Valerie Bolden-Barrett* says a new report shows women won’t gain leadership parity until 2073 — unless executives take action now.
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Women still make up only 18 per cent of senior leadership positions, according to a new IBM Institute for Business Value study, Women, Leadership, and the Priority Paradox.
The study concluded that gender leadership gaps persist because advancing women is not a business priority, and at the current pace of change, women won’t reach leadership parity with men until 2073.
The study attributed the leadership gap to three factors: 1) employers aren’t sold on the value of advancing women, even as reports show that gender equality improves organisations’ financial status; 2) men underestimate the impact of gender inequality, assuming that they would have made it into the upper ranks of leadership had they been women; and 3) employers have a do-good but laissez-faire attitude toward diversity.
The study recommended that organisations make leadership gender equality a priority, create a culture of inclusion and make senior executives accountable for gender equality results.
Women took more than one-fifth of vacated CEO slots in 2018, according to a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
That number had hovered around 18 per cent in the previous two years, so while more women than ever before are moving into CEO slots, the change is somewhat small.
The situation is even worse for women of colour, who aren’t being elevated into the C-suite, where the path to the CEO’s office begins.
Decision-makers’ attitudes toward diversity and inclusion go a long way in determining how underrepresented groups — women, people of colour and LGBTQ people, in particular — advance in an organisation.
A Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report said that although 98 per cent of workplaces in the report have a diversity program, 25 per cent of their employees aren’t reaping the rewards.
Although the BCG report applied to employees at all levels, it points to the need for D&I to be seriously considered by leadership as part of a business objective.
HR might ask for a commitment from managers and supervisors because D&I efforts at that level may help move underrepresented groups up into the C-suite.
* Valerie Bolden-Barrett is a business writer and content specialist.
This article first appeared at www.hrdive.com.
