Views from Abroad (no, that's not a broad!)

In Jamaica the U.N. is demonstrating its commitment to advancing women onto boards. 100 women will be trained because a study...

"...found that in the last decade, women's participation on boards in Jamaica only moved marginally by two per cent in the private sector and four per cent in the public sector. It also found that while men believe overwhelmingly that women are prepared for senior decision making positions on boards and commissions, women themselves do not share this view as enthusiastically."

And with data about women and the quality of board governance that I hadn't seen before, Sandra Glasgow, executive director of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, opened the program noting that...

"...a major study conducted by the Conference Board of Canada in 2002 on women and corporate boards, suggested a strong link between female numbers on boards and good governance credential. In this, researchers found that more female directors pay attention to audit and risk oversight and control; that women more than men tend to consider the needs of more categories of stakeholders and that 72 per cent of boards with two or more women conduct formal board performance evaluations, while only 40 per cent of all-male boards do."

As a strong advocate for getting more women on boards, I know that correlation isn't the same as causation and address explanations for this kind of finding. Nevertheless, it's important to broadcast this data widely. Read more about the Jamaican program here.

I continue to find value in Jim Collins Good to Great research, especially the qualities of "personal humility and intense professional will" that he noted as attributes of the executives he and his team of researchers studied. Adele Horin, writing an op ed for the Brisbane Times, has an interesting take on luck, humility and success in this age of economic turmoil.

"It's been unfashionable in the greedy years to give luck the credit it deserves in shaping destiny. For women in particular luck is a tricky issue. Research shows men attribute their success to talent and hard work and most women attribute their success to luck. Such self-effacement has not reflected well on women...

In the greedy years, the male explanation for success became the norm. Humility went out the window. Hard men like Mark Latham made it sound that anyone could succeed if they were "aspirational". Idealogues like John Howard put the onus on individual effort, and free choice. Those with the drive, the talent, and the plan could move deliberately and purposefully up the ladder. The word "loser" came into vogue to describe the people who lacked the moral fibre, the gumption and the strategy to succeed.

But now the best-laid plans are in tatters. If it is not plans for a well-remunerated retirement, it is plans for promotion that are in shreds, or for a career in finance for the thousands of commerce graduates coming through, or for the job-with-prospects in print media for the hundreds of journalism students. All such plans have been ripped apart by a tempest that was unforeseen."

In India, women entrepreneurs and CEOs have joined hands to form the first-of-its-kind social networking platform to encourage more women in becoming entrepreneurs.

"The organisation will be holding workshops, knowledge and training sessions across 15 cities in the next three months to encourage more women to start businesses of their own. The best of the lot, handpicked by a panel of leading women entrepreneurs, will be presented with the Stree Shakti Awards during June this year."

Stree Shakti, the women's wing of the world's largest non-profit organisation of entrepreneurs (TiE), hopes to have Melinda Gates and Indra Nooyi attend the celebration...great choices both!

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women. She blogs on networking for PINK Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.

Recent News of Note and Happy Women's History Month

Reiterating that companies whose boards have the highest percentage of women directors outperform those with the lowest by huge margins (42% higher Return on Sales, 53% higher Return on Equity, and 66% higher Return on Invested Capital) margins, I have been hypothesizing why that is. I believe it's because outside women directors have a lesser stake in "we've always done it that way" thinking. I found this quote from Davia Temin, President and CEO of Temin and Company (she will be speaking to Women Corporate Directors on The Role of Boards During Times of Crisis) most interesting:

"Do you remember when 'Maximize Shareholder Value' was the mantra of corporate board directors? Today's mantra is much shorter -- Survive...In times of crisis, corporate directors' first responsibility is to cut through denial, understand that this is not business as usual, and begin to think through, with management, a full range of crisis scenarios. These days, every organization needs to fully develop a series of bad to worse case strategies, and it is the board's obligation to make sure that happens." (e.a.)

I continue to believe that we are facing a crisis of leadership competence in the financial and automotive companies that are dragging down our economy. Denying the market forces that put them in jeopardy is only one example of missing out on the fact that their failed strategies were based on "business as usual"...and an unsustainable house (pun intended) of cards.

It's Women's History Month and 98 out of the 100 news releases I've read about celebrations focus on the accomplishments, achievements and contributions of women. What's missing? A focus on the history of being a woman - the movements that have provided us with the vote, reproductive rights, civil rights, equal employment opportunities, equal pay legislation (note I didn't say equal pay). Would that the celebrations looked more clearly through that lens.

Excellent career advice from Down Under: The entire article is excellent - here's the first of 15 tips: to get ahead stop being so good at your job. GREAT counterintuitive advice!

