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In This Issue
Midnight Walk for the Martlets Hospice
White Paper Topics
Male and female leadership traits - is there a difference?
Does the glass ceiling still exist?
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Midnight Walk for the Martlets Hospice
 
Claire our Managing Partner and friends are doing the 13 mile sponsored midnight walk for the Martlets Hospice on 18 June.
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White Paper Topics
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As it was mothers day earlier this month it prompted us to think about women leaders. Our first article considers the main differences between male and female leadership characteristics; the second looks at the impact of the glass ceiling and how organisations could be losing out on women's leadership potential.

Male and female leadership traits - is there a difference?chart

Do women make better leaders? Research from the Centre for High Performance Development (CHPD) suggests that the leadership characteristics required today include understanding complexity, building relationships, getting buy-in, having clarity and vision, and focusing on results. The research, among 1500 managers, showed that these are characteristics more consistently found in women than in men, despite the fact that men believe themselves to be more competent.

Another relevant study, which revealed similar findings, was undertaken by the Hay Group. It took 45 outstanding women executives and found that women were selected not only on their sales and profitability, but the climate they created. When compared to male and less effective female counterparts, it was found these women used a broader, more effective range of leadership styles to motivate and engage people, being directive and authoritative but also nurturing, inclusive and collaborative.

The Hay group also found (through a further study) that female executives were significantly more likely than males to coach and develop others, resulting in more committed and effective teams.

The need for collaboration, inclusiveness, and building trust and relationships, Fontaine (of the Hay Group) says, is becoming increasingly important as organisations continue to remove entire layers of old 'command and control' management jobs and replace them with more matrixed leadership roles.

In 2005, a year-long study conducted by Caliper, a Princeton, New Jersey-based management consulting firm, and Aurora, a London-based organisation that advances women, identified a number of characteristics that distinguish women leaders from men when it comes to qualities of leadership:
 

"Women leaders are more assertive and persuasive, have a stronger need to get things done and are more willing to take risks than male leaders. Women leaders were also found to be more empathetic and flexible, as well as stronger in interpersonal skills than their male counterparts enabling them to read situations accurately and take information in from all sides.These women leaders are able to bring others around to their point of view because they genuinely understand and care about where others are coming from so that the people they are leading feel more understood, supported and valued."

 

The Caliper study findings are summarised into four specific statements about women's leadership qualities:

1.    Women leaders are more persuasive than their male counterparts.

2.    When feeling the sting of rejection, women leaders learn from adversity and carry on with an "I'll show you" attitude.

3.    Women leaders demonstrate an inclusive, team-building leadership style of problem solving and decision making.

4.    Women leaders are more likely to ignore rules and take risks.

With this in mind, are women more suited to the role than men?
 

Gender is, of course, only part of the picture and effective leadership is still acquired and developed through experience and training. Fontaine argues that in many organisations women are simply given less opportunity to practice these skills than men.

 
So maybe now is a time to reflect - is your organisation getting the most from it's female leadership potential? 

Does the glass ceiling still exist?

 

Chris Parry, CEO of the Centre for High Performance conversationDevelopment (CHPD) argues that there are some key reasons women are not being appointed to the most senior roles in UK businesses:

·      Men are much more visible and familiar to leaders and so are more likely to be noticed and considered for top positions

·      The natural communication style for men - direct and absolute - is valued in male dominated environments and this means men are often credited with being confident and having more 'gravitas' than women

·      Women tend to dislike office politics, which are an essential ingredient for success, and while not all men are politically astute, most politically astute individuals are men.

Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) in 2007 found that many organisations only appoint women to senior roles in times of crisis or poor performance, making them more likely to fail and perpetuating the myth that women are poor performers in senior positions.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission in its study of the financial services sector (2009) found that:

"Our investigations have revealed that women working full-time in the finance sector earn 55 per cent less per year than men working full-time. The gap between male and female full-time earnings is twice as large as the average gap across the economy as a whole.

"Women with supervisory responsibilities are more likely to be promoted to supervisory posts, whereas men with supervisory responsibilities are more likely to be promoted to managerial posts."

Even where companies have exemplary equality policies on paper, negative management attitudes towards women, particularly in relation to pregnancy and maternity leave, adversely affect women's career progression.

Research by PriceWaterhouseCoopers uses the analogy of a leaky water pipeline within a community, to illustrate the negative effect of ignoring female talent within an organisation, asking, "Imagine what you would do as a leader on discovering sustained leakage of your most valuable commodity, which in fact is not really a commodity at all, since your community absolutely depends on it for a sustainable future.

 "This water pipeline analogy reflects the situation in which many organisations find themselves with regard to a continuing loss of female talent. Research commissioned by PwC UK indicates that, in most 'first world' countries, entry-level men and women in the professional services sector are hired at an equal (1:1) rate. However, evidence exists that women are lost from the pipeline through voluntary termination at a rate two or three times faster than men once they have attained the experienced, mid-career, Manager/ Senior Manager level of their careers.

The leakage is further illustrated when examining the level of female participation in leadership roles. Whilst difficult to measure due to lack of uniform definitions, current estimates of the numbers of females in senior roles indicates a very low percentage of such roles are held by women. In particular, we can readily observe a material underrepresentation of recognised leadership positions within industry and noteworthy business unit and functional Director and CEO positions."

What can your organisation do to make the most of its female talent?

·      Accountability:

o    Set performance targets, not quotas, for female retention, promotion and leadership development improvements, with clear personal and team accountabilities

o    Consider how selection teams for leadership roles are made up, and whether subconscious bias may be affecting decision making

o    Communicate leadership appointment opportunities and decision processes transparently

o    Encourage women to show interest in and apply for leadership positions.

·      Career planning

o    Invest in leadership development and training particularly for women with leadership potential

o    Formalise succession planning objectives and processes for leadership roles

o    Identify and clearly communicate relevant career paths and stepping stones for leadership roles.

·      Cultural awareness (invest in developing your personal and organisational awareness of gender differences and biases)

o    Understand the competitive advantage that strength in diversity brings to business success - and invest in cementing this view across your organisation

o    Learn to more effectively adapt to and interpret differences in gender styles and behaviour

o    Recognise the existence of bias and consider bias awareness.

And it may be this last set of points that proves most challenging, but affecting changes in attitudes at board level will ultimately allow your organisation to reap the benefits of that competitive advantage. US organisation ION, which looks after the interests of women in leadership positions, has many suggestions for how to go about this and we've listed some of the key ones below:

·      Engage the entire board in a comprehensive evaluation process that assesses both itself and its individual members in terms of their performance as well as their competencies

·      Develop a forward looking succession plan that places a priority on the gaps that are most important to fill in the short-term but that also takes into account anticipated vacancies and likely emerging needs

·      Make sure that the succession plan reflects an attention to diversity, including but not limited to gender, race, background and international experience, as well as industry and functional skill sets

·      Be open to change. Be willing to make room for new directors even if it means replacing some current directors who have provided valuable service to the company in the past

·      Reach outbeyond current colleagues and acquaintances to identify qualified candidates

·      Start to build a pipeline of future directors and get to know individuals who have the qualifications to meet the company's needs going forward

·      Avoid "tokenism." Make sure that the board includes a critical mass of women and minority directors.

If you would like to discuss the implementation of any of these ideas into your business, please contact Claire Walsh at clairewalsh@lcp.org.uk or on 01273 707404.
Learning Consultancy Partnership provides bespoke coaching and development solutions to meet the specific needs of organisations, at all levels.
 
To find out more, please visit our website at http://www.lcp.org.uk.