Supporting Female Executives

As discussed in the past, Diversity is an initiative that most companies have in their corporate strategy.  This includes seeing more women in senior leadership positions.  It has been recently reported that despite this end goal, the actual numbers of women in senior roles have not increased in the last year.

A recent stat published in Marketing Magazine stated that after a survey was conducted,  it showed that for women that were aiming for the top position in a company, only 8% of them felt that they had a “sponsor,” or someone more senior than them who would champion their work. Among those that do believe that they have a sponsor, 89% felt that because of that sponsor relationship, they felt like a high-potential employee, and 62% of them felt that they could reach the C-suite one day.

40% of women hold all MBA's and hold over half of all Undergraduate degrees, but still only 5% of Fortune 500 CEO's are women.  Women also only represent 17% of total Board Members.

How do we change this?

Executives and experts have a variety of ideas.  Here is a sampling:

1.  Instill confidence early on.  - Too many women are losing faith in themselves and the system and feel that reaching the top is not possible.

2.  Introduce more role models that support the idea of having it all! (Growing career and Family)  Many women have done this successfully and they are true role models and not only to just women.  

3.  Leadership Groups and Leadership retreats.  There has been progress in this area as more groups like this have formed and there is hope that groundwork laid in the last few years will pay larger dividends moving forward.  At least more progress than what has been witnessed to date.

4.  Men know men and relate to men so let’s change this.  How do we draw similarities instead observing differences.  A recent client of ours suggested a male candidate to join a women’s group and he was accepted and it has been a success.  Could this help advance the Female Executive movement?  It could be the answer in understanding similarities and understanding people differently BUT too many males could also just turn the initiative into another run of the mill leadership conference.

5.  Develop new processes that support change and integration.

Farewell,

Mike