Admittedly, it is good that it has changed, but if the rate of change does not increase, we will not have as many women as men in CEO positions until the end of the 21st century, it says Tacy M. Byham in Fortune.
Instead of congratulating ourselves on these trivial advances, we should ask why female leaders, especially CEOs, after all this time, are still extremely rare, she writes.
She believes that the media writes about female leaders so that our perception is distorted and we think they are more common than they are.
According to her, the fact that there are so few female leaders is not because they cannot break through the glass ceiling, but because they cannot get off the floor from the start.
Competence is not developed
Despite all the talk about equality, diversity and inclusion, most companies do not prioritize it, and Tacy M. Byham, PhD and CEO of the global leadership consultancy DDI, believes that the problem starts early.
At the very beginning of their careers, women, she says, are excluded from the pool of high-potential talent, leaving them without the skills development, leadership investment and mentoring they need to advance.
As women progress in their careers, this gap widens, with only 27 percent of senior-level women having had a formal mentor, compared to 38 percent of men, writes Tacy M. Byham.
Women are, according to her, 1.5 times more likely to leave a company to advance their careers because they don’t get the career development and leadership training they deserve and want.
She believes that this is a big problem and creates a competitive disadvantage for the organizations the women work for.
Outperforms competitors
According to a report on diversity, equality and inclusion from DDI, companies with higher percentages of female leaders consistently outperform their competitors.
Top ten companies in terms of financial performance have at least 23 percent female leaders. But, writes Tacy M. Byham, “even that is still less than a quarter of businesses. Imagine the impact if we could reach parity!”
The proportion of female managers is increasing here
Ireland presents a new diversity report. It shows that the proportion of women among senior managers is rising significantly.
