The Power of Women's Leadership

Guest blog by Renee' Aloisio and Kate Kennedy. As one of the state delegates to Vision 2020, I have enjoyed working with them and the other amazing women who are part of this effort. Thanks to GoLocal for the original.

As the Rhode Island economy plods along its slow recovery, our state's businesses continue to seek out any kind of competitive advantages to get ahead. One such advantage that has been widely documented and reported is the power of women's leadership. Some companies are making serious investments in this area, while others have yet to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Research indicates companies led by women or with a higher representation of women board directors experience higher financial performance. The correlations are found across industries ‒ from consumer discretionary to information technology. Here in Rhode Island, women currently make up 48% of the workforce, and many women can be found in entry- and mid-level management positions. But when we look at the top levels of management, executive officers hover at somewhere just above 10% and board seats are filled by a slim 16%. A clear indication that we can and should be doing better.

Vision 2020 Rhode Island's upcoming report, Women, Leadership and Wages, reviews the findings of a survey conducted with 22 of the state's largest not-for and for-profit businesses. The survey is focused on initiatives and best practices that advance women, such as commitment to women’s leadership, advancement of women into senior leadership, wage equity and women on boards. The report also examines obstacles and barriers to advancing women into leadership.

The findings at times fall below where we would hope Rhode Island businesses could be: for example, only 23% of for-profits and 1% of not-for-profits surveyed have a clearly defined strategy and philosophy for the development of women into leadership roles. However, some best practices are being utilized to advance women, such as requiring a diverse slate of candidates for executive searches and conducting wage equity audits that look for inequities in compensation between men and women serving in the same position. This report can and should be used by for-profit and not-for-profit leadership teams, human resource departments and board of directors to spearhead meaningful conversations for improving the advancement of women in their organizations' leadership team. The real benefits of paying attention to these measures ‒ short and long-term, financial and workforce ‒ can offer an alternative for contributing to companies' competitive positions and thus Rhode Island's economic growth.

On behalf of Vision 2020 RI's Corporate Sub-committee, we invite members of the business sector and other interested parties to attend and hear more about the report's findings at Leading Women's breakfast, The State of Women's Success, being held on September 11th at 8:00 at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick. We appreciate the willingness of companies who participated in the survey, and we urge all members of the business community to participate in ongoing research to share successes and challenges in advancing women's leadership as we work together to advance Rhode Island's economy.
Vision 2020 was developed by the Institute for Women's Health and Leadership at Drexel University College of Medicine to make equality a national priority through shared leadership among women and men. The organization’s goal is to advance women’s equality before the landmark 100^th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

Renee Aloisio is Director of Internal Operations at LGC&D and Kate Kennedy is the Executive Director of Rhode Island Business Group on Health.

The report, Women, Leadership and Wages will be available online at www.leadingwomen.biz and at www.wfri.org on September 11. Hard copies will be distributed at the event.

Lead ON!
Susan   
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls and Make the Most of Mentoring. Follow her on Twitter |  LittlePinkBook  |  Facebook  |  Google+  |  LinkedInGroup |  LinkedIn

Reflections on the 100th Anniversary International Women's Day

March 8th is the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day and I am spending it with the Global Women's Council of a F500 company. For me this is a fitting way to celebrate both the accomplishments and highlight the steps yet to take in corporate America - the women in the room have made it close to the top of this venerable company, and yet in all its history it has never had a woman CEO.

That said, I'd like to take this opportunity to cast a wider eye at what's happening to women around the world. Starting here in the US, last week the White House issued its first report on the status of women in 50 years. While the media overplayed the wage gap, there is a related factor that has worsened, the rate of women living in poverty. 

As displayed in the Huffington Post, in spite of incredible leaps forward in level of education attained, 18% of women overall and nearly 40% of women heads of households live below the poverty level. In looking carefully at the graph, I noticed something disturbing.

• Both percentages were on an overall downward trend from 1964 to 1979.
• They rose during the Reagan years and stayed relatively high until around 1993 when Bill Clinton took office. During his presidency (1993 - 2001), the rates declined.
• During George W. Bush's tenure women's poverty levels increased again. 

