BTOES From Home - SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT : Lean in Agile - Amplifying Women's Voices in Leadership

Session Information:

Lean in Agile - Amplifying Women's Voices in Leadership

We have more women in the workforce today than ever. There is no lack of qualified women to fill the leadership roles. Why then do we see gender inequality in leadership layers?

Institutional mindsets and structural barriers are often the impediments for growth of women in leadership. There is an immediate need to explore the inherent systemic issue that is working against the much desired presence of women in leadership. 

Session Transcript:

Hello everyone my name is Padmini Nidumolu and I'm the co-founder of lean and agile for women an organization that's founded on the premise of bringing women across the world together and share the narratives support each other and then form the foundational structure for each other.

Today I'd like to bring to you my thoughts on women and their role in organizational leadership and how they can contribute to business transformation and operational excellence so let's explore that together so the greatest enablers or even the bad years to a successful agile transformation are its leadership and culture.

We all know this and if you look at the characteristics of a traditional institutional mindsets and organizations they assume the world is predictable first of all and it's also based on the idea of an organization which runs as a machine on autopilot and tends to favor uh a static very siloed um and uh operates through bureaucracy red tape and then you know executes on very few business models and it they also have matrix like structures more rules more um you know control in in in the way they operate and if you look at the traditional organizations they are often built for a world that's unfortunately rapidly disappearing and then they keep you know redoing and restructuring.

Whereas if you look at agile organization and and these are the new ways of working that requires a new and fundamentally different kind of leadership and we all know the profound impact of um leadership effectiveness on organizational performance and health so if you look at leadership and how leadership shapes the culture if you look at this these are the biggest enablers of successful business transformations and most of us are privy to this to this fact and traditionally.

We have seen um uh in the past in institutional uh you know mindsets and organizations we've seen leaders more as planners on on the top of the pyramid their directors their controllers but i think it's it's it's time to explore and and many organizations are exploring um new language for leadership uh the leaders as visionaries like enablers more coaches and catalysts of of the positive change so if you look at the leadership capabilities or characteristics of um you know strong leaders that can lead the organizations to their north star um as you can see here um you know.

It's about shifting the reactive mindsets to more creative and proactive mindsets and enabling design thinking innovation and enabling small but empowered teams throughout the organization as teams are the building blocks of an organization and fostering more collaboration than silos fostering more partnership mindsets than control oriented mindsets and also looking at uh shaping the agile cultures and mindsets within the organization so you're empowering the teams and powering the leadership layers and and federating those decision-making spaces.

So you are not the um the roadblock or uh the only person to make the decisions per se now if you if you really look at these statistics and um this this particular visual that you are seeing um this research this survey was done uh in partnership between uh vacancy and company and lean major lean in uh organization and if you look at this it's it's it's pretty clear as to how the gap between where we are and where we would like to be um is quite wide and and this is because it's quite common to view women's unique contributions to their organizations or even society from a generic lens but an unfortunate consequence of this essential or essentialist approach is that women are always associated with.

The maybe I shouldn't say always but most most you know or more often uh associated with an inferior characteristic of the binary opposition um as women are emotional they're not rational women are impulsive um they're not goal oriented or goal directed etcetera there are there are quite a few adjectives that we very unbiased um you know we don't have the unbiased lens.

When we are looking at that um gender imbalance so for every uh if you look at this statistics as a whole for every 100 men promoted to leadership it could be management it could be c-suite uh but let's let's just talk about the first layer of being promoted to a manager only 85 to every 100 men are promoted and this gap was even larger for some women if you look at women of color uh only 58 black women and 71 Latinas would promote it again to every 100 men and if we begin we will find some you know similar statistics for women of color overall but as a result women remain significantly outnumbered at the manager level and this is at the beginning of 2020.

The survey and they held just 38 percent of managerial positions while men held 62 percent we are looking at almost a 100 percent variance here and your challenge is created by the current covet 19 crisis as many as two million women are considering taking uh a leave of absence or even leaving the workforce altogether uh because of societal and domestic constraints and limitations.

