Concerned with the preservation of ecological balance in a small forest in Reni, where the forest department went ahead and auctioned about 2500 trees and conspired to keep the male activists away, it was the women of the village who took it upon themselves to step out of their homes and protest against the government’s policy of handing out surreptitious and ill planned contracts to industrial giants to utilize forest produce for making profits. When company officials came to fell down the trees, an uneducated, middle aged, small bhotia tribal woman immediately mobilized 30 women challenging the men to first shoot them down before touching the trees and forced them to retreat. The woman was Gaura Devi and the protest was the legendary Chipko movement, perhaps one of the most noted female uprisings in India, which though primarily focused on demanding ecological protection, in many ways highlights the impact that women leaders, both celebrated and obscure, have made to making the world a more habitable place and giving an impetus to women to ask for increasingly stronger representation in decision making.
“The Millennium of the Woman Leader” may read like a hyperbole at first glance but it may well turn out to be an accurate prophesy – this millennium indeed will be shaped by woman leaders. Women Leaders have of course existed since centuries. If you revert to history, you will find robust examples from Joan of Arc to Florence Nightingale to Marie Curie, Ayn Rand, Frida Kahlo et al. In our own culture, there are several references to warrior queens such as the Rani of Jhansi or Razia Sultan or reformers such as a Savitribai Phule or a Tara Shinde, who have shown exemplary courage. In more recent times several woman role-models from an Indira Gandhi to an Amrita Shergill, an Ismat Chugtai, a Mahashweta Devi, an Arundhati Roy or a Mary Kom have challenged our notions of subdued feminism with their cerebral brilliance and penchant for questioning the status quo.
While one is trained to believe that leadership is largely a universal trait, mostly impervious and agnostic to extraneous considerations of gender, position, status, designation or wealth and simply represents an innate quality that someone possesses such as to be able to influence other human beings by the mere power of ideas, unique and exceptional knowledge and skills or a sensitive and thoughtful conduct, I have lately been impelled to research and write about the case for women leaders simply because there do seem to be traits that make the woman leadership model unique. So is the leadership shown by a woman distinct from that of a man? Having asked this first question, the second logical question to ask is what are the social or environmental triggers in current times that enable and accelerate the rise of the new woman-led leadership model?
To answer these questions, we first need to analyze how the concept of leadership itself has evolved and undergone a paradigm shift in the 21st century and more so in the last twenty years wherein it has moved away from the traditional mold of an autocratic, territorial, dominating and directing model to a model that values and rewards traits such as teamwork, inclusion, innovation, creativity and influence. It further overlaps with the larger social change wherein the increased focus on women’s education coupled with their economic empowerment, along with the rapid ascent of social media that has largely democratized free expression, which allows people to openly challenge patriarchy, sexualization of women and traditional notions of womanhood. More importantly, we have highly successful and demonstrable recent examples of women leaders who seem to be raising pertinent issues and bringing in more expansive, peaceful and palatable solutions to a world wrought by increasing biases, violence and continuing patriarchy as is evident in the rise of icons such as a Malala Yousafzai, who speaks of hope in a troubled, barbaric and volatile society, or a Kamala Harris who has set a record of sorts by being the first woman of color to become vice-president of the world’s most powerful nation or a Jacinda Ardern who has received recognition of her handling of the Covid situation in a significantly more organized and thoughtful manner than majority of her male counterparts across the globe.
So what are the few special perspectives that make women leaders stand out:
Nuanced soft power built on Courage and not Conquest
Recruiting a feminist view of society with Equality as a core principle
Collaborative not Competitive
Inclusive not Divisive
Stronger focus on Harmony and Stability, not War and Disruption
It is no wonder then that while the world has seen many woman leaders, it has never seen a woman dictator!
Shifting the lens to the corporate world, more and more women leaders have blazed the path and helped us visualize how they can well be on top of their game. Global Corporate leaders such as a Sheryl Sandberg, a Safra Catz, a Julie Sweet, or an Indra Nooyi or entrepreneurs such as Kiran Majumdar Shaw of Biocon or a Suchi Mukherjee of Limeroad or a Falguni Nayar of Nykaa have demonstrated the power of women leaders in breaking male bastions of technology and entrepreneurship and building and scaling global corporations. The last two examples are particularly pertinent as they deal with Women Led Unicorns that have scaled up primarily catering to women customers and their needs.
Also, there are personal role models. In my case, for most of my early adult life, my father was always larger than life for me, with his brilliance and expansive world view and I highly underrated my more pragmatic and non-intellectual mother. But today when I think about how our mother shaped us – me and my brother, by being a high aspiration woman who wanted both her children to do exceptionally well and herself being a successful gynecologist, a kathak dancer, a master chef, a doting wife, a mother hen and matriarch for the larger family and finally a giant teddy whose warm embrace still provides an inexplicable sanctuary all rolled into one – I feel that she is simply matchless and beyond compare and no male role model even comes close. Her remarkable journey has surely created fertile ground for me or her talented daughter-in-law or her burgeoning teen granddaughters to launch on our own formidable self-journeys.
So while the women leaders continue to strive, thrive and march forward, is it still a cakewalk for them to take charge and lead the way? The answer clearly is a NO.
While in the last few decades, we have covered much ground, particularly in the Corporate World where Women’s representation has increased across the pipeline since 2016 and almost every major company today has an Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) policy, we are still far away from nirvana and patriarchy still rules in ways direct and subtle.
