Women in Leadership- Way to Go!

Last year the new Companies Act 2013 in India made it mandatory for all listed companies to have one woman Director in the Board to encourage women participation in a managerial position and on the executive board of directors. Yet in India, only 15% of the women holds a senior management role and is rated in the bottom 3 of the rankings globally as per a research by Grant Thornton (GT) in 2015.

As per the said GT report, women make up 22% of senior management globally, they continue to be concentrated in management support functions rather than in leadership roles at the core of a business, suggesting a bottleneck for women upon reaching the management level. Russia sits top of the global league table with 40% of senior roles occupied by women. It is joined in the top ten by six other economies from Eastern Europe, including Georgia (38%) and Poland (37%). Japan (8%) still sits bottom of the table as it has done every year since 2004. Germany (14%) and India (15%) sit second and third last respectively. China has 51% of senior management positions held by women, compared to 25% last year. In 2015, though women comprised over a third of the workforce in the United States, they held a mere 14.3 percent of executive officer positions at Fortune 500 companies and only 8.1 percent of executive officer top-earner positions.

From an industry perspective, the proportion of senior roles held by women varies enormously by industry. Women tend to be over-represented in service industries such as education, healthcare and hospitality, while the leadership teams of more traditional, primary industries such as manufacturing, transport, construction & real estate, mining & quarrying are overwhelmingly made up of men.
The most popular leadership role for women globally is Human Resources Director (27%); women are only a third as likely to be Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Chief Operating Officers (COO) globally (both 9%), 18% of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and 14% of corporate controller roles are held by women.

As per the GT survey, business leaders highlighted a range of enablers and barriers along the path to promotion. Some of the key themes to emerge were: parenthood and family care require women to make sacrifices; women are more likely to work their way up to management support positions; women are twice as likely to cite gender bias as a barrier, and men and women network differently.
It is really important that to get more women into leadership roles, we have to address our culture’s discomfort with female leadership and as quoted by Ellen Teo, CEO of Union Energy in Singapore, "Asian culture hasn’t matured enough to accept the fact that women can hold a job and also have a family."

While many companies are actively enhancing their efforts and establishing diversity targets to ensure that hiring at all levels is aligned with business goals and have implemented flexi work hours to encourage more female employees to take up leadership role and to overcome the barriers, but it is important for the society, government and companies to work together to bring more women participation and encourage and mentor women to take more leadership role. It is equally important for women to bring out their ambitions and to utilize these opportunities to the fullest extent.
According to a recent survey in India, titled Talent Trends Report—HR Game Changers and conducted among BSE100 companies by global human resource consultant firm Randstad India, having the higher representation of women on the board had a positive impact on the return on equity (RoE) or the company’s profitability. To put it simply when women thrive, businesses thrive.

Some of the recommendations (figure below) made in GT report to help a smooth path for women in business leadership role is worth mentioning and the need of the hour.


On this International Women Day, I would like to quote one of the best Sheryl Sandberg statement, "Change is never easy. But we can achieve great gains faster than anyone believes. We reached the moon in eight years of concerted effort—not 80. Let’s bring that same urgency to this mission. We will achieve not just a stronger and more successful workplace, but also increased economic growth and benefits for all our workers and families."

"Be the Change you want to see in the World"- Mahatma Gandhi

 Wishing all my dear friends a very happy women’s day!

Reference: Grant Thornton International Business Report 2015