Now, most of you know that I don't like to be political in this column, but the correlation between the policies of conservative Republicans and the worsening status of women have been on my mind given the many recent initiatives at the state and federal level to curtail women's reproductive rights. As I can attest from personal experience - access to family planning resources and reproductive rights are the foundation for women's health and economic well-being. But this is not simply a personal experience for many women who have had the luxury of planning their pregnancies. This is also one of the factors cited in a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston report on the progress made by women in business. And yet, our rights in this area are under the deepest attack in decades.

Federally, the revised H.R.3 would deny tax credits to businesses that offer employees health insurance plans that happen to cover abortion care, as well as disallow any medical deductions for expenses related to abortion. Women would not be able to set aside their own money in pre-tax health accounts for abortion coverage (hmmm, I wonder if their male partners could. So much for small government. You'd need an army to police the health policies of every company applying for tax credits and Health Savings Accounts of every woman!)

Several years ago two women - one anti-choice and one pro-choice - co-authored a book on reproductive rights. Though they had different perspectives on abortions, they found common ground when it came to preventing unwanted pregnancies. Shocking to the anti-choice author were the attacks she endured for her pro-contraception stance. Hearing them interviewed was the first time that I learned that the anti-choice movement is using abortion for a broader anti-contraception agenda.

This face of the anti-choice movement has been revealed again this month. For example, in Wisconsin the governor's budget would not only defund Planned Parenthood, it would reverse a state law that requires health insurers to pay for prescribed contraceptives. (No mention is made about whether he would reverse reimbursements for Viagra!)

Conservatism and religious fundamentalism are the foundation of these movements and both are on the rise not only in the U.S., but also around the globe - primarily in Muslim countries where unrelenting pressure is forcing women out of the mainstream and into the shadows. In emerging economies - as reported in Half the Sky - women and girls continue to suffer from sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape and maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. But in the marvelous book by the same title, there is story after story of women who bravely take the lead to tackle these brutal issues.

So, here's to International Women's Day and Women's History Month. We've come a long way, but we and our sisters around the world still have a long way to go. Please get active, take the lead and make a little history to help women continue to make strides in health & safety, education and economic participation.

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls.
Follow her on Twitter |  LittlePinkBook  |  Facebook  |  LinkedInGroup |  LinkedIn

We Did It? Part 1

In Part 2, I challenge the Economist's title "We Did It!". Here's an analysis of the lead story entitled Female Power. It addresses why there are more women in the workforce, the opportunities and challenges.

Why - this is pretty accurate and irrefutable (except for the vacuum cleaner - as far as I can see women spend as much time on housework now as my mother did in the 50s).

1. Feminists who raised consciousness
   
2. Women role models (e.g. Thatcher and Clinton)
3. Vacuum cleaners - reducing time required for housework
   
4. The pill - giving women control over reproduction
   

Challenges - parenthood

1. "Many children have paid a price for the rise of the two-income household."
2. "Childless women in corporate America earn almost as much as men. Mothers with partners earn less and single mothers much less."
3. Millions of families still struggle with insufficient child-care facilities and a school day that bears no relationship to their working lives.
   

Opportunities

Women will be the beneficiaries of the growing "war for talent"

Increasing women's participation in the labour market to male levels will boost GDP by 9% in America

Flexible work arrangements


More women-owned companies

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls. She blogs on networking for PINK Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.

We Did It? Part 2

The venerable Economist recently usurped the "We can do it" message of Rosie the Riveter to imply that women have somehow "done it" because we are reported to be over 50% of the workforce. Oh, please! Contrary to its misleading cover, the "Leaders" page accurately reports:

"...women are still under-represented at the top of companies. Only 2% of the bosses of America's largest companies and 5% of their peers in Britain are women. They are also paid significantly less than men on average."

In its Shumpeter editorial entitled Womenomics, the author misses the mark in many ways:

"The first generation of successful women insisted on being judged by the same standards as men...and instead insisted on getting ahead by dint of working harder and thinking smarter."

Okay, the contradiction is absolutely clear. That generation wasn't judged by the same standards, but by harsher standards.

Later:

"The new feminism contends that women are wired differently from men...What is more, the argument runs, these supposedly womanly qualities [consensus-seeking, collaborative, group-oriented] are becoming ever more valuable in business"

This is not the new feminism, it's neuroscience finding fundamental structural differences in men's and women's brains. This is not the new feminism, it's study after study (very few conducted by women) comparing the perceptions of women and men managers.

