The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

At the tail end of 2016, the CEOs of 27 large companies made an unprecedented announcement: they pledged to have 50% of their top leadership roles filled by women by the year 2030. To achieve the goal, they identified key actions for senior managers including: "...address unconscious bias; base advancement on performance rather than time in the office; promote women into operating roles with responsibility for profit and loss; set targets and communicate them; and actively sponsor promising female leaders." Executives in the EU and Australia have similar coalitions in place. Time to break out the champagne, right? Not so fast. Surprisingly—or perhaps unsurprisingly, depending on how cynical you are—not everyone agrees that we need more gender equality initiatives. In fact, there are many men and some women who think actions like calls to promote women into operating roles, setting targets and sponsoring promising women are frankly unnecessary and unfair.

Equal Pay Day in the United States is 4 April this year, but what does this actual mean? On the surface it means that on average woman in the United States need to work 15 months to earn the same amount that their male peers earn in 12. But this is not the full story.

It was a great joy and pleasure to celebrate International Women's Day 2017 in Australia with Lighthouse Group, American Chamber of Commerce, Engineers Australia, Medtronic, Treasury Wine Estates, and Westpac! Thank you all for the most amazing and inspiring week. Here are some photo highlights from the week's 11 distinct presentations with over 2500+ women and men who care about closing the leadership gender gap in Australia:

March 8th is International Women's Day and in addition to the official #BeBoldForChange campaign, other groups across the United States and the world are preparing for an International Women's Strike. A "day without women" is not a new concept and has happened a number of times across the world with varying effect, most notably in recent times, Iceland's Women's Day Off on 24 October 1975. Women from all across Iceland, with different backgrounds brought the country to a screeching halt. According to the Global Nonviolent Action Database: "The striking women achieved their goal of demonstrating the importance of their work, at all levels from home to workplace, to the well being of the country. They essentially shut down most of the nation for the day. While this was their main goal... it even led to the passage of an equal rights bill..." While the bill did little to change things immediately, Iceland is now ranked #1 on the WEF's Global Gender Gap Index. While they still have a ways to go to reach true parity, they have taken steps to insure they are moving in the right direction.

The theme for International Women's Day 2017 is #BeBoldForChange. In preparation for a week of related events in Australia, I checked to see what Google could tell us about "bold women".

Want to see Leading Women in action? Leading Women's CEO, Susan Colantuono, will be in Australia for International Women's Day. Susan and partners, Lighthouse Group, will be teaming up to present Leading Women's innovative leadership development curriculum. 7-Mar: Melbourne - Advancing Women in Leadership Masterclass 8-Mar: Melbourne - Engineers Australia International Women's Day Events 8-Mar: Melbourne - American Chamber of Commerce Afternoon High Tea 9-Mar: Sydney - American Chamber of Commerce Breakfast 9-Mar: Sydney - Engineers Australia International Women's Day Events

Shakespeare's Hamlet denounces his mother's swift remarriage by saying, "Frailty, thy name is woman." One could suggest that researchers have been doing the same for the leadership gender gap. As I read the key findings from LeanIn/McKinsey's latest research I notice a pattern with how they reported on gender issues. Take a look at these excerpts from the "Women face an uneven playing field" section and see if you can catch it:

Take a look at the nine seconds of burbling Yellowstone “mudpot” action above. Here at Leading Women, we love this video because it’s a perfect metaphor for shaking things up. And when it comes to shaking up the mindsets of managers to take action to close the leadership gender gap, we’re even more passionate. “I have taken a lifetime to create these mindsets,” said one of our clients, a European executive at a global company, “and now you have destroyed some of them in three hours.” Ka-pow!

In February 2015, I was invited to the Government Summit in Dubai (think World Economic Forum for government officials). I was the opening speaker for a workshop on gender balance. The participants had all been improving the lives and economic participation of women in their countries for years. They came together to share experiences and extend their work in order to move further toward gender balance. They included high ranking women (and some men) from throughout the world - including countries covered by the U.S. recent immigration ban.

"History must be learned in pieces. This is partly because we have only pieces of the past...which give us glimpses of what has been but never the whole reality." Thomas Cahill, author: Sailing the Wine Dark Sea This quote about the fragmentary nature of history reminded me of the photo I took of the goddess Artemis in the museum on the Greek Island of Delos (her birthplace). Artemis, the huntress, was one of the most widely venerated ancient Greek goddesses and seeing her I reveled in the thought that in certain cultures deities could be - and still can be - women.