International Woman's Day - Reduce Bias in Workplace Leadership
Franco Greco • March 7, 2020
International Women's Day marks a call to action for accelerating gender equality.
Professor Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic’s book, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? is such a provocative title.
Why Aren’t There More Women Leaders
Deliberately so ... as it touches on ... an the obvious fact that:
"Since women make up around 50% of the adult population ... outnumber and outperform men at school and university, we might expect that at least equal representation of woman and men in leadership roles. And yet reality disagrees."
Australian Data on Female Representation in Leadership Roles
Most recent data in Australia confirms this observation:
- The tally of female CEOs at S&P/ASX 200-listed companies was at 14 in 2017.
- There were nearly 50,000 CEOs or MDs in the Australian data, most aged between the ages of 40 and 60, and only 19.3 per cent of these were female.
- Based on 2016 data, the percentage of women on ASX 200 boards was 23.4 - while higher than the 10.70 per cent in 2010 ... no where near the 50% share of the adult working population.
Why Aren’t There More Women Leaders
Professor Chamorro-Premuzic suggests there are three main reasons, and the first is our inability to distinguish between confidence
and competence. Across cultures and countries, we tend to assume that confident people have more potential for leadership, but in any area of talent, including leadership, there is very little overlap between confidence (how good people think they are at something) and competence (how good they actually are at something). Chart below outlines how woman rate themselves as less confident than men until their mid 40s.
The second reason is our love of charismatic
individuals. We appear to want leaders who are charming and entertaining, but as most of us know, there is a big difference between an effective leader and being a stand-up comedian. In fact, the best leaders are humble rather than charismatic, to the point of being boring.
The third and final reason for the rise of incompetent men is our inability to resist the allure of narcissistic individuals
— people with grandiose visions that tap into our own narcissism.
Since leadership is, at its core, a process of influence, those who form broader and richer relationships with others will undoubtedly be in a better position to influence.
Professor Chamorro-Premuzic argues that we should also promote people because of competence, humility and integrity. Incidentally, this would also lead to a higher proportion of female than male leaders — large-scale scientific studies show that women score higher than men on measures of competence, humility and integrity.
The Chart below details an analysis of 360 degree reviews of leaders show that women outscored men on a range of capabilities.
Last Friday morning I attended Wesley Junior College school assembly where my daughter is in Grade 4. This assembly was special occasion, as they were announcing leadership roles for Grade 4 students. It was a great event.
Ms Sabeena DeBono - head of Wesley Junior College - her team and the students had a great job ... but this leadership process started in the first week in this academic year ... laying the ground work ... educating the students about leadership!
All the Grade 4 students were given an leadership induction program where they discussed leadership ... what it meant to be a leader ... spoke to other leaders. All students nominated for particular leadership roles ... had interviews and were selected.
My daughter was selected as the Ambassador Leader for the Environment. But this process over the last few months had spurned her 'inner roar' - Wesley College mascot and emblem is a Lion - and demonstrated her initiative, connection to people, and being driven by humility and integrity.
She and two other girls spoke about establishing a 'mindfulness club' at lunchtime to help students relax and take time out. She also re-introduced with two other girls the 'friendship chair' initiative - a place in the schoolyard for students who don't have a friend during playtime to signal to others they haven't got anyone to play with.
It is interesting that these two prosocial initiatives were developed, planned and implemented by girls.
Want to Improve Leadership - Promote More Woman
Compelling evidence suggests that leadership is more likely to improve if we start drawing more heavily from the female talent pool, especially if we understand that the women most likely to drive positive change look quite different from the typical leaders we have today, irrespective of gender.
If we want to improve the quality of our leaders and help more women get to leadership positions, the last thing we should do is lower our standards when we select women.
This means we shouldn’t ask women to behave more like incompetent men. The Chart below shows that women take a long time to rate themselves as effective leaders compared to men.
I hope that programs like the one at Wesley Junior College can help and create the environment to educate and nurture a new class of leadership.
Ms DeBono Has The Final Say
On the day Ms De Bono asked all of the students to put their hands on their hearts and pledge to support the Grade 4 Leaders.
I think we can take the lead here and pledge to support our current and emerging woman leaders.
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