The recent failure of Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Minister to introduce a European directive for mandatory quotas to increase female board members is to be welcomed.  While most companies in the UK have bought into the theory that a more diverse senior management team, with more women and different perspectives and backgrounds, would drive better performance, any selection not based purely on merit must be resisted at all costs.

The imperative is clear, both commercially and morally; no business can afford to overlook half the talent pool when it comes to seeking its next generation of leaders.  In addition, decision making effectiveness in organisations is improved by diversity of perspectives. Yet many women feel they are not getting a fair shot at the top posts.  So what is stopping them? Do women feel lack of equal opportunity? And more importantly do men and women see the issue, and the solutions, in the same way?

A recent study by management consultants Bain and Co and Chief Executive Women (CEW) sought to understand the relative impact of both the structural issues (policies and work practices) that create barriers for women and the cultural issues (beliefs, stereotypes, values) that create biased perceptions about women’s ability to lead effectively.The good news from the 2011 research is that organisations are making progress. The study identified that 49% of the respondents believe their leadership team has made gender parity a visible priority and 40%believe meaningful resources have been committed to addressing these issues – both increases from the previous year.

Another positive from the report was that women remain ambitious and aspire to leadership positions. In fact, it found that women and men do not have materially different levels of ambition. Seventy-four per cent of women and 76 per cent of men surveyed aspire to leadership roles. However, the worrying finding is that a wide gap remains between intention and outcome.  According to the Bain and Co  and CEW report there has been no improvement in the perceptions of a level playing field for women. In fact, there has been a decline, and now only 15 per cent of women believe that they have equal opportunity (compared with 20 per cent last year) for promotion to senior management positions.

With all the focus on gender parity, the slow pace of change is confounding. There are two factors that may explain the disappointing lack of progress. First, women need to become cleverer about pushing themselves forward in the workplace. Second, implementing change is difficult. It requires shifting underlying beliefs and behaviours. The brutal fact is that the barriers to women’s progression into leadership roles are in large part due to perceptions of a woman’s ability to lead. These beliefs appear to be linked to differences in style. Challenging these beliefs will require a cultural change over the long term.

We try to think that everybody is equal and everybody is the same, but a lot of women have tended to behave differently in the workplace. Women have probably been less good at putting themselves forward for promotions, putting their hands up for the big jobs. A study by Ashridge Business School, based on 1,400 female managers, finds half believe it is harder for women to succeed at work compared with men, with the majority citing a lack of belief in their own ability as a key barrier.

Does this “hold-back” attitude come from the lack of role models?  I don’t believe so. Perhaps it is just that we are slow to profile the women that we should or that we are looking in the wrong place for role models.  I have been fortunate in my life to have been surrounded by successful women; my mum, mother in law, aunts and teachers have all inspired me.  In particular my own mother in law who, as principal of St Finian’s PS during the dark days of the ‘70s while raising a family of five children, was for me a guiding role model. 

The real challenge stems from developing more women so that they undertake leadership roles.  It’s absolutely critical for companies to focus on how to retain their talent, whether that is male or female. An awful lot of women leave [their jobs] to have a family so companies should help manage the process effectively to ensure they feel they can come back to work and look after their careers and be valued. That’s very important. Employers need to be open-minded to give people degrees of flexibility. Perhaps women need role models who are juggling home and work life sensibly – it’s no use pretending women can do it all.   In part, it’s a bit of a mindset about what flexibility is.

The call to action is clear: We must create environments that embrace a spectrum of styles and working models. Without that, organisations will continue to lose potential and existing female leaders from their talent pipelines and miss the opportunity to reap the rewards of having a diverse leadership team.

Claire Aiken - printed in Irish News - 13.11.2012