The Harvard Business Review, June 2019, highlights the disturbing fact that the percentage of women in senior leadership roles in businesses is abysmal and only 4.9% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 2.0% of S&P 500 CEOs are women. And those numbers are declining globally.
It goes on to highlight the many factors that contribute to dearth of women at senior levels. For centuries, there have been broad, cultural biases against women and stereotypes die slowly. People have long believed that many women elect not to aspire to the highest ranks of the organization and take themselves out of the running (though recent research disputes that). Lots of research has shown that unconscious bias plays a significant role in hiring and promotion decisions, which also contributes to the lower number of women in key positions.
The current data however presents compelling evidence that this bias is incorrect and unwarranted – women are actually perceived by their managers, particularly their male managers to be slightly more effective than men at every hierarchical level and in virtually every functional area of the organization. That includes the traditional male bastions of IT, operations, and legal.
As can be seen in the HBR Chart below, Women were rated better than men on key leadership capabilities. According to an analysis of thousands of 360-degree reviews, women outscored men on 17 of the 19 capabilities that differentiate excellent leaders from average or poor ones. Women were rated as excelling in taking initiative, acting with resilience, practicing self-development, driving for results, and displaying high integrity and honesty. In fact, they were thought to be more effective in 84% of the competencies that we most frequently measure. Further, employees relating to women have shown higher ratings, 55.2% for women against 49.2% for men and 51.0% for overall in the same HBR study.
So how does a company really walk to talk? Is it enough to just articulate parity, celebrate the mandatory International Women’s Day and create a few initiatives here and there?
To accelerate progress for women on all fronts, companies need to double their efforts when it comes to accountability. Despite saying that gender and racial diversity are among their most important business priorities, only two-thirds of companies hold senior leaders accountable for progress on diversity goals, and less than a third hold managers – who play a critical role in hiring and promotions decisions accountable.
Moreover, among companies that say they hold leaders accountable, less than half factor progress on diversity metrics into performance reviews, and far fewer provide financial incentives for meeting goals. This means their accountability isn’t tied to material consequences and it’s therefore much less likely to produce results.
Leaders need to take a hard look at what gets in the way of promoting women in their organizations. Clearly, the unconscious bias that women don’t belong in senior level positions plays a big role. It’s imperative that organizations change the way they make hiring and promotion decisions and ensure that eligible women are given serious consideration. Those making those decisions need to pause and ask, “Are we succumbing to unconscious bias? Are we automatically giving the nod to a man when there’s an equally competent woman?” And there is a need for organizations to give more encouragement to women. Leaders can assure them of their competence and encourage them to seek promotions earlier in their careers.
One of the reasons that endears me to my current employer Accenture, a company that has a woman CEO and employs more than 300,000 women globally with 50% of its Board of Directors and 27% of its Global Management Committee being women, is the fact that it articulates, champions and embraces a comprehensive Inclusion and Diversity program that promotes holistic inclusion in more ways than one – it not only loudly proclaims the fact that the company wants to promote women leaders but gets down to brass tacks and lays out to the minutest detail and sets up big audacious goals, the what and how of it and where the leadership brings an expansive mindset which is supported by clear pro-women policies, strategies, execution and measurements. So as an example, every single Accenture employee is aware in no uncertain terms that we want to have a 50:50 women to men leadership ratio by 2025 and the leaders know that they will be held accountable for driving the women inclusion mandate just like they drive any other Business KPIs. The company is further committed to pay equity for men and women and as per 2021 data, it had a dollar-for-dollar, 100% pay equity for women compared to men, in every country where they operate. I would therefore not shy away from saying that Accenture is one of the more progressive companies that have institutionalized Women Empowerment as a cultural value. And that perhaps, among other things, what makes it so successful.
So to summarize, any organization that wants to create an authentic platform for women leaders to grow may want to follow a roadmap as below:
While these are just few dimensions to women empowerment, and one can write voluminous pages on this most engrossing topic, I would like to end my paper with the verses of a defining and succinct poem titled “Aurat” by the Late Kaifi Azmi:
Zindagi jehad mein hai sabr ke qaabu mein nahin / Life is in struggle, not in the restraint of patience, Nabz-e-hasti ka lahu kampte aansu mein nahin / The blood of pulsating life is not in trembling tears, Udne khulne mein hai nikhat ḳham-e-gesu men nahin / Fragrance lies in free flight, not in locked tresses, Jannat ik aur hai jo mard ke pahlu mein nahin / There is another Paradise which is not by the side of men, Us ki azad ravish par bhi machalna hai tujhe / On its free pathways too you have to pirouette, Uth miri jaan mire saath hi chalna hai tujhe / Get up, my love, you have to walk with me only…
So here’s to all the women trailblazers and to finding new and unfettered horizons!
The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and do not represent any organization, entity or third party. Examples included are illustrative in nature and have been adequately referenced. Accenture Statistics have been taken from published online sources and the author takes no responsibility for their accuracy.
References:
1. Women in the Workplace 2021: Mckinsey & Co https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace 2. Women Are Better Leaders During a Crisis: Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, HBR Research https://hbr.org/2020/12/research-women-are-better-leaders-during-a-crisis 3. The State of Women at the Workplace 2021: Lorman https://www.lorman.com/blog/post/women-in-the-workplace-2021 4. Global Female Leaders Outlook 2020: KPMG https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2021/01/global-female-leaders-outlook-2020.html 5. State of the Global Workplace: Gallup Report https://fundacionprolongar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/State-of-the-Global-Workplace_Gallup-Report.pdf 6. “Aurat”: Poem by Late Kaifi Azmi
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