Tara Cree asks the 150 women in the audience to put up their hands if they recognize the leaders as their faces appear on screens in front of the room.

The attendees at her workshop, conducted on a recent Thursday morning for the Vancouver Board of Trade, have no trouble recognizing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, B.C. billionaire Jimmy Pattison or Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle.

Then Indra Nooyi appears on the screen, followed by a picture of Anne Mulcahy. This time, the raised hands in the audience are few and far between.

Nooyi, Cree explains, just happens to be the president and CEO of Pepsi. "She was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the No. 1 most powerful woman in business in 2006," says Cree.

Mulcahy is chairman and CEO of Xerox.

Stacey Allerton Firth also proves to be a stumper. She's vice-president of human resources at a Canadian firm - Ford Motor Co. of Canada.

Cree, a Vancouver-based leadership consultant and business coach who has advised major firms such as Canadian Tire, Bayer Healthcare and CIBC, has made her point.

Women business leaders are not as well known as their male counterparts, even though studies show that leaders of either gender are more similar than different.

Her statistics help to explain why. Among Fortune 500 companies, women comprise 47 per cent of the workforce, but hold only 27 per cent of senior management positions and 14 per cent of corporate officer posts.

Just 19 women are Fortune 500 CEOs and 12 per cent sit on boards, while women leaders earn 73 per cent of male CEO salaries.

A key reason for the lack of recognition, says Cree, is that women don't brag as well as men do.

"Men grew up showing off," says Cree. "People need to know what your skills are. People need to know what your accomplishments are. People need to know what your contributions are."

This aversion to self-promotion is among seven "deadly sins" that Cree says prevent women from climbing the corporate ladder. The others include:

* Wanting to be liked rather than respected.

* Settling for recognition rather than seeking financial rewards and promotions.

* Avoiding conflict.

* Lacking ownership of their careers (in other words, not finding their passions).

* Putting the needs of children, spouses and other family members first, and failing to align personal objectives with corporate objectives.

* Being unwilling to take risks.

This risk-aversion stems largely from how women were raised, she says.

"I have a two-year-old (son)," she says. "When you go to the park and you watch parents with their boys, parents are more hands-off. They're letting their little guys climb the monkey bars and they're not standing right behind them. (Boys) are just encouraged to try those things. I still see parents with their little girls (who are) so much more cautious."

Gender stereotyping in society as a whole also hampers women's advancement, she believes.

"Women are seen as being better at caretaking-type roles and men are seen as being better at taking charge-type roles," she says.

Other barriers to advancement? Exclusionary corporate cultures, increased career demands (which make it harder to fit in family and personal responsibilities), a lack of women role models, mentors and networks, and no way to measure talents and abilities.

"What do we fall back on? Our stereotypes."

Cree encourages women to develop a good support network and learn how to focus on performance by joining a competitive team.

"Despite the fact women have made significant strides in the workplace, we still have a long way to go," she says in an interview.

It's not a question of working hard - it's about working smarter. Companies can also help by becoming more creative and offering more flexible schedules.

"That's going to help both men and women," says Cree, who has a PhD in organizational psychology from the University of Guelph.

Cree says she recently agreed to join Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions as a senior consultant because the firm was one of the few that allowed her to work four days per week instead of five. Corporate change, she says, is "moving at a snail's pace," where there's a lot of talk but little action.

It probably didn't help that the only two males at the event were a reporter and an audio-visual technician - although the Vancouver Board of Trade sent invitations to all members.

Cree, who advises both men and women on leadership issues, says males probably stayed away because the event, and the invitation's wording, were geared toward women.

Lynn Woodbury, customer care manager with Surrey, B.C.-based A&A Contract Customs Brokers Ltd., says she would have loved to see more male CEOs attend the event.

She adds she'll use Cree's advice to help the four younger women that she supervises advance in their careers.

"I came up the slow way," she says. "When I started working in a career, I started in a bank. The concept in the business world was women in administration, male executives."

Woodbury says the women at her table discovered they were their own worst enemies.

"Emotion comes in. We're very worried about people other than ourselves."

Nikki Hellyer, a marketing manager with Vancouver-based winemaker Andrew Peller Ltd., says it's important to understand what other women are going through in business, because there is a difference between men and women in the business world.

She says she gained an understanding of women's common career insecurities and immediately set new goals, which include documenting her successes throughout the year, so that she is better prepared when the time comes to negotiate a pay hike. "And I know going in that I deserve that raise," says Hellyer.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)