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The gender imbalance at board level is weakening corporate leadership, argues Alison Maitland
A sense of crisis again surrounds business leadership, with a substantial number of chief executives and chairmen having lost their jobs over the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. It seems a good time to look beyond the immediate financial causes and ask what could be done to achieve a more sustainable model of corporate leadership.
One way to introduce greater checks and balances would be to have more balanced leadership teams. Gender diversity initiatives have been with us for years, and women are half or more of the workforce in many companies, yet the typical profile of the top team has changed little. This is despite mounting evidence that male-only leadership can be bad for the bottom line. Two studies, one by US think-tank Catalyst and the other by McKinsey, have found that firms with the most women in their top teams - 30 per cent or more - tend to be more profitable than those with few or no women.
Men, by virtue of having been dominant in leadership for so long, are seen as leaders by default - and 'male' traits are viewed as necessary for aspiring bosses. Women leaders often tread a fine line between being seen as 'soft' (listening, empathizing) and 'aggressive' (challenging and decisive). The departing Chuck Prince at Citigroup - or Matt Ridley at Northern Rock - did not have to contend with suggestions that they failed because they are men. Yet that is often the subtext in commentaries about female leaders under pressure.
I was speaking recently to an American who works with multinationals on leadership development. We talked about the Catalyst and McKinsey findings, along with news that the pay gap between male and female executives in the UK is increasing. He said, only half jokingly, that we could draw two conclusions: women make better leaders, and they cost less - either way, we should have more of them. Women may not be 'better' leaders, but a combination of men's and women's strengths and perspectives makes for more effective leadership teams and therefore more sustainable companies.
A group of businesses, investors and unions in the US recently signed the Aspen Principles, designed to transform capital markets from short-termism to an emphasis on long-term value creation and the public good. The Fortune 500 contains just a handful of female CEOs. Yet two of the three companies that put their names to the Principles - PepsiCo and Xerox - have women at the helm. Coincidence? I think not.
Alison Maitland, a former Financial Times journalist, is co-author of Why women mean business: understanding the emergence of our next economic revolution, published by John Wiley & Sons this month
A sense of crisis again surrounds business leadership, with a substantial number of chief executives and chairmen having lost their jobs over the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. It seems a good time to look beyond the immediate financial causes and ask what could be done to achieve a more sustainable model of corporate leadership.
One way to introduce greater checks and balances would be to have more balanced leadership teams. Gender diversity initiatives have been with us for years, and women are half or more of the workforce in many companies, yet the typical profile of the top team has changed little. This is despite mounting evidence that male-only leadership can be bad for the bottom line. Two studies, one by US think-tank Catalyst and the other by McKinsey, have found that firms with the most women in their top teams - 30 per cent or more - tend to be more profitable than those with few or no women.
Men, by virtue of having been dominant in leadership for so long, are seen as leaders by default - and 'male' traits are viewed as necessary for aspiring bosses. Women leaders often tread a fine line between being seen as 'soft' (listening, empathizing) and 'aggressive' (challenging and decisive). The departing Chuck Prince at Citigroup - or Matt Ridley at Northern Rock - did not have to contend with suggestions that they failed because they are men. Yet that is often the subtext in commentaries about female leaders under pressure.
I was speaking recently to an American who works with multinationals on leadership development. We talked about the Catalyst and McKinsey findings, along with news that the pay gap between male and female executives in the UK is increasing. He said, only half jokingly, that we could draw two conclusions: women make better leaders, and they cost less - either way, we should have more of them. Women may not be 'better' leaders, but a combination of men's and women's strengths and perspectives makes for more effective leadership teams and therefore more sustainable companies.
A group of businesses, investors and unions in the US recently signed the Aspen Principles, designed to transform capital markets from short-termism to an emphasis on long-term value creation and the public good. The Fortune 500 contains just a handful of female CEOs. Yet two of the three companies that put their names to the Principles - PepsiCo and Xerox - have women at the helm. Coincidence? I think not.
Alison Maitland, a former Financial Times journalist, is co-author of Why women mean business: understanding the emergence of our next economic revolution, published by John Wiley & Sons this month
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