Heide Abelli* says that despite widespread awareness about gender issues, women are still under-represented in the leadership ranks.
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The number of women occupying frontline managerial roles and entering traditionally male-dominated professions has increased.
Yet when it comes to senior leadership roles, women are still under-represented.
This problem persists despite widespread awareness about gender issues, an increase in the number of women in the workforce and a seemingly higher degree of gender-neutrality in workplaces.
The needs of woman leaders
Employers have realised how a lack of women in leadership roles can negatively impact an organisation’s outcomes and work culture.
Studies report a direct correlation between an organisation’s financial performance and the number of women leaders.
This is largely because diversity in leadership results in greater innovation.
Thus, many employers are setting up measures or programs to address a lack of gender diversity in leadership roles.
Unfortunately, due to the existence of underlying second-generation gender bias, subtle prejudices commonly lurk in organisations.
This gives rise to barriers which inhibit women from moving up the corporate ladder and can make an organisation’s efforts to address this ineffective.
Three areas where employers are erring
When programs are driven exclusively by a “check-the-box” mentality: Often organisations offer episodic leadership development programs which focus only on a select few employees.
This is because they want to appear as though they are addressing the issue.
Human resource leaders may feel pressured to demonstrate that they have rolled out programs to address gender gaps.
However, once the program is over, they fail to go any further or integrate efforts into organisational practice.
When organisations focus on gendered structural approaches: Usually employers are evaluated as ‘Best Places to Work for Women’ on the basis of indexes such as availability of flexitime and childcare options.
However, women who utilise these suddenly find themselves lagging behind in their career journey, even if they are deserving.
While the focus on the ‘women-only’ approach ensures retention of female employees, it comes with its own share of drawbacks such as wage reductions and slower promotions, among others.
When training is not sensitive to gender biases: Training often does not take into consideration embedded biases present among the broader workforce.
It is no secret that biases are naturally integrated into how we analyse things.
Until organisations make a conscious effort to remove these, even the best programs won’t be effective.
Overcoming these challenges
It is not possible to course-correct hidden biases overnight with a few ‘quick fix awareness’ training programs.
It will take years of sustained efforts on the part of management as well as employees to enable a more inclusive environment at the workplace for all.
Organisations should also look at fostering greater accountability at the level of senior leadership to ensure effective implementation.
This can create a culture of gender diversity throughout the organisation.
While standing by such a culture, there are a few things organisations can keep in mind while imparting training to uproot unconscious biases.
Adopt holistic guidance:
When an organisation begins to implement the precepts of its training into its daily functioning, it can inspire change among its employees.
Organisations should go ahead and align the changes with their objectives to make it more substantive.
Identify the problem area:
Even when all seems well, management needs to dig deep and pinpoint the area where the organisation is lacking.
Once the problem is identified, they can break it down into simpler, more achievable, measurable milestones for better implementation of prospective solutions.
For instance, if an organisation is excelling at female talent development programs, it may not be doing well when it comes to nurturing women for leadership roles.
To change this, the senior management team should assess where and how it can make the desired changes.
Closely review underlying assumptions:
Hidden biases are based on underlying assumptions.
When the organisation closely examines these, it will realise how irrational they are.
This way, it can help all its stakeholders (from the senior-most managers to employees at the lowest rung and both men and women) to be more introspective regarding their underlying biases.
That’s the way in which individuals can begin to adopt a more inclusive mindset.
New learning management systems with state-of-the-art training content can help organisations bring about the aforementioned changes at scale for lasting cultural change.
It is then that organisations can tap the female talent which stands underutilised and change the economic fabric of the world.
* Heide Abelli is Customer Market Leader and GM, Leadership and Business, at Skillsoft.
This article first appeared at www.entrepreneur.com
