The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

When presenting proposals for their strategic initiatives, D&I executives often face challenges from colleagues in HR who ask something like this:

6 TED Talks for Leadership Development and Career Success for Women We searched TED for the most viewed, most fascinating, most informative talks on women in business and on leadership and created a list of TED Talks that everyone should watch. Here's our list. Continue reading to see why! Why we have too few women leaders Dare to disagree The career advise you probably didn't get What it takes to be a great leader So we leaned in... now what? Color blind or color brave?

*From Leading Women's "On the Minds of Millennials: Leading Women's Survey on Gender and Careers" In a 2016 Linkedin post titled, Dear Men: Wake Up and Smell the Inequality, Adam Grant cited several studies as he wrote, "In corporate America, 88% of men think women have at least as many opportunities to advance as men. This is the finding of a major new study—almost 30,000 employees across 118 companies—by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company. Just 12% of men felt that women had fewer opportunities to advance in their organizations. Yet when you look at the actual data, women’s odds of advancement are 15% lower than men’s. It’s not because women are less capable: the evidence is strong that although men tend to be more confident leaders, on average women are more competent leaders."

Since the 1970s, many companies have understood and taken action on the business case for gender initiatives, made progress and reaped benefits. Others are still questioning whether this topic warrants their attention. In a recent interview for an upcoming TV biz news interview I was asked about this:

We use this blog to track the research into the correlation between the % of women in senior management and on boards and measurable business performance. It is updated as research comes in. You'll find related information on correlation v. causation here.

Sitting in a talent discussion a manager says, "She wouldn't want that assignment, she has young kids." Sound far fetched in the 21st century? It isn't! Our research finds that barriers created by mindsets like this are reported by women's focus groups in countries including the US, Canada, Brazil and India and focus groups of male managers in countries such as Belgium, China, Italy and Mexico.

We recently asked our cracker-jack researcher Lara Feghaly to decode the 10 most substantive articles on confidence that she could find. And to do the same with the book The Confidence Code. What she discovered is startling and crucial for women's career advancement. And we've turned it into an infographic for you.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released its 2015 Gender Gap Report, so we thought we'd take a look at the 10 year trend in the US and in some of the countries where our clients are working to close the gender gap in their companies. While progress is slow, many nations are making progress - and we are grateful for the improvements they are making in the lives of women.

When it comes to overcoming mindsets that cause the leadership gender gap, one of the practices that we recommend is to require recruiters (internal and external) to deliver diverse slates of candidates for key positions. While companies often focus on senior positions, we recommend this practice be implemented for positions above the diverging point (the point at which the % of women begins to decline and that of men increases).

We work hard with clients to engage managers and executives in actions to close the leadership gender gap. During one of our multi-month leadership programs, the managers (most often men) who have nominated the women participants join us for 3 major topics: What is Leadership?, The Missing 33%® and Make the Most of Mentoring™. It's an effective way to address several gender dynamics - including the powerful one we call "Men's Culture of Mentorship/Sponsorship."