By Cleo Thompson (London), founder of The Gender Blog
This is the next in our series of articles which looks at how UK business is approaching the issue of women on boards.
According to a recent survey by executive recruiters Harvey Nash, 81% of women feel that bias in the appointment process has a major impact on female representation – but two-thirds (64%) do not support legal quotas.
Instead, respondents cited education and awareness as the single biggest opportunity for improving boardroom balance (44%), followed by published targets and regular reporting (40%). Eighty-four percent of women believe they personally need to do more to achieve a higher representation on the board.
It appears from the survey, conducted of 365 male and female board level and senior executives, that the majority of women in business want to be taken seriously for their expertise and not simply be viewed as having “won” a place on the board through a mandated quota, an observation with which Charlotte Sweeney, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, EMEA at Nomura PLC agreed. She said, “Women want to be appointed into roles because they are the best person for the role, not because they are a woman.”
However, a minority of women (36%) believed quotas should be put in place and this is a growing and vocal segment of women in business and politics, led by the Fawcett Society. They recently called for gender quotas, with Acting Chief Executive Anna Bird arguing that “In politics, business and public life more generally, decisions which affect us all are being made with too few women in the room. If the government is serious about increasing the number of women on boards, and so sharing these positions of great power and influence more fairly between women and men, quotas are the way to do it.”
Movers and Shakers: Ellen Galinsky, Co-Founder and President, Families and Work Institute
Movers and Shakers“My biggest piece of advice,” said Ellen Galinsky, Co-Founder and President of the Families and Work Institute and a pioneer in the study of work-life issues, “is don’t think that tension will totally disappear. We will always have some work-life tension.”
Galinsky’s work has spanned decades and subjects – parents, children, men, women – and she’s gained key insight into the evolution of the problems faced by working parents.
“I think a lot of mothers worry about how their work will affect their child. But the fact is, the real impact on your children comes from the kind of relationship you have with them. Decades of studies have shown that work doesn’t have that much of an impact — you as parents do! So ask yourself, “what kind of parent do I want to be?”
Galinsky’s most recent work shows that more men are reporting work-life conflict than women. The Institute’s new report, The New Male Mystique [PDF], examines the reason behind it – and why it’s important for women.
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Women in Philanthropy: Frances Hesselbein on Leadership and Diversity
Women and PhilanthropyAt the headquarters of the Girl Scouts of the USA on Tuesday, the organization welcomed home its beloved leader Frances Hesselbein, who served as its CEO from 1976 to 1990. Upon taking the reins, she led the faltering organization to a new era of dynamic success, by implementing new delivery methods and ushering in a host of initiatives aimed at improving diversity. At the event, Hesselbein recalled the lessons she has learned throughout her life and career.
Now President and CEO of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management), Hesselbein’s model of servant leadership has inspired powerful people around the world, and in 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Model of Freedom, the highest honor a civilian can receive in the US. She is the recipient of over 20 honorary degrees, and her work on leadership and management is respected globally. As Marshall Goldsmith, who moderated the event, explained, “In the world of leadership she is the role model.”
Hesselbein, who is deeply patriotic, said her commitment to diversity comes from her love of her country. “How can we sustain democracy if we don’t know the power of inclusion?” she asked.
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Goldman Sachs’ Returnship® Provides Opportunity to Re-adjust to the Workforce
Industry Leaders, LeadershipNow entering its fourth year, the Goldman Sachs Returnship® program is returning this fall. Originally specific to Goldman’s New York headquarters, the program has expanded to include Hong Kong, Singapore, Salt Lake City, and New Jersey – and the firm is looking toward a London program as well.
The Returnship® evolved out of research that employers were ignoring an experienced source of talent: women who had left the workforce for a few years, and were eager to get back in. Like an internship, the program lasts for a limited amount of time, and provides seasoned women with the opportunity to see if they are ready to on-ramp back into the workforce. Monica Marquez, Vice President, Office of Global Leadership & Diversity at Goldman Sachs, and director of the program, said, “The beauty about the Returnship® program is that it is a ten-week program. There is a start date. There is an end date.”
In those ten weeks, participants – or “returnees,” as Goldman calls them – work on real business challenges tailored to their skills and experience. Marquez explained, “What we really try to do is work with the hiring manager to identify really meaty projects that these individuals can come in and work on because the difference from a regular summer intern is that Returnship® individuals are very seasoned, very experienced individuals who just happen to have taken a career break and are looking to come back.”
As one returnee remarked, “The ability to play an integral role in a team in such a short period of time was a great validation of my skill-set.”
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Why are We Still Confusing Quotas with Tokenism?
Featured, Managing ChangeAs our writer Cleo Thompson pointed out in this morning’s piece on UK views on quotas, “According to a recent survey by executive recruiters Harvey Nash, 81% of women feel that bias in the appointment process has a major impact on female representation – but two-thirds (64%) do not support legal quotas.”
In a recent Computerweekly piece, Women in Technology founder Maggie Berry railed against quotas saying:
Berry believes that instituting a quota system would mean placing women at the top who don’t deserve to be there. This view, that a quota system is akin to tokenism, is just plain wrong. It implies that the dearth of women at the top has nothing to do with institutional, cultural bias, and that women aren’t in leadership roles in large numbers because they majority simply aren’t qualified for them.
In fact, there are plenty of highly qualified women just waiting to break through to the top. The point of a quota system isn’t to play a numbers game, promoting female faces to positions of leadership just for show. It’s to encourage a correction of long-standing and culturally entrenched beliefs around what a leader looks like – male – and to place those women at the top who do deserve to be there, but because of culturally entrenched bias, haven’t made it.
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Majority of UK Women and Businesses Opposed to Gender Quotas
Managing ChangeThis is the next in our series of articles which looks at how UK business is approaching the issue of women on boards.
