The concept of tall poppy syndrome is well known, and sees those in high status positions frequently attacked and criticized, due in part to their lofty status.  New research from Stockholm University suggests the same might be true for female leaders, who the study finds are more susceptible to sexual harassment than women employees lower down the organizational hierarchy.

The researchers conducted a number of surveys to explore the prevalence of sexual harassment across the hierarchy within organizations.  The data suggests that women in supervisory roles were up to 100% more likely to experience sexual harassment than women further down the hierarchy.

What’s more, this appeared to be true across countries with as diverse gender norms and equality in the workforce as Sweden, Japan and the United States.  Those in leadership roles were consistently more vulnerable to sexual harassment.

“When we first started to study sexual harassment, we expected a higher exposure for women with less power in the workplace. Instead we found the contrary. When you think about it, there are logical explanations: a supervisor is exposed to new groups of potential perpetrators. She can be harassed both from her subordinates and from higher-level management within the company. More harassment from these two groups is also what we saw when we asked the women who had harassed them,” the researchers say.

The price of success?

This problem was especially challenging when women were leading teams primarily consisting of men.  In all three countries, women with supervisory positions were subject to more harassment when their subordinates consisted of mostly men.

The researchers overcame the challenge of varying rates of awareness of sexual harassment among managers and employees, with questions exploring whether particular behaviors should be defined as sexual harassment showing similar results across the board.  The researchers believe this makes it unlikely that people are responding differently due to differences in perception of what’s right and wrong.

“Sexual harassment means that women’s career advancement comes at a higher cost than men’s, especially in male-dominated industries and firms. Additional survey data from the United States and Japan showed that harassment of supervisors was not only more common than for employees, but was also followed by more negative professional and social consequences. This included getting a reputation of being a ‘trouble maker’ and missing out on promotions or training,” the researchers conclude.