The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

Time for a reality check about “Closing the Leadership Gender Gap”—something every CEO should strive for in their organization, but few actually get right (or get it done!). And while you’ve probably been talking about becoming a more inclusive and diverse company for a while now, have you ever really asked yourself why you’re no closer to closing that gap than you were ten years ago?

This season of Covid has certainly shed a new light on the inequities in the workforce and communities. From the new pressures on working women with children at home full-time, to the data that’s emerging on how Covid is impacting the underserved, to horrific demonstrations of racism. Many have said that Covid has become the tinder for the flames that are needed to burn down the vast array of inequities that exist. From a gender perspective we have seen lots of “new” goals and promises make headlines, with more and more organizations willing to state their commitment to a 50/50 gender balanced workforce by 2030. Yes, in response to the coronavirus, but also in response to data like this from McKinsey’s latest “Diversity Wins” which states: “companies in the top quartile for gender diversity in their executive teams were 25 percent more likely to experience above-peer average profitability.”

Today is International Women’s Day. I’ve been thinking about today and Women’s History Month for weeks in order to write this post. What words of wisdom would I be able to share with our colleagues, our clients and our followers?

Today's blog post comes from our friend Nicole Worthington. Nicole is a business and investment columnist who has written extensively on financial management and women in business. Read ON!

Recently, I was asked to present information on “How to Make a Business Case for Gender Diversity” at the 100% Talent Wage Gap Summit in Seattle. Citing research on how increasing the percentage of women in leadership delivers significantly better business results from well-known organization’s like Credit Suisse, McKinsey & Co., Peterson Institute for International Economics, EY, Catalyst, and the Centre for Talent Innovation, I had all the data back-up I needed to make the case for investing in diversity initiatives.

In a recent blog, I mentioned a story about a group of 72 companies who have committed to making gender diversity a business imperative, with accountability for it within the senior executive team. This story has caused quite a bit of commotion in social media and we’ve seen a lot of questions popping up in LinkedIn: “How are they planning on preparing the women for leadership?” “What will they do differently?” “How will they identify what needs to be done (so I can emulate it)?