I do agree with the editorial on one point. Resting on laurels of interpersonal skills will not get women to the top - nor have us succeed along the way. For that we also need hard-nosed business acumen.

Lead ON!
Susan
Susan Colantuono is CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls. She blogs on networking for PINK Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.

White Men Over the Age of 45 reprised

UPDATE: Bank of America heiress is lambasting the executives at the top.

"The granddaughter of the man who founded Bank of America in San Francisco in the early 1900s called the bank's current condition "totally repulsive" and blasted the bank's management for being 'idiots'." WATCH

I've mentioned before in this blog my friend, Mark, who after the savings & loan debacle said, "If those in power stereotyped themselves, no one would put money in banks run by white men over the age of 45."

This was again brought to mind last week when the mostly all white CEOs of America's largest banks appeared before the House Financial Services Committee. Not surprisingly, this followed a strikingly similar scene a day earlier in Great Britain when (as reported by the Washington Post) Britain's bankers Fred, Tom, Andy, Dennis, Eric, John, Stephen, Antonio and Paul were called before Parliament's Treasury Select Committee.

Why do I reprise this? Because I don't agree with the President and others who say that what we are facing is "a failure in confidence". I believe that what we are facing is misplaced confidence and failures of executives and boards.

Bear with me while I pull several threads together.

First, several years ago in conjunction with FORTUNE's most powerful women issue, the magazine studied companies that have managed to get a significant number of women to the top. These companies are characterized by a relentless focus on measurement. It makes sense that if true performance (not perceptions) is the measure by which people are promoted that a higher percentage of the 50% of women who make up the pipeline will make it to the top. So, it's safe to say that well-run companies will have more women at the top. It seems logical that if a company has a full pipeline, but doesn't have a significant number of women at the top, it isn't being run with a focus on true performance (in other words, less than well-run).

And research bears this out. Studies by Catalyst have found that companies with more women at the top generate higher total return to shareholders than those that don't. Unlike some, I don't say that it's the women at the top that account for the higher TRS, it's that truly well-run companies will naturally have more women at the top. The behavior of women has also been described by studies and stories to be highly ethical (think about the whistle blowers at Enron).

Several studies have indicated that having a critical mass of women on boards also is an indicator of enhanced business performance.

So, we have a virtuous cycle of companies that are well-run, promoting more women to the top, and likely having more women on boards. (Lest you think there's no problem with boards today, read this earlier post here.)

For my book I've been researching the remarkable turnaround of Xerox that was led by Anne Mulcahy. One of the decisions she and her CFO made was to make no financial move that they didn't understand. This is a brilliant executive decision. I would suggest that it is a decision that executives in financial institutions - and the boards that hold them accountable for strategy execution, organizational viability and keeping shareholders whole - should adopt. Actually it's a decision that every CEO and board should be guided by.

But, instead we have companies and boards that choose people to get to the top on the basis of considerations that have less to do with competence and performance (although they would argue otherwise) than they have to do with style and membership. We have a shortage of women at the top - and as several studies have suggested, a related absence of willingness to challenge the ethics of decisions. And we face, yet again, catastrophic failure of these highly compensated men who have brought ruin to the economy and our citizens.

Of course, I am going to suggest that things have to change and change radically. But, I'm not alone. Again, as reported in the Washington Post (see link above), men are thinking the same.

"There are quite a lot of alpha males with testosterone steaming out their ears," said Stuart Fraser, one of London's top financial sector officials.

"Clearly, something needs to change," said Howard Archer, chief European and U.K. economist at IHS Global Insight in London. "You can argue that the men have made a right mess of it, and now the ladies should have a go."

Now, I disagree that it's gender alone that will make the difference. I believe that the lenses through which competence is viewed have to be cleaned up, the measures by which readiness for promotion have to be rethought and promotion on the basis of "membership" in the "boys club" have to cease in order to get highly qualified women to the top. FORTUNE has found companies that do this. Would that there were more.

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

Holiday Musings

Musings in the Holiday Season

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I recently attended The Boston Club corporate breakfast where Maureen Miskovic, EVP and Chief Risk Officer of State Street Corporation spoke about today's economic reality in the context of historic discontinuities and with an eye to opportunities in the future. Using the opening of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, she talked about the peril and the promise inherent in the times we face. I found her literary reference perfectly to the point:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."

