Tag Archive for: professional women

2015 Year in Review: Professional Women, The Gender Discussion And Why Leaders Need To Be Involved

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By Nicki Gilmour

Nicki Gilmour - Founder of The Glasshammer.comIt is December already so time for the annual Year in Review 2015 piece that looks at the progress, of the professional woman at work in the macro and micro sense. On a general level and where we can measure stats for boardrooms and management numbers, I have to report very little progress. However, on a company-specific level, some firms get it and are doing a great job at a comprehensive plan to tackle the issue of having a representation of women at all levels. Citi have just announced the addition of two more women to their Board for 2016- congrats to Ellen Costello and Renee James on those appointments.

I have outlined three crucial points in this article for any firm to take notice of when embarking on this journey. The other continuous notable effort that I think is worth mentioning is the increase in male gender champions and my favorite open letter of the year comes from John Ryan as he writes to Michael Moritz showing us that men also care about the endless stereotypes that make a mockery out of talented people of both sexes.

What do leaders who “get it” look like?

People, and specifically leaders of companies who get how to really create culture change around this very unresolved gender dilemma, all share a common ability. Smart leaders understand that they personally have to get involved as well as re-engineer processes to support behaviors beyond the evangelizing part. Leaders comprehend the strategic nature of what needs to happen, that companies are eco-systems and so every action has a reaction downstream and are prepared to address multiple areas at once. Since the culture of any team, company or even country is simply a culmination of ‘how we do things around here’, what and who gets tolerated, as well as what and who gets rewarded for their work means that any firm who can hold behavioral boundaries can improve their culture for all working there. It can be a win win and not a zero sum game.

Pierre Nanterme, CEO and Chairman of Accenture is the latest leader who is putting his money where his mouth is. He has aggressive hiring targets, revealing his goal as 40% of new hires being female by 2017 as well as initiatives to ensure pay parity at entry level and throughout a woman’s career to ensure women don’t get left behind. This disparity has been documented by Catalyst and others over the years to be almost $500,000 in the span of their career earnings.

Nanterme states,  “We believe strongly that gender equality is essential for a high-performing, talent-led organization. This commitment extends to pay, and we strive to ensure that all our people – women and men – are compensated fairly and equitably from the moment we hire them through the milestones of their careers here.”

Why do I believe Nanterme? Or least believe he has a shot at it? Well, other than the fact that he actually believes there are equally talented women as men to hire, unlike Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital who just last week stated that there are no qualified women for him to hire (in Silicon Valley venture funding), Nanterme has addressed his blind spots whereas Mike has just showed his cognitive bias when he unwittingly revealed his closely held paradigm that hiring women would probably be a reflection of him lowering his standards.

That is the differentiator for me and as an organizational psychologist who is nine years into this topic with several live projects under my belt and the publisher of 4000 articles on theglasshammer.com, I find that the barriers to progress are definitely systemic but correctable, such as accurate succession planning processes and equal pay for the same job done. More interestingly, is that the maintainers of these barriers are actual people and it is entirely feasible to address issues just like any other area of operational efficiency and resource optimization but their refusal to acknowledge there is a problem beyond some sort of Noah’s Ark approach of ticking off lists is where the work gets weird.

We all have bias in the sense of preference but it is how preference is built in us that needs closer examination-let’s face it, when you have all the cards and have bias towards hiring one type of person and the rest of the system is aligned to support the stereotype, the stakes to change aren’t so high to address your own paradigms in life. Hence the word ‘diversity’ is a misnomer because what we are talking about in actuality is about who we choose and authorise to lead us, manage projects and generally get heard. It is all a meritocracy project and meritocracy exists in very few places if at all.

What three things can companies do better in 2016 to ensure progress?

Action #1 Leaders can lead on equality.

Status quo doesn’t change organically ever. There are levers and deliberate actions to take. How managers act will enhance or minimize the effects and impact of any program or policy that even the best HR team or women’s network could produce. So ensure they act well. Why leave that to chance?

By being a sponsor to ensure the right people get promoted or get allocated onto a project, men and the senior women that can “lift as they climb”, this can change the world one person at a time

Action #2 Stop expecting the women in your firm to fix the gender issue

Attracting, hiring or promoting women shouldn’t be a “woman’s” thing. Too many times, I see women’s networks trying to address these issues whilst everyone else gets on with their day jobs. Exclusively outsourcing this work to ERGs, networks and committees is really erroneous. Why would you put the onus on the group that is asking for their fair share of promotions and access to sit at the power table to be the people to fix the inequities in the system?

