The fourth and final Women Matter report from McKinsey, Women at the top of corporations: making it happen (WM4), gives us good research and a strengthened foundation on which to expand policies and practices.
How will you get the attention of your top leadership? How will you implement development programs and institutionalize the work of gender diversity? Find your answers to these questions. Your organization’s success depends on it!
Organizations that successfully navigate crises have leaders who provide direction and inspire action. Those that survive and flourish after a crisis have leaders who also create an environment for innovation.
An organization’s capacity to lead through and beyond a crisis can be nurtured and enhanced. Increasing gender diversity in the organizations’ leadership team can help. Diversity gives a greater variety of leadership styles. And that variety, especially in a crisis, will contribute to survival.
The leadership behaviors favored by women are the ones most relevant for conquering tomorrow’s challenges.
Gender diversity feeds organizational excellence because men and women differ in how they use leadership behaviors.
With more women in leadership positions, companies will be rated higher on those components of organizational excellence that are positively influenced by the leadership behaviors that women favor.
Gender diversity makes organizations better workplaces. Gender diversity makes organizations more profitable.
These are the central conclusions from Women matter: gender diversity, a corporate performance driver. In the five years since its appearance, McKinsey & Company’s report has become one of the most visible works on the value of gender diversity.
As we work together to develop the best arguments for enhanced gender balance in academia, we can look to Women Matter for inspiration.
The University of Tromsø was awarded Norway’s Gender Equality Prize for 2011, which includes a check for two million Norwegian crowns.
“Gender equality work at the University of Tromsø is clearly a prestige project for the university leadership, which sees gender balance as a prerequisite for success. This is how things should be at every university and college,” said Minister for Research and Higher Education Tora Aasland as she awarded the prize.
This is the fifth time The Ministry of Education and Research has awarded its Gender Equality Prize. The prize is intended to strengthen and motivate universities, colleges and research institutes in their work for gender equality.
When members of underrepresented groups start their careers, they see themselves as outsiders and therefore need role models who still look like outsiders. Early career women do need female role models, but it’s more nuanced than that. They need female role models they can identify with.
What can you do to provide your young colleagues with mentors who look like them?
In Norway, at least 40% of the Board of Directors of any publicly traded company must be women. At least 40% must also be men. However, a new Norwegian study finds only 8% are in central decision making positions.
This is not just a social justice problem, it’s a social economics problem. How should we start addressing it? Read more to find out.
Increasing gender balance in organizations is about improving the quality of the workplace for everyone. Improving the quality of the workplace feeds institutional goals across the board. Making the value of diversity in a workforce visible must become an integral part of leadership development programs. These 6 steps helped the University of Tromsø increase diversity 50% in four years. Learn more…
