A simple formula is available to women and minorities who want to break a glass ceiling that hinders their advancement to C-level positions, and it could remain a secret to a great many men who lead Greater Des Moines companies.

The latter observation is based on the turnout for the standing-room-only attendance at today’s Business Record Power Breakfast, “Breaking the Glass Ceiling.” Nine out of 10 people who registered were women. A smattering of men were in attendance at the Des Moines Club.

They missed the observations of six women who have defied the odds, by most statistical counts, at least, and advanced to the top of the business world.

And that formula, well, it might not be a formula at all, considering that it contains a single ingredient, confidence.

“If I had to sum up one thing I tried to instill in my children, and I’ve learned in my career, it is confidence,” said Carolyn Helmlinger, CEO and president of Mid-America Group.

Confidence is an “aura that surrounds you,” she said, in explaining what she would tell young women launching a career and identifying the key element in her advancement to the top of the real estate conglomerate she leads.

Joining Helmlinger on the panel of confident and successful women were Dianne Bystrom, director of Iowa State University’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women & Politics; Roxanne Conlin, owner of Roxanne Conlin & Associates and a former U.S. attorney and gubernatorial candidate; Mary Gottschalk, owner of MCG Strategic Services; and Mary O’Keefe, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Principal Financial Group Inc.

Mary Kramer, president of Kramer & Associates, and a former state senator and U.S. ambassador to Barbados, was the moderator.

They spoke about a glass ceiling that exists in general because of the human inclination to “chose people who are like us.” In the business world, the majority of the people in leadership positions have been men, Conlin said.

She noted a judge’s opinion in a sex discrimination lawsuit what opined that in order for women to be promoted in the business world, they needed qualifications that would “leap off the page and slap you in the face.”

Gottschalk, on the other hand, noted that for most of her career in the financial world, she felt as thought she had “died and gone to heaven.” If the glass ceiling existed in her quest for promotions and jobs that intrigued her, “my reaction has been to exit stage right.”

O’Keefe said her mother worked and help raise 11 children, but also discouraged her from entering the business world. O’Keefe’s advice to other women is not to make career decisions before they’re necessary.