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Why don’t we have more female leaders?

A new executive development course by Northumbria University is helping women break through career barriers into top roles – and as programme director Dr Amy Stabler explains, providing companies with growth opportunities at the same time.

The initiative follows initial research collaboration between Newcastle Business School, North East ICT Partnership and Dynamo North East – an industry-led drive to grow the region’s IT sector – which shows that a shortage of female leaders is bad for the profession. At Newcastle Business School we have been working with a number of high profile organisations, including the seven North East County Councils, professional services company Accenture and other IT solution providers to help tackle the gender imbalance.

Success with the first cohort means the programme is growing and we are now offering places to women from a range of other sectors who are currently in mid-management and aspiring to senior leadership roles.

To develop the programme we undertook some unusual research methodology using visual images to help understand how women perceive themselves as leaders, and of equal importance how their colleagues perceive them as leaders. It is clear from the findings that many women are immensely capable, but can also be self-doubting. At the same time they can face what can be termed second gender bias, where practices appear to be fair because they apply equally to all, but actually the systems, processes and environment can prohibit women’s promotion.

Holding women back in this way makes little sense. It can stifle the growth of individual businesses and restrict the wider economy. Indeed, there is good quantitative research covering FTSE 100 companies which shows that having more women in Board level roles is good for performance, good for innovation and good for business bottom line. In many ways this is simply about having greater diversity. Women make up around half the population, but if they are under-represented at the top levels then companies are effectively missing out on 50% of the talent pool.

Our programme has been designed to overcome barriers to career progression in a number of ways. Challenging women to have the self-awareness to really understand how they perceive themselves as leaders is a significant first step to greater self-belief and setting their sights higher. Leadership is also not a solo activity, so we also focus on the importance of creating networks and understanding the strengths and weaknesses, and perceptions, of the teams around them. As the programme develops with sessions including creating a leadership blueprint, talks from highly successful female leaders and setting up mentoring partnerships, the women on the courses gain the confidence and self-belief to see themselves as leaders. Feedback has been extremely positive, with delegates telling us for example that in senior management meetings or with their teams they are better able to convey a message with far more purpose and more conviction. One of our cohort has also suggested the course would be just as valuable to male colleagues as well.

As I said at the outset, having more women in top positions is not only good for individual careers but can open up new growth and profit opportunities for businesses of all sizes and across all sectors. The benefits are also there for public and third sector organisations For more information on this executive development programme please contact amy.stabler@northumbria.ac.uk

Why do you think we don’t have more female leaders? Join our live debate on Wednesday 26th July at 10.30. Find out more and register online by clicking here.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Northumbria University .