The time has come to reframe the gender issue. The chancellor of Germany, the head of the IMF, and the chair of the US Federal Reserve are women. General Motors, IBM and Lockheed Martin are run by women. Sixty percent of the world’s university graduates are women, and women control the majority of consumer goods buying decisions. In the US, women under 30 out-earn their male peers and 40% of American households have women as the main breadwinner. In many companies and countries where I work, from Iran or Brazil to Russia, managers tell me that they recruit a majority of young women as they clearly outperform their male peers.
And yet women continue to be underrepresented in most businesses, especially at the senior levels. Given this split – women’s potential on the one hand, and their relative absence from the highest levels of business on the other – it is tempting to keep banging on about “fairness” and “equality” on the one hand, or to assume that surely the women who don’t make it to the top must be doing something wrong on the other.
In fact, it is time to shift the discussion away from a lingering women’s problem or an issue of equality and instead focus on this as a massive business opportunity. Instead of continuing to discuss the problem, we ought to present solutions: roadmaps to businesses that are better balanced, arguments that help companies and managers understand and benefit from shifting global gender balances. The shift is away from wondering what is wrong with women who don’t make it to the top, and towards analysing what is right with companies and leaders that do build gender balanced leadership teams – and tap into the resulting competitive edge.
by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of 20-first, one of the world’s leading gender consulting firms, and author of Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business.
Photo: WISTA (Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association) meeting in Gdańsk
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