Not all companies leave all the work to the women and the women’s networks to deal with the issue. Simply put, it is everyone’s problem to fix inequities but some people can fix it faster than others due to their official influence on talent processes and workplace culture.

Action #3 Women and Men all need to address their biases

One of the most surprising elements that I have personally discovered over the years is that some women revere men as stereotypical leaders more than men do, or on a equal par, even if they themselves are arguably the smartest person in the room. Fascinating to say the least and it happens in small and big ways, from deferring to the male counterpart in meetings to unconsciously believing that men make better leaders. I have talked about this at length in other articles in other years.

My advice? Admit you are part of the problem (if you are) because everything you need to know about how ridiculous we all are, based on the binary of gender identity and how being a woman is still somehow a trait that effects a woman’s ability to lead, manage, do deals and generally do well at work can be seen most compellingly here.

While we are on the subject, can we dispel the myth that brain science has anything to do with performance at work (and men are from next door not Mars as it turns out).Social conditioning has a lot to answer for and you can do something about that as the impact is real with the latest research from Accenture showing that Gen Y women despite everything we have told them are still less likely to ask for a pay rise than their male counterparts and 47% of this particular survey respondents cannot see a path to the top.

Finally, can you get everyone on board? Of course not! But those who don’t will be in the minority both in numbers and effectual influence and power, so let’s get started! Smokers still want to smoke on airplanes, right? The difference is culturally a shift took place only because a law and a process facilitated that shift. Think about it.

We wish you a peaceful, prosperous and Happy New Year to all theglasshammer.com readers and supporters.

By Nicki Gilmour

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Professional Women in Russia and the Landscape for Working Women

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How easy is it for Russian woman to climb the corporate ladder in modern day Russia? Russian women typically haven’t made their way into Russia’s management positions. However according to a recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Russian Association of Managers, women represent 93 % of chief accountants, 70 % of personnel directors and 47 % of finance directors in 2010. But Russia still faces many hurdles when it comes to workplace equality in the corporate world. A culture of leadership discrimination, male dominance in certain sectors and a marked lack of confidence in Russian women’s ability to hold high profile positions puts todays Russia behind many of its Asian (China) and European neighbours. Tatyana Dolyakova, general director of Penny Lane Personnel recently said these statistics are promising for Russia’s women, “But in general no revolution is in sight in the market for top managers”

The present reality and the future progress

One of the biggest barriers to Russia’s career driven professional women is Russia’s culture of discrimination. For many Russians in the corporate world, there is a belief that women simply do not make competent leaders. Elvira Maymina, CEO of Russia’s Gasinvest Bank says,“One thing that I understood very early on in my career is that whatever job you do you have to learn, you have to ”soak up“ professionalism and always be a head taller than everyone following you, otherwise you stop being a leader.” The qualities demanded by this distinctly macho leadership style are often seen in Russia as unobtainable by women.

But corporate discrimination in Russia isn’t as blatant as in many of Russia’s neighbors to the east. Tatyana Dolyakova, the general director of Penny Lane Personnel says, “It is quite a rare occasion that the gender of a future employee is indicated in an employer’s request sent to a recruitment agency.” This discrimination seems to be more concentrated in the traditionally male dominated industries like aviation, technology and oil and gas rather than media and retail. Dolyakova then goes on to say “Of course, on the one hand, the world of business was created by men and therefore a handicap of this kind is not surprising, but, on the other hand, a lot depends upon the particular industry.”

Recently a lot of attention has been paid to women who seem to have beaten the odds and attained leadership in industries not traditionally held by women. Again, Dolyakova states, “There are examples of a traditionally ‘male’ business being run by a woman, like general director of Ledovo (a sea-food producer), Nadezhda Kopytina, or president of Inteko (a construction group), Yelena Baturina.” However these women are often divided carefully between a minority who are self-made and the majority who are married to Russian business magnates. Russia’s most popularized business women, Daria Zhukova and Polina Deripaska, known for their art galleries and media house respectively were both “heavily associated” with two of Russia’s richest men when they launched their ventures. And the groundbreaking President of the Inteko Construction Group, Yelena Baturina was once married to Moscow’s former mayor and third richest man Yury Luzhkov. The perceived notoriety of such relationships is seen by many as an example of how Russian women really climb social ladders and acts as a barrier to young women looking to succeed in business on their own.

