Yes, I have been in a bloggers black hole and I can only apologise if you are still hanging out for that elusive 7th tool for increasing effectiveness. The truth is .....I have been stretched way beyond my comfort zones by the Gender IQ web project ...but I am coming out of the tunnel, rubbing my eyes and saying 'wow what a view' and I can now give you a 7th tool that that was worth the wait. Yes, my big stretch has taught me some things that I am going to share with you but not today.

Today, I am coming out of bloggers black hole in a rage.

I recently heard about an article in de Volkskrant, one of The Netherlands’ leading newspapers. The article summarized research done on “why the flow of women to the top falters.” 831 of the most influential business executives at top companies in The Netherlands were polled. Here are a few quotes from these executives as printed in the article:

“Women are not ready [to be top executives].”
“Men choose men [for leadership positions].”
“Women cannot handle the pressure [of leadership coupled] with the private sphere.”
“The rise of ‘female-friendly behaviour’ [i.e., quotas] means concessions to quality.”
“In selecting the really senior executives, the rules are different. And those [rules] are rarely public.”
“Female directors…have negative experiences with other women at the top.”

Well, I wonder how much of this is what the top (mostly male) executives think across Europe and could this explain the lid that seems to be in place on female leadership?

In Psychology they have run experiments with fleas where they put them in a jar and put the lid on. The fleas jump up and hit the lid. After a while the lid is taken off but the fleas never jump higher then the top of the jar again.

No we're not fleas but .....