A Harvard Business Review study "found that while women outshone men on most of the leadership dimensions measured, there was one startling exception – the ability to recognise new opportunities and trends, and develop a strategic direction for an enterprise.

Surely one exception should not matter – except that ability was the most highly prized by men when looking for leaders. Women, who are very strong on the technical elements of their job and have their nose to the grindstone, can be easily overlooked for promotion."

At Leading Women we've been beating this drum for 10 years! A whole chapter in my upcoming book addresses strategic acumen - as do modules in our leadership programs.

FORTUNE's Pattie Sellers is reaching out to mentor global women who have been part of Goldman Sachs' mentoring program. She writes,

"If you’re thinking now that Fortune is now in the business of helping the best and the brightest business women in developing countries, well, you’re right. But these are unusual times. And we’re all doing things outside our job descriptions."

To which I say, KUDOS!...and as a woman, caring about the status of women around the globe is part of all our job descriptions. History has proven that the improved equality and status of women rises families, communities and nations.

Dee Dee Myers' new book, Why Women Should Rule the World, has this fitting message for International Women's Day and Women's History Month:

"Without a doubt, the increased presence and power of women in public life has generated enormous, positive change. But getting to a place beyond double standards, where equality is not a slogan but a way of life, will demand more. It begins with acknowledging that men and women are different. And it embraces the idea that because they are different, women will bring with them a different mix of experience, values and points of view. That, in turn, will expand the range of what’s acceptable – and what’s possible. It won’t be easy; if it were, it would have already been done. But it’s in our economic, social and political interest to create a world that’s freer and fairer. Where women have more power – and are allowed to use it. Where everyone is judged by their performance – and their potential. Where double standards are only a distant memory."

Read the entire excerpt here.

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women. She blogs on networking for PINK Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.

Stopping the Brain Drain DownUnder

We have problems here in the U.S., and so do our sisters in Australia. Susan Heron, chief executive of the Australian Institute of Management is quoted...

"...although women represented 50 per cent of tertiary graduates, the number of women in executive ranks was only about 10per cent. ''Research also consistently shows that women executives earn significantly less than their male counterparts in some cases they are paid just half what a man would earn.

''ABS data tells us that across the workforce women earn 16 per cent less than men.''

As reported in the CanberraTimes.

Dismal News from DownUnder

This post is an update to an earlier posting.

This year's Australian Census on Women in Leadership shows a decline in the numbers of women at the top of organizations there. (This is a similar trend that's been reported here in the U.S.) As reported by news.com.au:

"In two years, the proportion of women executive managers in the biggest 200 public companies has fallen from 12 per cent to 10.7 per cent...Women hold a mere 8.3 per cent of board directorships, down from 8.7 per cent in 2006...Only 5.9 per cent of these senior line management roles are held by women, down from 7.4 per cent in 2006."

They Do Things Differently Here

In Australia, as in the U.S., the numbers of women in senior positions and on boards is in decline. So, what's a CEO to do? Well, the Chief Executive Women (CEW) organization has a novel solution. As reported by the CEO Forum Group:

"To this end CEW developed the CEO kit, a unique set of resources for CEOs interested in identifying a practical way to address this problem. In 2007 spoke to Diane Grady, chair of the CEO kit task force, and past president of CEW, who explained how and why the kit was developed, and how it can help CEOs maximize the value of talented women in their organisations."

Read the interview here.

Numbers in Decline: Australia

UPDATE to original post:
From Australia's Courier Mail

"According to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, the number of female executive managers has fallen to 10.7 per cent, a drop of 2 per cent compared with 2006. The number of surveyed companies with no women executives has risen to 45.5 per cent, up from 39.5 per cent in the previous survey."

From the Herald Sun in their own words:

WOMEN are virtually locked out of Australia's most powerful corporate boardrooms, new research shows.

There is just one Australian female corporate board chief for every 49 males, the latest Australian Census of Women in Leadership says.

And just 2 per cent of the CEOs of an ASX200 company are female, figures show.

The census results show women's progress is sliding backwards compared with five years ago.

From the Sydney Morning Herald in their own words:

"The 2008 census on women in leadership, to be published today, shows Australia has gone backwards in the promotion of women to executive management positions in top corporations and to boards.

The number of women coming through the pipeline in "feeder line" management positions is back to pre-2004 levels. Women who make it to senior roles are clustered in human resources and legal services rather than in operations, sales or finance, the usual routes to the top.

Where Australia once ranked second behind the United States in the number of top companies with a woman senior executive, it now ranks last in a list of comparable countries, including New Zealand, Britain, South Africa and Canada."