At Leading Women, we're staying focused on the promise of what we and our members have before us and on finding ways to support our members who are in transition. Keep your eyes open for upcoming FREE services for members in transition. www.LeadingWomen.biz/calendar.cfm

A Team of Rivals. Much has been made of Obama's selections for his cabinet and advisory teams. I'm reveling in the diversity (which has only increased since I wrote this blog entry). At the same time, I'm delighted in the example of leadership he's setting by advocating for robust debate. Vigorous dialogue has been cited as success factors by Jim Collins in Good to Great, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in Execution and numerous other successful executives and leadership researchers. Bringing this style of leadership firmly to the fore will benefit women - who generally favor this more collaborative approach to leadership over a command and control model.

Eyes on the Prize. On Saturday, I had the amazing experience of watching two bucks fight over a doe in the woods right outside my bedroom window. Listening to the clack of their antlers was a sensation and watching the escalation of effort was intriguing to me ...as it was to the doe. Eventually she wandered off. I found it ironic that the bucks (having lost sight of their goal) kept fighting. The message to leaders in this: keep your eyes on the prize, when conflict escalates, bring the focus back to the customer, when adversity threatens, don't develop tunnel vision (see FedEx below).

Conscious Consumption and Giving. In RI, Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts' Buy Local RI initiative made official an impulse that had been growing in me. Once during the height of the oil prices I realized that to fill my gas tank would be the equivalent working for a portion of time for the oil company. Boy, did that make me want to buy less oil - and that impulse caused me to be more conscious of how I was spending my money.

As the economy worsened, I found myself focused on finding ways to support local businesses before, during and after the holiday season. Instead of donations to the local food bank, for example, I went to my locally owned market and bought food to donate. When possible, I bought gifts from local stores. I focused my charitable donations on organizations that support girls and women. Instead of adding material to the land fills, I've continued to find ways to donate and recycle. Lastly, after this year of incredibly tight races (is MN decided yet??), I've made political contributions to candidates whose values resonate with mine.

Following the FedEx Lead. A standing ovation to FedEx CEO, Frederick Smith, for creatively addressing the economic challenges. Instead of laying people off and feeding the vicious downward economic spiral, he is taking a 20% pay cut. Other senior FedEx executives will get a 7.5%-10% reduction. FedEx's remaining U.S. salaried exempt personnel will draw a reduction of 5%. These moves are accompanied by a hiring freeze and other measures. At a time when CEO compensation is over 300 times what core workers make, this is a strategy that should be followed by every other company. I commend Smith's leadership - for FedEx and for business in general.

As we move into this year of remarkable challenges and historic change, may you stay focused on what's before you and the spring of hope.

I wish you all good things in the New Year.

Lead On!

Susan

More Benefits of Women at the Top

In October, Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee announced the launching a new program for women (and men) who want to return to the workplace after a time out (as she did). These "returnships",

"...will offer experience in marketing, brand management, sales or professional staff roles, Ms. Barnes says. Recruiting for the first group is expected to start this week, and a second “class” of 10 to 12 returnees is planned for 2009.

Actually, Sara Lee isn't the first. Goldman Sachs announced the same plan earlier in the year. As reported in the WSJ.

Women Economic Advisors

I'm so delighted to see Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox (2nd from the right) among Barack Obama's economic advisors. Anne - the highly acclaimed architect of Xerox's turn-around from the brink of bankruptcy came out as a democrat providing good balance to Carly Fiorina who supported McCain.

The other two women are Jennifer Granholm, Governor of Michigan (behind Barack's right shoulder) and Penny Pritzger, CEO Classic Residence by Hyatt (2nd from the left).

UPDATE: apparently there's another woman who appeared with Barack's economic transition team - Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton. Laura is one of two possible women nominees for head of Treasury. (The other is Sheila Bair, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures bank deposits up to $250,000.)

They joined an equally esteemed list of men (including the legendary Warren Buffet). You can read the names here.

Why should we care? As reported by Women's ENews:

"Job losses in the wake of the recent economic collapse were concentrated among women, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C. At the end of October, the number of unemployed adult females rose from 3.3 million to 3.6 million, a 9 percent increase, according to the Nov. 7 report. The number of unemployed men jumped from 4.8 million to 5 million, a 4 percent rise."