Mentoring women in leadership

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: There is clearly a universality of opinion among women executives in corporations worldwide that little progress has been made by them in assuming leadership roles in the organisation, and that the barriers to women’s advancement are remarkably similar across the global workforce.

It is quite striking that this consensus of views emerges when women get together for candid conversation in forums that range from the elite Ivy-league financial women’s association in the US to the national women’s conference in New Delhi.

What is inspiring, however, is that the pressures of global competition and cross-cultural models for doing businesses worldwide are forcing CEOs and top-management to re-define their traditional mind-sets and recognise that there is growing need to become more innovative to survive and enhance the talent-bucket in the global marketplace.

Companies that aspire to gain the competitive advantage will need to leverage this tremendous and virtually untapped resource of smart women executives and look beyond narrowly- defined “high-potentials” in the organisation in the search for globally inclusive leadership teams.

The best global companies are also recognising that recruiting, retaining and advancing women is no longer a matter of social responsibility. Successful corporations have understood the strategic and economic significance of women as executives, investors, customers and clients in the global economy, and make a clear “business case” for diversity and inclusiveness in the organisation.

Some of the leading Fortune 500 companies that have successfully done this include GE, IBM, Monsanto, EI Dupont, Pfizer, Ford Motors and Shell Group, among others.

At the same time, it is not enough for best-employers and HR leaders to simply focus on increasing the “number” of women in the workforce – either at the entry-level or at the mid-executive level. The priority should be also on including women in top-management positions at the board of directors, president-level or CEO-level.

It is, therefore, no accident that more than 35% of Fortune 500 companies have at least one woman on the board of directors, and the number of Fortune 500 companies with more than 25 % or more women on boards increased from 11% to 64% between 1995- 2005. Women are also holding more than 15% of board-level seats of S&P 500 companies, as compared to only 8% in mid-cap companies.