Anders, and Ritzke (1999) mailed academic psychologists a real scientist’s CV with only the name changed: Karen or Brian. Both male AND female reviewers were more likely to hire Brian. Identical record.
That one confirmed something I learned the hard way over my career: bias is systemic. It’s not a one-way avenue. We are all trained to be biased — every one of us marinates in the same system, regardless of our own identity. Nobody gets to sit this one out.
Punished for wanting it
The last study (Toneva, Heilman & Pierre, 2020) found that successful women in traditionally masculine roles get labeled hostile and unlikable, but only under one condition: when they’re seen as having chosen to pursue the role. When the same woman landed the same role through circumstance (assigned, lucky break) the penalty vanished.
Read that again. Women aren’t punished for succeeding. They’re punished for visibly wanting to. Which is exactly the ambition every leadership book tells you to have.
Where this stepped on my toes
I lead with directness. I don’t beat around the bush, I will call people out, and I’m not afraid to tell you the truth, but my leadership is built on empathy, character, and respect underneath all of that. This week’s research gave me language for things I had sensed but hadn’t named about how directness gets received differently depending on who it’s coming from.
But the bigger confrontation was internal. My lifelong remedy for bias has been self-awareness: recognize that a few less than neutral experiences don’t predict the next person, avoid generalizations, don’t assume malice (thank you, Daily Stoic). I still believe in that. But the objectivity research forced a harder question: how do I know my self-awareness is actually working, and not just feeling like it’s working?
My honest answer right now: I don’t fully know. And I think that’s the correct answer. The people most sure they’ve handled their bias showed the most of it.
What I’m changing
So here’s where I’ve landed after week one — it’s a double sword:
Awareness AND architecture. Self-awareness tells you why the guardrail needs to exist. But awareness alone leaks. You need procedures that prevent bias from making decisions for you: pre-committed hiring criteria, structured interviews, defined evaluation standards set before you see the candidates.
Tip: Run structured interviews: same questions for every candidate, and include your team’s values in the job description and the interview itself.
But this week made me look harder at the unstructured judgment riding inside my structured process: the part where I read where candidates take the questions. That read feels insightful. The research says the feeling of insight is exactly where bias hides. So I’m tightening it.
Your turn
Three questions to take into your week:
- What criteria do you commit to before you see the candidates, and what do you let yourself decide after?
- Where in your organization is “merit” flexible enough to bend around a preferred person?
- And the uncomfortable one: what’s your evidence that your objectivity is real…other than the feeling of it?
One of the questions the professor asked this week centered on a level playing field. BUT…I don’t believe a perfectly level playing field exists; hierarchy has been present since the beginning of humanity. This week conveyed that specific tilts can be reduced and measured. That’s not utopia. That’s just better engineering. Let’s see if this philosophy holds.
One of my core values is nonnegotiable growth. Week one delivered. See you soon. Next we’re covering the likability trap, and as a direct person, I suspect it’s going to have things to say to me.
Sources: Goldin & Rouse (2000), American Economic Review; Steinpreis, Anders & Ritzke (1999), Sex Roles; Uhlmann & Cohen (2005), Psychological Science; Toneva, Heilman & Pierre (2020), Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
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