Women Making Waves in the Boardroom

Organizations and companies that hire and promote women into senior executive positions give themselves the chance to discover ingenious ways to grow and expand. Yet, not more than 15.4% of women serve as corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies in the United States. In Europe, women make up less than 13% of boards.

: Women in the Boardroom Picture by Markpruce at Wikimedia Commons

Women Serving on Corporate Boards

Australia companies are made up of nearly 9% of women. The percentage of women who serve on boards in Asia is even less; women only sit on 1.8% of boards in Asia.

According to The Sunday Times March 19, 2009 “Women in the Boardroom Help Companies Succeed” article written by Anjana Ahuja, women are “less hung up” on status and are therefore able to help companies move through economic downturns, like the recent recession. The article references a Leeds University Business School (LUBS) study that states women can make the difference between a company failing or succeeding during economic downturns.

The study examined 17,000 firms that took a hit in 2008 as a result of the recession. Companies that had at least one woman sitting on their Board of Directors had a 20% chance of surviving the downturn than companies that did not have any women on their boards. Companies that had more than one woman on their boards increased their chances of surviving the economic downturn.

Benefit Women Bring to the Boardroom Table

A benefit that women bring to the table is their ability to ask for and seek out help. Women also are used to working in teams. For example, women rally their children together to get household tasks completed. They also work with their peers, neighbors, school administrators and community leaders to create initiatives, projects and programs that benefit all members of the community. When it comes to developing talent, women, especially mothers, often know how to teach from the bottom up. Stephanie Williams, author of the book Mommy Leadership: How to Use Your Motherhood Experiences to Grow as a Leader, says that “motherhood and leadership are inextricably linked.”

Not only is Stephanie Williams an author, she is also a corporate buyer at an automotive firm. It was after she gave birth to her second child (she was going after her graduate degree at the same time) that she started to consider the skills that mothers can bring to the boardroom. In her book, Stephanie says that both mothers and business leaders must partner with followers (e.g. children, employees) to achieve organizational success. For example, in Mommy Leadership, Stephanie states that business leaders and mothers regularly, at times daily, use the same skills:

Effective Listening (mothers have to hear what is being said beneath the surface similar to how business leaders must have a degree of emotional intelligence)
Conflict Resolution (leaders must know how to help partners address and work through disagreements and differences in order to keep the organization operating effectively)
Training and Development (mothers and business leaders must not only train people they regularly work with; they must implement training methods that help people to develop in positive and rewarding ways)
Financial Planning (leaders and mothers must manage budgets or otherwise they will not be able to meet their daily, weekly and monthly financial obligations)
Decision Making (one of the most important acts that mothers and leaders must fulfill requires them to make choices, ones that seem small and ones that seem major)
Problem Solving (resolving conflicts is one form of problem solving. Deciding the correct training and development a child or worker needs is another way to solve problems. Leaders must also solve problems that do not involve other people. For example, leaders must decide whether to purchase a certain property, acquire another firm or enter into a marketing agreement. Likewise, mothers must solve problems related to school, peers and social challenges that their children, particularly older children like teens, deal with)
Strategic Thinking (As situations involving teens get more sticky, mothers must think strategically in order to remain effective. So too business leaders must think outside the box and come up with inventive ideas to increase an organization’s bottom line or to avoid being bought by another firm)
Negotiating (Each of the above steps requires negotiating. Mothers and business leaders that order people to “just do” what they tell them often find themselves being tuned out sooner or later)

Organizations Supporting Women in the Boardroom

Organizations like Women in the Boardroom help prepare women to serve on corporate and non-profit boards. The organization helps women to understand the board selection process. It also gives women advice on how to serve effectively on a corporate or a non-profit board. Additionally, women learn how to position themselves to be asked or selected to serve on a board.

However, the International Organization Network (ION) reports that as of 2010, 74% of businesses in Florida had no women executives. Chicago had the highest percentage of women executives, 15.8%. One of the concerns that women business professionals and business owners have regarding putting (or not putting) women in senior executive positions is that if the woman is in her child-bearing years, she could conceive, give birth and devote her time to her child, thereby committing less, in time and energy to, to the job.

Some business owners might fear that women will not be agreeable to traveling as much as their male counterparts if they are married and also have children at home to care for, in addition to sharing their time with their husband. There are also concerns that women will become emotional during tough negotiations or challenging conflicts. Even after women have performed successfully in executive positions, there is a concern that women will break down in tears if they are “pushed”.

Diversity Laws and Gender Disparities

Diversity laws have seen the gender disparities at executive levels shrink, howbeit not nearly as much as they could. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws also do not set standards for the percentages of diverse professionals a company should employ at senior executive levels. Of course, the laws state that organizations are prohibited from denying qualified women and other diverse candidates promotions solely based upon their gender, race, color, nationality, disability, age or religion. However, again this does not ensure that qualified women are promoted into roles that they have the skills and abilities to fulfill.

According to the InterOrganization Network, shareholders can “push” organizations to hire and promote women into senior executive positions by:

Voting for women board nominees at shareholder meetings
Write a letter to the board chairperson or board secretary and either ask them why they do not have women sitting on their boards or in senior executive positions at the organization
Stand up at shareholder meetings and ask the organization’s senior members why there are no women sitting on the board or employed in senior executive positions

When asked what advice she would give women business leaders, Marisa Sanvito, executive director for Quintiles, told Financial Times’ in its January 26, 2011 “Ten Questions” article that women should, “Look for the positive side of every single problem and take action quickly. Having conviction in your decisions is important in a competitive business environment. Seize any challenges you encounter and move on as soon as possible when facing a setback.”

When asked for advice on how women executives can deal with the male-dominated business world, Marisa Sanvito said that she recognizes that men and women do, in fact, have different leadership styles. She focuses on the positive and facing challenges head on.

Learn more about Spiral and Long Walk Up at www.chistell.com

Sources:

http://www.womenintheboardroom.com (Sharp Up Swing: Women in the Boardroom)

http://www.ionwomen.org (ION: Advancing Women to the Boardroom)

http://business-ethics.com/2010/11/29/5749-women-in-the-board-room-change-comes-slowly (Business Ethics: Women in the Boardroom, Changes Comes Slowly)

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1107721 (Women in the Boardroom and Their Impact on Governance and Performance)

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5934200.ece (The Sunday Times: Women in the Boardroom Help Companies Succeed)

http://www.womenonbusiness.com/new-us-women-in-business-statistics-released-by-catalyst (WomenonBusiness.com)

http://www.mommyleadership.com (Mommy Leadership)

http://womenatthetop.ft.com/articles/women-top/7d7ee0fa-0221-11e0-aa40-00144feabdc0 (Financial Times: Women at the Top)