Now the the progress that we have made in the previous five years seven years uh men and and uh women were were um you know at least positioned to those leadership players in a similar uh balanced scale the at least the organizations are attempting to but due to the current situation if if the women are forced um again from their own perspective to leave the workforce we'll end up with far more fewer women in leadership and and far fewer women on track to be future leaders because if they are not promoted to an immediate management layer.

You're not looking at future leaders at all and all the progress we have seen over the past five years would have been erased so um there is an immediate need for us to um to to really come together as as a group to to look at what it takes to to build that layer of women leaders.

So we have a balanced well-represented organizations for a better future for better operational excellence so if if we move beyond statistics now for the past five years or so we made slow but steady progress in women's representation in leadership layers but there is a concept called the broken rung and this is the first step up to manager continues to hold women back and now with coping 19 crisis of course it's threatening to erase the gains of all the past years and the progress that we have made and if you look at uh the broken wrong uh and and the um the challenge that.

It offers women will always struggle to climb to the top of the corporate ladder as long as the first trunks are broken and uh we've all heard the glass ceilings uh in the past and that is the invisible barrier that is keeping women from making it to the top management positions the broken rung however starts a lot earlier we are talking about the very first um step towards a management or leadership position and then this refers to the obstacles that are keeping women from advancement.

You know right at the start of their corporate ladder so the biggest obstacle women faces on the path to senior leadership positions only if you look at um the statistics for every hundred men promoted and hired to a leadership position only 72 women are promoted and hired and and this broken wrong phenomenon um results in more women getting stuck at entry level and very few women becoming managers and we are looking at a broad landscape of across several organizations and if you if you extrapolate that number or that statistic down the line the men are upholding 62 percent of management positions while only 38 position 38 are held by women so um where there are fewer women than men in lower management positions.

There are fewer women getting promoted to senior management so no wonder women are not making it to the corporate ladder in terms of the balance in the c-suite and executive positions and then to compare the issues many companies are even unaware of the problem right you know if you're not if you're aware if you're aware of a situation or a problem there is a hope that it can be addressed unfortunately most organizations are completely unaware of the the imbalance and the subsequent uh impacts that it might have on the organization and if you look at um you know just as a reference if you look at a reference point here right if you look at the statistics.

If women are promoted and hired of first level management layers at the same rate as men right let's take that for an example we will be adding one million more women to management in corporate America over next five years and that's huge and that's the impact and that's the progress that we all need to have and need to make as as a society and as an organization so i think it's it's time for us as um hiring managers as leaders as colleagues.

It's time for us to bring this awareness to the front and center of of our operations so that's that's called to action so um first of all why why should we have more women in in the leadership player right uh beyond the gender equality and and both genders need equal opportunities but let's let's explore um you know why it matters to have uh equal number of women if not more in the leadership players and um and also I think we all need to keep in contact that it becomes rather challenging for a woman to first reach a position of leadership but then she struggles for acceptance and credibility in that layer as a leader.

So you know that should be the center of context here anyway um but if you look at the why and why it matters to have women um it's it's it's widely researched and there are several documented references that women's presence on on management teams and in leadership spaces is generally associated with a stronger social commitment and a more participatory leadership style and then one benefit of female leadership is an increase in measures to promote uh work-life balance which is extremely critical um uh to retain talent and also which is very important for country development as well as for uh improving families and quality of life in general and and with women at the at the leadership players and at the helm companies are more inclined to introduce friendly policies uh hr policies and these new um female leaders have a great impact and influence on their organization's activities.

Than they would have in a traditional company with you know more imbalanced gender and balanced leadership players and also greater women decision making power could lead to a new strategic orientation that differs from plants designed by exclusively men dominated teams and there are several researchers out there and and a huge amount of data out there showing that women in leadership positions believe in more participative and collaborative approach which involves working with people rather than making people work there is a huge strong difference there and women are also good transformational leaders than um you know in in where they contribute to the organizations.

