Fear of Success among Women Managers: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Fear of success is regarded as a major problem facing women managers in the organizational setting. Such female-specific fear of success motive originates from sex-role socialization process. In the present study, an attempt is made to study the impact of managerial level and sex-role orientation on fear of success. The study is based on an empirical investigation conducted among 160 women managers from senior, middle, and junior levels of management from 10 major PSUs. Contrary to expectations, the results reveal that the average score of women managers on fear of success is low and managerial level does not have any significant influence on it. However, sex-role orientation is found to be having significant influence on fear of success. Androgynous and masculine sex-role type women managers experienced much less fear of success than the feminine sex-role type.