For the first time ever, women now hold more than 10% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. Women’s gains at that level have been slow. However, this recent jump from 8% to 10.4% may signal that companies are placing a bigger emphasis on diversity of leadership, experience, and perspective and trading less on traditional ideas about what makes a good leader.
According to a Harvard Business Review study, women leaders are perceived as taking more initiative, being more driven toward results, and being better at collaboration and teamwork than their male counterparts. All of those tendencies point towards growth, increased profitability, and innovation.
The aggressive spirit of business has been in women all along. They just use that spirit differently.
One prominent magazine’s female editor-in-chief said, “As staffing structures become flatter and less hierarchical, women are coming to the table with a leadership style that is more collaborative. In my case, employee retention ends up being a lot about relationships, flexibility, and mentoring.”
Women make up only 10.4% of the CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, but at the small and mid-size business level women are excelling. Erin Pitera, President and CEO of FMP Consulting, where her two fellow managing partners are also women, offered, “In my experience, women in leadership roles have an inherent ability to foster collaboration and nurture diverse perspectives. This enriches decision-making processes, drives innovation, and creates a more inclusive environment.”
It turns out the mere presence of a woman leader can be a game-changer for an organization. One psychologist determined that women leaders, just at face value, instill greater organizational trust and cultivate an assumption that employees will be treated fairly.
Sharon Sloane, Co-Founder and CEO of WILL Interactive, makes it a priority to portray strong women leaders in WILL’s products. “Women are these incredible collaborators. I know this because I live it myself everyday. I have a staff of creatives, software engineers, and instructional designers. To produce the high quality products we develop, I need all of their voices and expertise. My job is to mentor and hone everyone’s skills so we as a team can grow.”
In WILL Interactive’s award-winning, comprehensive DE&I training, A Brighter Tomorrow, Sloane put a woman in the fictional CEO role. “We have to see it for everyone to know we can be it.”
