The Latest Insights from Leading NOW

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.

Recently I read an article about Fortune Magazine’s Pattie Sellers moderating a discussion with execs from Facebook, Coca-Cola and FCB Worldwide on how their companies were attacking the problem of unconscious bias. When referring to unconscious bias, Maxine Williams, global director of diversity at Facebook spoke about “a problem that, as increasing numbers of companies are realizing, prevents them from improving their workforce diversity and typically interferes with the productivity of their employees.” When Seller asked the audience of 200 executives whether they had unconscious bias training programs within their company, only a dozen raised their hands. When asked how many would like to have a program, practically the entire room raised their hands. Huh. If unconscious bias is as big a problem as it seems, why don’t more companies have a plan to deal with it?

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."

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.

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.

When it comes to closing the gender gap at the top, we have over 13 years of research, so you can imagine how I struggled to create a 10 minute talk (I failed - it's about 14). But it's the most succinct summary of what we know and you're sure to hear something to help close the gender gap at the top and/or achieve your career goals!

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