Today in Moscow, women are on average better educated than men. But despite this, they hold only 15% of management positions within the city. This is typical of Russia’s problem of limited regional success in the involvement of women in top tier positions. In the city of Belgorod for instance, women command a 65% share of all top management offices. Statistics like these are sometimes used to show Russia’s progress and avert attention from more encompassing statistics.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Russian Association of Managers reported that a whopping 91% of chief accountant positions were held by women but conversely women only occupied 6% of company president seats. The study blamed a large portion of this figure on Russian women themselves not reaching for the top. Panfilova, of Transparency International says candidly that “Sometimes women just prefer to keep a lower profile. We shouldn’t forget that most women are also mothers and simply don’t have the time to promote themselves. The time that men have to spend on self-promotion and PR, women spend cooking dinner.” What this reflects is not only the predominance of traditional gender roles in Russia but also the widespread acceptance of these roles as an excuse for the lack of women in business leadership positions.

But the Russian leadership disparity between genders is improving. In the first months of 2010 there were more women chosen for top level positions than left them. This could represent a shift in the philosophy of Russian’s big-wigs. And the PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Russian Association of Managers survey also reported that most people felt that pay and conditions were the same for men and women, with only 18 per cent saying their company paid women less than men in similar positions.

By Ben Rozon

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Update: Professional Women in South Korea and the Landscape for Working Women

myeongdong-seoul-korea-southThis article is part of theglasshammer.com’s annual Spotlight on Asia feature running throughout the month of August.

How easy is it for South Korean woman to climb the corporate ladder in modern day South Korea? Today’s South Korea is undeniably behind the rest of the world in its prevalence of women in professional positions. Most of Korea’s female workforce finds employment as secretaries or in low paid blue collar work. Compared with a worldwide average of 10.5%, Korean women hold only 1.9% of director level positions in Korea. This systematic inequality at corporate and managerial levels of Korean society resulted in South Korea scoring the lowest of all industrialized nations on The Economist’s glass ceiling index. But with the election of Park Geun-hye as president in 2012, change is on the horizon for South Korea’s career oriented women. Through Korea’s rapid development, women today have opportunities their mothers could only dream of at the same age.

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Update: Professional Women Japan and the Landscape for Working Women

women working mentoringThis article is part of theglasshammer.com’s annual women in Asia feature running throughout the month of August.

How easy is it for Japanese woman to climb the corporate ladder in modern day Japan? With the establishment of Japan’s Equal Opportunity Law in 1985, Japanese women have become a fixture on factory floors and construction sites across Japan. In universities, Japanese women consistently perform to the highest international standards and are viewed as one of the best educated female demographics in the world.

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Female Executives and Centered Leadership in Practice

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by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

What do you get when you sit down with five exceptionally accomplished professional women and ask them about their real life leadership strategies? You get a wide range of powerful and pithy advice on everything from the positive effects of the current economic crisis to their own strategies for goal setting.  The women who made up the afternoon panel at the recent Corporate Best Practices summit hosted by Forté Foundation shared their varied approaches to personal and professional success, united by one common belief: that the current economic crisis has created an abundance of opportunities for women.

“I am a strong believer that in times of crisis and chaos good change will come…Keep yourself pointed toward the future.” said attorney Vivian Polak, co-head of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s Information Technology and Intellectual Property Practice Group and chair of their global diversity initiative.  Carolyn Buck-Luce, Ernst & Young’s Global Pharma Sector Leader, agreed, adding, “This is creating an opportunity to rethink ‘what are the rewards?’ It is no longer just about money; [it’s] about what motivates women.”

Carla Harris, Managing Director in Global Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley took it a step further, advising those in attendance to seize the personal opportunities that arise as well. “I’m looking for ways to expand my personal market share while everybody else is distracted.” She advised, “Think how to leverage your voice and make sure management hears that you understand the challenges and have ideas to cut costs, get customers, etc. Present yourself as part of the solution. Do not operate out of a position of fear.”

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