The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

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."

At Leading Women we use the term gender dynamics to mean the impact of managers' mindsets on their talent development and talent advancement actions. For years, we've been studying 11 of these mindsets and their impacts around the globe.

Keep your eyes open for our colorful "white" paper on women's advancement. In the meantime, did you see these?

Kudos to three of our clients, Turner Construction, DHL Global Forwarding EMEA and Alcatel-Lucent. Here's why: As part of its program for high potential women, Turner invited executives and the women's managers to presentations on The Missing 33%® and the importance of PIE Mentoring™. Both sessions gave the managers insights into the subtle ways that men are often groomed for senior positions, but women aren't.

Michael Simonds, CEO* of UNUM wrote recently about women's advancement and closing the leadership gender gap. The whole article is worth a read and especially his awareness of the impact of gender dynamics (gender bias, stereotypes, assumptions) on women's advancement.

Here's a fact about closing the leadership gender gap that might surprise you. Back in the 1970s, progressive companies addressed the challenge of women's advancement issues with many tools including multi-day workshops that directly surfaced and addressed gender-based stereotypes. This is surprising because until just recently, companies have tended to avoid this topic like the plague. This in spite of the fact that studies continue to point to barriers created by gender-based expectations and assumptions.

This weekend I had the honor to speak at TEDxBeaconStreet on closing the gender gap at the top.

In the past 40 years, corporations have tackled the challenge of women's advancement by working diligently on two fronts. They have worked on the women. They help women set career goals and tell them what skills they need to enhance in order to get ahead - leadership, self-promotion, negotiation and more. They have worked on corporate practices and policies. Instituting open job posting, mentoring programs, flexible work, day care options, maternity leave options and more. And they've gotten each of these areas about 66% right. As a result, women have made great strides into middle management. But they have not made great strides into senior leadership. One reason is what I call The Missing 33%™.