Leading Question

>>Just about any assembly of business leaders in Southwest Florida includes a lot of women, but women still aren't being promoted to positions of leadership in Florida companies. Instead, they climb there on their own, often by launching their own businesses.

According to Florida's Women-Led Businesses, 2006, a study by Florida International University's Center for Leadership and The Commonwealth Institute South Florida, women hold about half of the professional and managerial positions in organizations nationwide, yet only 3 percent of the top positions. Researchers surveyed women board chairmen, CEOs, presidents and general managers of Florida companies and found that 70 percent of them started the business. Eighty-five percent were majority owners. Only 5 percent were hired to top positions from outside the organization, and only 16 percent were promoted to the positions from within, suggesting, the report says, "limited growth potential for these highly-motivated women within the corporate world."

"The reality is that women haven't made a lot of progress in corporate America wherever they are, whether it's Miami or New York," says Diahann Lassus, a board member of the national Center for Women's Business Research and president of Lassus Wherley and Associates, a wealth-management firm with offices in New Jersey and Bonita Springs. "There are more in higher positions, but when you look at the percentage of women [in the workplace], the statistics are not overwhelming in the progress that's been made. The flip side is women entrepreneurs have made incredible strides in starting businesses," she adds.

They're still rare in some sectors, though, including construction-one of the region's biggest economic bases. The only Southwest Florida company in the report is The Henning Group, a family-owned development company in Naples. Although president Heather Henning sees many local women in top positions at insurance, banking, interior design, mortgage and other development-associated companies, she says, "If you're talking strictly builders and trade representatives, I think it's still male-dominated." But Henning, who grew up in the construction business and went through engineering school, believes more women are now going into engineering, architecture and other historically male professions.

Because of the nature of the economy in Southwest Florida-where major corporations are relatively scarce-businesses owned by women are more likely to be in services or hospitality, says Lassus.

Money might not be the motivator, says Platinum Dry Cleaners co-owner Sandy Waite, past president of American Business Women's Association Neapolitan chapter. "It may be a lifestyle choice-the ability to work around their own schedules."

Henning believes the glass ceiling still exists in companies-not intentionally, but because men aren't generally aware of it. "It is still fairly solidly in place, but I don't think they think of it," she says.

It's partly because people tend to hire and work with those they're comfortable with, Lassus says. "That's part of the challenge in increasing diversity, it's all about discomfort with change," she says. "When I was younger, I expected that when I was 50 it would not be an issue. It's just taken us a lot longer."

-Jill Tyrer