The Global Context of Women at the Top

There are many key questions that this column will address, particularly relating to the key attributes of women in the global workplace.

Let’s focus on women’s strengths as leaders. Our agenda will be to focus on why organizations need women leaders. What do we know about the strengths of women as leaders? And what is leadership like in the 21st century? I’ll start by just giving a summary statement about the bulk of research that has been done on women’s leadership. That studies overwhelmingly find that female managers are equal to or outshine their male counterparts on many competencies.

BusinessWeek found the status of women’s competencies for leadership when they did a meta-analysis of many studies pertaining to the competencies of women. What BusinessWeek found was that in almost every study, women outshin the competencies of men on a 360 degree basis. This finding tells us that in almost every case, women are very strong on leadership competencies. And those are the cases where women’s and men’s competencies are equal. In those cases, it is clear also that these are strengths.

A more recent study that I will share with you about the more recent studies around the same issues of the competencies for leadership of women and men. This was a study that was done by Zenger Folkman, a consultancy service that looked at a survey of more than 7,000 women and men leaders in their global database for their company. Again, what they found is indisputable evidence that women are strong for leadership, at least as strong and sometimes even better in the case of leadership competencies. What was also determined is that as the level got higher in the organization, as a person’s level got higher in the organization, women’s competencies were clearer and more strong for leadership than men’s competencies. At middle levels and at lower levels, men and women had equal competencies. At higher levels, women’s competencies were even greater.

Other research has shown that leadership style also varies across men and women. A particular meta-analysis that was done by my colleagues showed that over 160 studies, only 1 major difference was found in the leadership style of women and men, in that women used a more participative or democratic style and a less autocratic or directive style than men did.

The interesting part of this finding was that this tendency declined in highly male-dominated settings, indicating that in a highly gendered environment, men and women will use the same kinds of leadership styles. And women’s natural tendencies towards being more participative or democratic will be suppressed in a more male-dominated setting. Other research finds no differences between male and female leaders in leader aptitude, in motivation to be a leader, in commitment to be a leader, in job satisfaction, and in subordinate satisfaction.

All of these studies signal women’s leadership strengths, including a mission-focused approach, high level of relational skills, particularly collaboration, teamwork, and connection. They demonstrate care for employees, for customers, for community and that they engage in good governance and ethics.

I want us to look at these various aspects of women’s leadership because in the 21st century these are the exact same set that is required for effective leadership. Focusing on mission, engaging and connecting, sharing information, bringing people together, engaging in a creative and risk-taking way. But based on mission and purpose, showing care for community, customers, and employees and operating with integrity and good governance. These are what the 21st century demands of leadership, which leads us to the conclusion that women are ideally suited for leadership in the 21st century. It’s our time now to leverage these strengths to become change leaders in organizations and societies, to bring about the positive change and to inspire others to positive change through women’s leadership.

The highest percentage of board seats held by women in any country is currently by Norway. That was the initiator of legislation to make sure that women were represented on corporate boards that were listed on their country’s stock exchange. In Asia-Pacific countries as well women share of board seats has a wide range from almost 20% to 3%. In North America, particularly in Canada and the US this has been a fairly stable number, ranging around 17 to 20% in the US and Canada. The status of women in US business is a very interesting diagram.

The research put out by Catalyst, which is a research-based firm out of New York studies and advocates for women in leadership positions at the highest levels in US business as well as across the world. Their analysis shows that while there are almost parity at the middle levels of management, 51% of mid-level managers and professionals are women, subsequent levels higher show declining percentages of women in leadership. Such that at the highest levels of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 5% are women. Among all of the different companies at the highest levels, a miniscule proportion is held by women. These numbers have been fairly stable over the last ten years. There has been some growth. But in the last 10 years we’ve seen a plateauing of these numbers.

Let’s look at women in US healthcare. Again a majority of women in the labor force are women in healthcare. The percentage of CEOs non-existent. Women in academic leadership. This is a particularly important aspect because the majority of all college students today in the US are women. And this is a pattern that is replicated in many other countries cross the world, where more college students are women than men.

The highest proportions of women with senior roles are what is called the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Women comprise in total 30% of senior management positions in the BRIC which is higher than the global average. Russia has the highest proportion of women in senior management globally. The Baltic States have more than 30%. And between 2012 and 2013, China doubled the number of senior management roles held by women from 25 to 51%. Again this is data from the study by Grant Thornton. So this data indicates that there are a number of different ways by which countries, governments, and companies can advance women to the top of their organizations and change the representation of women at the top.

Women have made great strides but there is much opportunity for continued advancement. The glass ceiling is a powerful barrier to women’s advancement to senior leadership. Countries are using a variety of methods to address and correct the glass ceiling effect. By acknowledging that the glass ceiling is a collective challenge to overcome, women can support and mentor each other and organizations can better support women to reach their full potential and make positive contributions to their organizations and society.