Than in the organizations where there are just men and they use nurturing caring and engaging approach towards um you know all their employees and to the organization in general and uh they're known we all know for more uh and high emotional intelligence and they also understand the motivational factors of the employees and they can manage more effectively and then based on the diverse culture and the knowledge about the diverse culture and the background uh women leaders can absolutely provide and and um they've proved themselves as able and competent visionaries and we are seeing that with women-led nations in the covert situation.

Today uh that we see the decision of appointing women at critically and strategically important positions um reaffirms to us um you know the fact that women leaders can can provide for that effective leadership and organizations of all sizes and magnitudes are seeking today to improve their diversity strategies which is a great new news and a great strategy in general and um they are striving to advance women in her leadership journey.

Which is great for business and good for the society as a whole so we are trending towards uh a more inclusive culture and uh more balanced culture but again in the context of the current covet 19 situation there is an urgent need for us to enhance those strategies as more women are considering uh leaving the workforce and this is the this is the study which is saying it it's it's the news that is carried to us that is saying it so um how do we create uh women leaders rather how do we develop women leaders.

If you look at um you know some of the pointers here and these are some of many and um you know the HR policies and development strategies can uh draw from these so it's it's about setting a goal to include more women in the first level management promotions and being very intentional about it being very mindful about it and uh even um expanding that knowledge and training to hiring managers to look uh for women leaders identify them develop them and promote them and always be cognizant of that balance within the organization and also looking at early identification of any inequality because as the inequality increases the gap increases.

It's often very challenging to close it so identify those inequalities early in the game and constantly revise your policies or review your metrics and uh numbers to see where the inequality might might occur and also don't wait for the title and this is for women themselves don't wait for an explicit invitation to take on additional responsibilities and be a leader and your title should not determine when or when not to take up that role rather when you can expand your role and that automatically identifies and puts you on the path of leadership and um also look at um you know training your hiring managers and evaluators for unconscious buyers not not every one of us.

You know uh does an act of discrimination or um bring uh one gender versus the other consciously there is an unconscious bias and several HR policies have very explicit trainings for unconscious buyers so bring it in and and train them and increase diversity in hiring and promotions again this is not a nice to have it should be a non-negotiable must-have policy within an organization that you must look at diversity in in hiring's and promotions very equally and also looking at broken rung gaps are so how many women are in the first layer of management versus the higher layers of management so looking at that even ground and balanced well-balanced and well-represented landscape so looking at those spaces of broken rung and how they can be filled the gap can be filled and also looking at how can you train women in taking on those leadership roles and sometimes those needs are unique for each women identify them.

You know how can you build more communities of practices or the support groups learning groups within the organizations to ensure women have a more psychologically safe space to come together and support each other and then rise up to the occasion when the opportunity presents itself so having said that uh it is also very important to have diversity within women leadership players so again if you have women and enough women in the leadership layers but you don't have diversity within that that group it it um it offers different flavor of challenges so look look to create a diverse group of women leaders so by looking at diversity of thoughts or ethnicity race backgrounds culture or different expertise whatever it is try and expand the the landscape of that layer and also looking at the leadership initiatives for women of color.

We talked about the statistics of women of color and their advancement into the leadership layers less and or fewer women of color get into leadership real layers if you look at the statistics as a whole so how can you um how can you bring in the initiatives and development programs for women of color and again creating psychologically safe space for them to raise their hand should there be a challenge and also looking at advancing diversity and women leaders should be considered.

An opportunity not not a burden nor nice to have initiative but it is it is a must-have it is a business imperative to include women uh and to bring diversity in that layer um so that's that should be the relentless effort from all of us in the organization it's a corporate responsibility and it it it is shown it research shows that it contributes directly to a greater level of transformation in the business and also to a steeper curve for operational excellence.

So I invite you all to to pay attention to the space and bring in more women leaders you as hiring managers you as leaders you as uh colleagues and participants if we all embrace this organizations embrace it automatically thank you uh for giving me this opportunity and please check out clean and agile for women it's a not-for-profit community building organization and we are huge advocates of bringing more women into the organizations and to speaking opportunities but also bringing them to a leadership position, where they have a seat at every decision-making table.

Thank you.