Queen Bee syndrome for women in the workplace is a myth

Queen Bee Syndrome, the theory that women who rise to the top of their profession are less likely to help other women succeed for fear of rivalry, has been debunked as a myth, according to research from Columbia Business School in New York.

The findings have isolated the problem of the shortage of women at the top to the issue of men refusing to relinquish any further control to their female colleagues.

For 20 years, the researchers at Columbia Business School looked at 1,500 companies, analysing the promotions and retention of all employees, and concluded that not only is it the men who are reluctant to endorse more than one female climbing the career ladder, but conversely, that a woman CEO was more likely to promote a fellow woman.

An author of the paper explains: “Women face an implicit quota, whereby firms seek to maintain a small number of women on their top management team, usually only one. While firms gain legitimacy from having women in top management, the value of this legitimacy declines with each woman, whereas the perceived costs, from the perspective of the male majority in top management, increase with each woman.”