CULTIVATING THE NEXT GENERATION WOMEN LEADERS
Egon Zehnder believes that the world needs better leaders, and that diverse leadership teams are better and more effective than homogenous teams. It is therefore imperative for organizations to incorporate diversity and inclusion when finding and developing executive talent.
To support this goal, in 2015 Egon Zehnder hosted the first-of-its-kind Leaders & Daughters event in London, featuring C-suite executives and their daughters as representatives of the next generation of female leaders. Within 3 years, they expanded to 32 annual Leaders & Daughters events around the world, convening close to 6,000 people to speak with both senior executives and their mentees and/or daughters.
Leaders & Daughters’ long-term objective is to help the next generation of female leaders to be their professional best, while leveraging the current generation of both male and female leaders for counsel, support and insight. This year’s theme “Mind the Gap” is about addressing the gap between the percentage of women in the workforce and the percentage of female CEOs or C-Suite members.
They asked the panelists and attendees, would make a difference? Which companies are finding a way to “Mind the Gap?” And what are policies that are working, as well as individual actions that current CEOs and aspiring top female executives can take today? The responses to these questions and some takeaways from their events around the world are collected below and provide
Many of the Leaders & Daughters events focused on individual action- what individuals, whether CEOs or rising female executives, could do to change their own environments. Said one attendee in Johannesburg: “As women, you need to find your own network and stop competing as men; you don’t fight a crocodile in water.”
Confidence, many participants said, is critical for any woman hoping to succeed in the executive space. In Seoul, one attendee commented: “The gender gap at the executive level we face today could also be due to our own mindset, not taking enough challenges and risks.” Kim Ann Mink, Chairman, CEO and President of Innophos, phrased it differently at the Miami gathering: “You are at the table: act like you deserve it. Reflect the confidence because you are superb. Reflect that confidence in every interaction.”
Several panelists also remarked on how important it is for women to choose a partner who will champion their career goals. Said one Hong Kong executive: “Marry the right person – one who’s supportive. Surround yourself by likeminded supportive females and mentors. And speak up!” They also emphasized being realistic about work-life balance to which, one panelist said, is more like a pendulum as it swings both ways and is never truly balanced.
Sometimes, individual action also means realizing that an organization isn’t as committed to diversity goals as one may have thought. “Women in general stay too long,” said one panelist. “We are the good soldiers.” If your organization doesn’t go beyond words to action, and there isn’t a coalition of people to make change, sometimes the best thing to do is to leave.
The event also focused on taking organization action to help women succeed. One New York panelist, the CEO of a consumer company, phrased it best: “Change must be mixed into the mortar” of any organization that wants to make diversity a reality. That means that policies must be put in place that make diversity a requirement. It must be “part of the brand,” with new metrics that reward people supporting the process. The reality is that it takes years to change a senior leadership team, and companies must think about diversity as both a short-term goal and a long-term strategic shift. To expand the pipeline, participants suggested the following changes to hiring policies:
- Require a diverse pool of candidates
- Blind resumes and blind filters
- Get to know the best and most diverse talent BEFORE there’s a role for them
- Change the team dynamic with anti-bias training
- Push a search back until you start seeing diverse candidates
- Publish your gender pay gap and commit to closing it
As gender diversity continues to move at a slower pace than hoped, it is becoming more and more clear that men must be part of the solution – especially because they are still in most of the decision-making roles. While it is important for women to network together and to support each other in their workplaces, it is also critical to have the support of male allies. Said Dame Cilla Snowball, Chair and CEO of AMV BBDO at the London event: “We need to get on with it! It is the cross-fertilization of men supporting women together with women supporting women that makes success.”
Note: Excerpts have been taken from ‘Mind the Gap’, a global report from Egon Zehnder
