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Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World - Softcover

Tarr-Whelan, Linda

 
9781605098739: Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1605098736 ISBN 13: 9781605098739
Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

A few “first women” are making key decisions in high places but a few is not enough to have a significant impact. Changing what gets decided takes changing who makes the decisions. But with just 17% of Congressional seats and 14% of Fortune 500 board seats held by women, the leaders defining priorities and solutions continue to look and act much the same as generations ago.

Linda Tarr-Whelan marshals eye-opening facts and figures to decisively dispel the myths that still hold women back and shows women how to build their confidence and skills to pioneer a distinctive approach to leadership, one that emphasizes collaboration, communication and consensus. The proven tipping point, surprisingly, is just 30%--when women’s representation at the top reaches 30%, real change starts to happen. Drawing on her extraordinarily diverse background as a consultant, organizer, and diplomat, Tarr-Whelan offers a women-led strategy for change and a complete set of practical road-tested tools readers can use to become powerful partners in creating a better future in a rapidly changing world.

Closing the leadership gap is a win for everyone—it brings in new ideas, creates a more balanced and productive work environment, a revitalized social compact and demonstrable positive effects on the bottom line in business and government. Women Lead the Way artfully combines advocacy, research, and tactical guidance to help readers wedge the door open and bring more women through and up.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Linda Tarr-Whelan is currently a distinguished senior fellow of the national think tank Demos, was cofounder and managing director of the consulting firm Tarr-Whelan and Associates, and was ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

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More Women Leaders, Better Leadership

On my desk is a campaign button reading, “Women will make the difference.” I’ve had it since 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman vice presidential candidate. And I’m sure it’s right. Women have already made a huge difference as a force for change, and we continue to make critical contributions just about everywhere. Women’s efforts have been invaluable, even though we have often been invisible.

There is one crucial place, however, where our talent is still largely untapped: the power tables where the course for the future is charted. A robust out-front role in setting priorities and allocating resources wherever the tough choices are made is essential to maximizing the contributions women can make. Some of us have been complacent, assuming women are naturally moving up to take our seats around the power tables. The reality is that we have a long way left to go.

A Compelling Need for New Thinking

In 2009, when Women Lead the Way went to press, a severe economic crisis gripped the United States and countries across the globe. Experts dissected the causes as whole industries collapsed. The leaders of major banks, corporations, and entire sectors of the economy were called to task. One very important factor became evident: Virtually none of the captains of industry were women. Women were not the leaders who had made the bad decisions that led, or at least added, to our economic miseries. Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times, asked, “Would we be in the same mess if Lehman Brothers [an investment house that failed] was Lehman Brothers and Sisters?”1 My answer is, “Probably not.”

To take another example, if the nation of Rwanda had had balanced leadership, would it have descended into the terrible genocide of 1994? We’ll never know for sure, but we can make an educated guess: Rwanda now has a majority of women leaders, and it is a transformed nation.

Changing the Deciders Changes the Decisions

Tough economic times, dramatically shifting world events, unmet needs in the country—all call for looking beyond the current composition of leader ship for different answers. To achieve sustainable long-term economic growth and well-being, leadership must become more balanced—and that means it must include more women.

Women’s full participation in leadership improves outcomes. This is seemingly a well-kept secret in this country, although numerous books and studies have been published on it.2 Extensive international experience in politics and current business and political research tell a powerful story of the correlation between balanced leadership and better results. When women (that means you!) step into leadership roles, you make life better—for yourself, your company or organization, and global society. Women Lead the Way shows how and why balanced leadership matters and helps you be part of creating a different future, one with enough women at the top to have a positive impact. We must move beyond having women appear “one-at-a-time performers,” as identified by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she spoke in the Rose Garden next to President Bill Clinton, who had just appointed her to the Court.3

The 30% Solution

A sprinkling of women at the top, however inspirational, is not enough to change how companies or governments operate. The weight of cultural inertia is too great. But when that sprinkling grows until the leadership group is about one-third women, important things happen. Different decisions are made, and the move toward true parity in leadership gains momentum. If we can get to at least 30% women as partners at the power tables, we have a chance to change the world. I call this the 30% Solution.

Why 30%? This has proved to be the critical mass in any group of decision makers, the tipping point at which women’s voices resonate fully to add the affirmative difference of our experiences and values. When your ideas, solutions, and approaches and those of other women are amplified enough to be heard and heeded, different options become possible. Customary and often outmoded or even counterproductive ways of doing business can be replaced by fresh ideas. Few women in top positions are likely to argue, “We’ve always done it this way.” And with enough women in the mix, the hypercompetitiveness seemingly rampant in a homogeneous leadership structure is leavened.

With just a token woman or two at the table, the added strengths we bring simply don’t carry the day. Lone women often feel like “fish out of water” or feel they must “go along to get along.” A small number of women certainly can and do make a difference by bringing more women into power. Indeed, having even a few women at power tables as role models is vital. However, it is seldom enough to change outcomes. It is tough for one or a few women to lead the way on solving nagging problems, especially anything labeled a “women’s issue,” such as the need for family-friendly workplaces. More women are needed to gain the advantage of what law professor Deborah Rhode has called “the difference [that] ‘difference’ makes.”4

On the other end of the spectrum, while true parity in leadership—50% women—is an ultimate goal mirroring society, 30% is where real change begins to happen. Also, parity becomes easier to accomplish after the tipping point is reached, because women can change long-standing practices to create more opportunity for others who come behind them. The 30% Solution acts as a floor for women moving up, not a ceiling.

Sometimes the best ideas are hidden in plain view. More than thirty years ago, Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter5 first identified the importance of having a critical mass of about one-third women in corporate decision-making roles to positively affect outcomes. Regardless of the strategic importance of these findings, little attention was paid to the idea until 1995, when it gained prominence on the international stage. That year, almost two hundred nations attending a United Nations conference agreed on a goal of at least 30% women in decision making. These countries saw a need to establish genuine partnerships to determine their destinies. Since then more than one hundred nations have embarked on modernizing their leadership composition in line with the 30% Solution. Country after country has moved away from the historical model of totally or mostly male leadership to actively balance the scales with more women. The experiences that have validated their decisions are included throughout Women Lead the Way.

The 30% Solution is good business as well as smart politics. Catalyst, an independent research organization with deep ties to Fortune 500 companies, has undertaken a long line of important studies about the impact of having more women at the top. The findings build a strong case for predicting outcomes. Firms with one-third or more women as corporate officers and directors reap rich rewards: higher financial performance and better bottom lines, as well as more opportunity for upward mobility and improved policies for women and families. Best-practice companies (which are unfortunately few in number) are following a women-friendly model of leadership development as part of their business plan for success.

I haven’t found studies about the 30% Solution in the nonprofit sector. Based on personal experience with the CEOs and boards of directors of a wide range of foundations and organizations, I would expect that these groups too would do better with balanced leadership. This is an area for more research.

Progress around the World,...

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Verlag
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Erscheinungsdatum
2011
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1605098736
ISBN 13 
9781605098739
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
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Pärnu mnt 139b-14
Tallinn
11317
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