Ten years after publishing The Glass Wall: Success Strategies for Women at Work, New Digital Age sat down with advertising legend Sue Unerman to discuss progress, setback, and why the workplace rules remain stubbornly unchanged.
A decade ago, Sue Unerman and Kathryn Jacob published The Glass Wall, a pragmatic guide tackling the subtle, invisible barriers separating men and women in the workplace. The recently-published 10th anniversary edition reveals a stark reality: despite seismic shifts like the #MeToo movement and the rise of flexible working, meaningful progress at executive level remains slow.
Sitting down with NDA, Unerman shares her views on why women are still hitting glass walls, the double-edged sword of remote working, and what industry leaders must do to foster genuine diversity of thought.
It has been ten years since you wrote The Glass Wall. For those unfamiliar, what is the core concept behind it?
Over ten years ago, we sent out a proposal to look at women at work and figure out why, decades after the Equal Pay Act and generations after feminism, there was still such inequity at senior levels in business and politics.
Ten years ago, the number of women CEOs in the FTSE 100 was about six. You were literally more likely to be a FTSE 100 CEO if you were called Justin than if you were a woman.
We conducted dozens of interviews and discovered a system designed not to promote raw talent, but to nurture a very few workaholic alpha men. One big divide was that men seemed to understand the unwritten rules of the office game, whereas women did not.
That is the glass wall: men and women can see each other, but they do not always understand each other’s ways of communicating. Unlike the glass ceiling or glass cliff, which imply you have already reached a senior level, a glass wall can hit you on your first day or your 200th day. What unlocks it is shared experience and clear understanding from both women and male allies.
Looking back across the past decade, how would you summarise what has changed for women in our industry?
There have been steps forward, but also backlashes. In our industry right now, business is retracting, and when business retracts, it is usually the pushy people who push through.
We have seen massive shifts like flexible and remote working, which feel like huge positives but can be double-edged swords. More women than men utilise flexible working at senior levels.
Several CEOs have admitted to me that when employees are not physically in the office, they become largely invisible to leadership. Furthermore, women end up juggling domestic responsibilities alongside running teams with less support, making work more stressful.
We also have positive conversations around the menopause now, which was completely taboo ten years ago. Yet, if prominent women continually cite “brain fog” in a competitive, retracting marketplace, there is a risk it gets weaponised as another reason to hold women back.
What about the broader culture around allyship and workplace dynamics? Has that evolved?
The nature of allyship has shifted. A few years ago, there was a lot of focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Now, responding to broader macroeconomic and political pressures, many companies are quietly changing titles from “Head of DEI” to “Head of Culture” or “Head of Partnerships.”
On the positive side, younger generations are bringing different attitudes. Gen Z women we spoke with reported that young men in corporations are acting as genuine allies; the manosphere rhetoric has not taken root inside the office.
However, young women still fall into traditional traps, such as assuming that doing a good job is enough on its own, rather than proactively asking for help or putting themselves forward for promotion.
Female representation on boards has increased, particularly non-executive roles. Is that translating to real executive power?
The FTSE 350 has reached near parity for non-executive director roles, which is a massive leap from 2016. However, executive director roles sit at just 15.4%, and female CEOs in the FTSE 100 hover around ten.
Non-executive roles are valuable, but they are not the roles holding operational power, such as CEO, CFO, or Chair. The talent is undoubtedly there, but once you get to those hyper-competitive top tiers, structural barriers, caring responsibilities, and systemic biases still winnow women out.
What key advice would you give to a young woman starting her career in media or advertising today?
Understand the system you are entering. School and university are designed to help you succeed; the corporate world is structured as a pyramid that inevitably winnows people out.
First, do not expect doing a good job alone to get you noticed. You have to communicate your achievements.
Second, maintain situational awareness. Remember that workplace socials are not the same as being out with childhood friends. Finally, as my co-author Kathryn Jacob says, do not bring your “whole self” to work. Bring your best professional self. That is what you are being paid for.
Finally, what should CEOs and senior leaders be doing differently to break down these glass walls?
Stop surrounding yourself with people who think and look like you. You need genuine diversity of thought, not just compliance.
If you build leadership teams that merely agree with everything you say, you miss out on growth and innovation. Surrounding yourself with people who challenge your perspective from outside your comfort zone is essential.
Businesses thrive when they foster constructive disagreement rather than enforcing artificial consensus.
