Question

Mary Ann has been with the same software company for 15 years. For the last five years, she has applied for upper management positions on five occasions, but she was never offered an interview. Which phenomenon is Mary Ann likely facing?

Answer 1

Answer: Mary Ann is likely facing a phenomenon called "GLASS CEILING".

Explanation:Glass ceiling is an example of metaphor that is used to represent an invisible barrier that tends to hinder the professional advancement of women and minority group in an organization. This is an invisible barrier that represents the reason why women don't attain higher promotion and career achievement. Examples are; individual sportsmen are more pronounced than individual sportswomen. In most organization men has more number of high ranked managers more than the female. The number of female president in the world 1/100 of the male president.

Because Mary Ann is a woman, glass ceiling may not allow her to be promoted to a higher management position, even though she merited it.

GLASS CEILING AFFECTS WOMEN THE MOST BECAUSE, PEOPLE ALWAYS LOOK DOWN ON THE ABILITIES OF A WOMAN.

Answer 2

Answer: The Peter Principle

Explanation: The Peter Principle was developed by a Canadian sociologist Dr Laurence J. Peters in 1968 . He also authored a book he titled "The Peter Principle".

"In a Hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence" - The Peter Principle

The principle explains that as long as employees are competent in their respective roles, they will continue to get promoted until they get promoted to a position where they do not have the required skills and therefore become incompetent.

They can only get further promotion if they acquire skills that match their current role and become competent enough to get to the next level.

Here Mary Ann has been working for 15 years and it is likely that she got promoted a couple of times within her first 10 years.

But for the past 5 years her promotion applications have been declined because she hasn't become competent enough in her current role to get promoted.

She will only be granted an interview when her skills match her current role.