According to a recent survey by executive recruiters Harvey Nash, 81% of women feel that bias in the appointment process has a major impact on female representation – but two-thirds (64%) do not support legal quotas.
Instead, respondents cited education and awareness as the single biggest opportunity for improving boardroom balance (44%), followed by published targets and regular reporting (40%). Eighty-four percent of women believe they personally need to do more to achieve a higher representation on the board.
It appears from the survey, conducted of 365 male and female board level and senior executives, that the majority of women in business want to be taken seriously for their expertise and not simply be viewed as having “won” a place on the board through a mandated quota, an observation with which Charlotte Sweeney, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, EMEA at Nomura PLC agreed. She said, “Women want to be appointed into roles because they are the best person for the role, not because they are a woman.”
However, a minority of women (36%) believed quotas should be put in place and this is a growing and vocal segment of women in business and politics, led by the Fawcett Society. They recently called for gender quotas, with Acting Chief Executive Anna Bird arguing that “In politics, business and public life more generally, decisions which affect us all are being made with too few women in the room. If the government is serious about increasing the number of women on boards, and so sharing these positions of great power and influence more fairly between women and men, quotas are the way to do it.”
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Risky Behavior and Your Career Growth
Office PoliticsA recent study commissioned by Barclays Wealth and Ledbury Research shows that women perform better than men in financial markets, because they are not as overconfident and don’t take as many risks.
The study seems to corroborate a 2010 New York Times article, which cites primitive biological instincts possibly at play with risk taking and aversion. Alexandra Bernasek, a professor of economics at Colorado State University, says, “Before the dawn of history, aggressive risk-taking might have given men an advantage in finding mates, while women might have become more risk-averse to protect their offspring.”
In general, men tend to participate in high levels of risk taking in the office as well. According to a recent article in Time Magazine entitled “Why Women Are Better at Everything,” a study by John Coates, research fellow at Cambridge University, tested male traders’ hormone responses to workplace decisions. He found that testosterone surges during winning streaks may drive both risk-taking and an attitude of infallibility.
Yet, while women may be better suited to keeping an even keel when it comes to trading, we’re often cited as too timid when it comes to taking chances, jumping on new opportunities, and tooting our own horns – to our own career detriment. If women participated in more risk-taking in the office, would we experience greater success?
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Voice of Experience: Liv Sandbaek, Managing Director, Technology, Accenture
Voices of ExperienceIn her 20 year career in technology, Liv Sandbaek has climbed the ranks at Accenture to become Managing Director of Technology in the company’s UK office. In fact, she’s become so well regarded that she was recently awarded by Science and Technology award at the CBI and Real Business’ 2011 First Women Awards.
According to Sandbaek, women have the skills to get ahead – but often lack the confidence to take charge. She said, “Women need to feel 100% confident to do a job before they accept, but men will volunteer for anything. We need to take a few chances here – it’s all to do with the confidence you feel inside.”
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Why STEM Needs Women
Managing ChangeThis week the US Commerce Department’s Economics and Statistics Administration published a new report [PDF] on women in science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) fields. And the report included some good news – the STEM wage gap is smaller than in other fields.
But, let’s not forget that the gap is still there.
According to the report, even after controlling for education, age, and other factors, women earn less than men. It says, “For every dollar earned by a man in STEM, a woman earns 14 cents (or 14 percent) less, smaller than the 21 percent gender wage gap in non-STEM occupations, but a clear gender disparity nonetheless.”
The wage gap is only one problem highlighted in the report, which should serve as a clarion call to educators, employers, and the media that it’s time to encourage more women to enter STEM, and stay there. Here’s why.
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Gender and Power: What Christine Lagarde’s Appointment to Head the IMF Means for Women in Leadership
Industry Leaders, LeadershipOne could say it’s laughable that, in the year 2011, women are celebrating Christine Lagarde’s appointment as the first female head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But, says Subha Barry, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at Freddie Mac, “every ceiling that we break must be celebrated,” and Lagarde’s appointment is yet another major breakthrough for professional women.
Her progress at the traditionally male-dominated institution that is the IMF “is going to be carefully watched by everyone and will make it so much easier for other women,” Barry says.
Barry, like most women of her ilk, holds Lagarde in high esteem. She has no doubt that Lagarde will be highly successful in her new role, and that she will take the Fund – an institution that scores of people the world over have, for the better part of the past couple of decades, loved to hate – forward on a new course. Her presence at its helm will help a great deal in restoring the Fund’s credibility – even if that effort had, despite his unsavory exit, already been undertaken to a great degree by former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
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Rising Star: Kelly Widelska, Knowledge Leader – Global Transaction Advisory Services, Ernst & Young Global
Rising StarsBy Cleo Thompson (London), founder of The Gender Blog
For London based Kelly Widelska, an Associate Director at Ernst & Young, knowledge really is power and has led to global opportunities. Following her Masters in Information Management from the University of Sheffield, Widelska joined the accounting giant’s EMEIA management consulting division for two years, prior to moving to Cap Gemini following the sell-off of E&Y’s consulting practice. A year later, she returned to the Ernst & Young fold and headed to China and Hong Kong, where she helped to set up and develop the Centre for Business Knowledge, an internal function for knowledge management, providing programmes, techniques and technologies to help E&Y staff share what they know.
After three years in China, her role expanded into the Far East, after which she returned to the UK in 2005 to a transaction advisory role in a country knowledge management capacity. Her next move saw a shift to a broader cross-firm position, supporting Global functional teams in areas such as Tax, Climate Change and Sustainability and People teams with their knowledge sharing needs. Widelska has been in her current role as Global TAS Knowledge Leader since 2009 and now leads a team of ten as part of a highly matrixed knowledge organisation.
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