Here we go, groundhog day again. Leadership stats released around the world this month tell a familiar story. Wherever you are, it’s likely you’ve come across the findings from a recent report regarding the lack of growth in female leadership – the latest comes from the Women on Boards UK organisation, finding less than half of the listed firms outside of the biggest 350 companies had met targets for women in the boardroom and 54 per cent still have no female top bosses.
Meanwhile, we heard from the National Women’s Council that a 40% legislative quota for female representation on corporate boards must be introduced to address the significant underrepresentation of women in senior leadership roles and in boardrooms of Irish companies. There’s a similar picture emerging from the recent analysis on the impact of Covid-19 on female leadership by BoardAgender, an initiative from the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations (SCWO).
As infuriating as the data is, it continues to be valuable as whatever gets measured matters and gets attention – from businesses being held accountable on reporting their gender pay gap data through to the crucial issue of why, when 50% of the planet is female, their path to the top is so clearly different. Ultimately though, we don’t want more headlines telling us that there aren’t enough female leaders, we need positive actions. Here are my top five: