The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

One of the biggest challenges I hear from clients is “How can we bring more women into leadership?” According to a recent report by McKinsey, women continue to be underrepresented at every stage of the corporate pipeline. I am a believer that empowering women in the workplace is not just a moral imperative; it’s a business advantage for any organization. And yet, most companies today face a different reality every time they look at their leadership team or talent pipeline. Why?

For decades, when a company wanted to hire a CEO or key executive, they knew what they needed to look for. The best candidates would have technical expertise, superior administrative skills and a proven track record of successfully managing financial resources. Because these skills had a direct impact on business performance and results, they were considered the most critical when searching for candidates to fill executive roles.

Women make up almost 50% of the American workforce, and for decades they'd been increasing their numbers in senior leadership roles. But in 2022, that trend began to reverse. According to the World Economic Forum's 2023 Global Gender Gap Report, the percentage of women in director roles or higher dropped by 10%.

How can we close the leadership gender gap for women? That’s the million-dollar question. Organizations continue to struggle to move women from manager-level into director-level positions, and even more so, from director-level into vice president level and above. Why?

In 2020, many factors collided that caused business leaders to double down on initiating diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives. Fast forward to now, and the political climate and recent pushback surrounding DEIB have many leaders struggling to successfully implement inclusion strategies.

Earlier in my career, I was caught off guard when I was asked during a job interview, "How do you innovate?" It was a question I couldn’t answer, and it became a defining moment that has stuck with me throughout my career. Today, as Leading NOW's CEO, it’s a question I often ask our clients when advising them on how to create a culture of inclusion and innovation.

Accountability is at the heart of all high-performing teams and successful organizations. Employees at all levels take full ownership and responsibility for their actions, decisions and performance—and for the achievement of business outcomes—without excuses. Healthy cultures that prioritize accountability see better results in productivity, collaboration and engagement, high morale and a greater capacity to thrive. If that doesn't sound like your organization, then as a leader, you have to find out why. It's time to determine how teams can align their tasks with the organization's big picture.

Five years ago, I read Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First, a book by corporate governance expert Ram Charam, Dominic Barton of McKinsey & Company and Dennis Carey of Korn Ferry. Immediately, I knew these visionaries were onto something big. They forecasted the need for organizations to deploy talent as a critical function of business, warning CEOs that if they wanted to be successful, they needed to pull the talent initiative into the C-suite. Given where we are today with the war for talent, I'm still amazed at the foresight. CEOs must prioritize people and can no longer leave talent solely in the hands of HR. They need to focus on developing the next generation of leaders if they want their organization to survive, thrive and outperform their competition.

According to a recent article in CEO World, among the top 3 things that are keeping CEO’s up at night is the strength of their people. But it’s not physical strength that keeps them awake. It’s the strength of their current and future leadership talent that has them concerned.

Having a culture of Inclusion is not only about checking off the boxes for diversity. It’s about diversity of thought, and making sure everyone in the organization feels secure enough to express themselves without fear of retribution. It means creating a psychologically safe workplace where those on teams feel comfortable enough to take risks, express their ideas and concerns, ask questions, and admit mistakes – all without fear of negative consequences. How do you create a psychologically safe workplace and what are the benefits of doing so?