We Need Many More Women in Leadership Roles

Recently, I have written several articles about our need for more women in key leadership roles. I assert that our companies and organizational cultures could benefit from women’s great strengths, e.g., their willingness to ask questions, to listen to understand and learn, to be inclusive in decision making, and to have meaningful conversations and relationships. Even though this is just a partial list, each is so important to highly effective leadership that companies and organizations lacking leaders with these qualities will not perform as well as they could.

Over the last two weeks, I have written about mentoring and how important it is for us to help those coming up behind us. I like to think of it as taking a person(s) under our wing and helping her or him learn how to do their best work and advance, to earn the success they deserve.

Maybe it is especially important to mentor women, at least until we catch up with where we should be, i.e., having a proportionate number of a women in leadership, as only three percent of the fortune 500 CEOs are female.

Please note that this message is directed at both women and men.

A year or so ago, I attended a book signing by Christine Brown-Quinn, author of Step Aside, Super Woman, which explains her strategy to be successful as a mom, wife, and managing director of an investment banking firm. The audience, 45 women in business in the DC area, took great interest in Christine’s book and talk. One question caused Christine to step back and think. When an audience member asked, “Do you have a regret?” Christine answered, “Yes, I was so focused on my family and business responsibilities, I did not take the time to mentor those coming up behind me, especially women. I wish I had.”

That was an honest and powerful reflection by Christine.

It is has been noted that because there have been so few women at the top, younger women have lacked role models. I see that as true.

Women have had to work so hard to make it up the corporate ladder in a male dominated environment, with men setting the rules of success, that many women have not used their natural skills, as outlined in the first paragraph above. Rather, they have modeled themselves on the styles of men and thus, depriving their organizations of their great strengths.

Hopefully, this will change – now!

As role models, we must exhibit the way a successful leader should carry her/himself and interact with others, our leadership presence and composure, and our self-awareness.

It is also stated that women could greatly benefit from sponsors higher up in their companies. I absolutely agree!

We need women and men who recognize that their companies would be stronger with more women with key leadership responsibilities, who will say to others in senior management, “This person is a terrific contributor and will strengthen our organizational culture. We should promote her. She deserves it and we’ll be better off for it.” That is visionary leadership, the willingness to sponsor that we need.

I hope you will take this to heart.

Helping women advance is not only the right, just thing to do, it will also have very significant favorable effects on our companies and our results!