Marcel Schwantes* says a survey has found new reasons why employers should invest in developing female leaders.
Photo: LightFieldStudios
The percentage of women in high-level leadership roles among top employers is still dramatically lower than that of men.
While there is still a ways to go, the past few decades have brought vast improvement for women leaders.
The stats show that women are increasingly taking up leadership roles, but what about specific metrics in the areas that matter most, like performance?
How do we women fare?
New study compares male and female leaders
A recent study by Peakon titled The XX Factor: The Strategic Benefits of Women in Leadership asked this question, looking into how women leaders are performing compared with their male counterparts.
One key finding: Female-led organisations are better perceived than male-led ones in all aspects of a crucial leadership driver: strategy.
In Peakon’s methodology, strategy is one of 14 drivers that influence employee engagement, which is a key factor in helping employees understand and agree with the overall direction of the organisation.
Essentially, what we’re talking about with strategy is the level of effectiveness that employees attribute to their leaders.
Effective leaders with strategy and vision are absolutely key to a more engaged team, which has benefits not only in terms of employee happiness but also in terms of concrete organisational outcomes.
A 2016 Gallup study titled The Damage Inflicted by Poor Managers found that engaged teams show “24 per cent to 59 per cent less turnover, 21 per cent greater profitability, 17 per cent higher productivity, and 41 per cent less absenteeism”.
Everything is tied together — good leaders, solid strategy, and engaged employees all lead to organisational success.
The connection between female-led teams and strategy
How are women-led organisations connected to all of this?
Peakon assesses overall strategy on a scale of one to 10 by asking employees to rate the following statement: “The overall business goals and strategies set by senior leadership are taking [this organisation] in the right direction.”
Women-led organisations are scoring 0.3 points higher in response to this question.
For context, the report considers employers with more than 50 per cent female representation in management to be “women-led”, and those with less than 50 per cent to be “men-led”.
The difference in rating is no small margin considering the sample size: almost 60,000 employees under 3,000 managers, across 43 countries.
In an age when employee engagement reigns supreme, organisations should be taking every opportunity to hire more female leaders.
Now, there’s a caveat here: the age-old “correlation does not prove causation”.
It’s worth considering: are women-led teams better for strategy or do teams that have good strategy attract more women leaders?
In either case, the proven tie between women-led teams and effective strategy shows that having more women in leadership roles is a positive for organisations.
* Marcel Schwantes is founder and Chief Human Officer of Leadership From the Core. He tweets at @MarcelSchwantes.
This article first appeared at www.inc.com.
