We Need More Lady Bosses
In my professional experience I have had both men and women as mentors and leaders, and I can honestly say the capabilities of their leadership came down to the individual. Gender equality in leadership means so much to development teams, communities, and economies.
For those of us that need the data to support the argument, a survey published in the Harvard Business Review found that women ranked higher in 12 out of 16 core leadership competencies, including collaboration, driving results, and self-development. I’m not shocked and none of us should be. The women surveyed also showed a higher propensity for resilience and outside-the-box thinking, open to thinking creatively to find solutions to problems is essential for leaders now more than ever. These qualities indicate that women business leaders may be able to recover from setbacks more easily, and they can also advise colleagues and junior employees how to do the same more effectively than male counterparts. Once again this is no surprise to me, being raised by a single-mother I have seen that women can accomplish a lot with very few opportunities being offered to them solely due to the fact that they are women.
Women also tend to take initiative and drive projects more often than their male counterparts. According to Wall Street Insanity, one explanation is that women constantly feel pressure to prove their worth. Thus, women in these surveys and studies tended to dedicate more time and effort into identifying the issue and finding as many opportunities to create solutions as possible, working solely with what they had. These are leadership skills that are needed for any individual in a role that is dedicated to developing and administering strategy more so than any other capability. Especially in leadership with startups and small businesses where resources can be limited.
Women in leadership roles in developing nations
We see this happening in developing nations, and the time to stomp out of gender economic inequality is needed more than ever. Gender inequality comes at a significant economic cost as it hinders productivity and economic growth globally, countries are losing nearly $160 trillion in wealth because of differences in lifetime earnings between women and men. In addition, an IMF staff note paper showed that the obstacles to women entering the labor market, especially when in the form of starting their own business, has more economic cost than most economists and researchers had thought, and benefits from reducing the barrier of gender inequality are likely to be larger than initially thought. The fact is that all communities flourish when opportunities, especially those in economic leadership roles are equally distributed and promoted amongst both men and women. Reducing gender inequality is therefore key to economic development and prosperity for every country.
Empowering more women to enter the labor market and start their own businesses, results in faster growth of developing economies. This is because women’s economic empowerment, increases economic diversification and income equality, resulting in other positive development outcomes for generations. As a study from the IMF shows, policies that improve access to educational opportunities and finance for women can contribute to a reduction in inequality and an increase in economic growth for the developing country.
Providing women with more educational opportunities contributes to both a reduction in fertility rates as well as an increase in labor force participation rates, thereby positively impacting the quality of human capital of the future economy and generations in their respective nation. We are seeing this with more business incubators and trade advocate agencies devoting entire programs to helping startups and small businesses either established by or majority owned by women.
Leadership equality is beneficial to everyone
As women take on more substantial roles in the business world, their impact continues to grow. Their roles as initiators, representatives, and connectors have proven financially successful in the marketplace, opening more opportunities for them to fill more high-ranking corporate positions and rightly so. A larger number of women in leadership roles leads to higher profits, according to Catalyst. On average, companies with the highest percentages of women on its board directors outperform those with the smallest percentage by up to 66 percent. The numbers don’t lie, we need more lady bosses so promote and genuinely support equality. It literally helps everyone.
I devote my professional life to helping entrepreneurs and small business owners reach their goals. So stay in touch by dropping a comment and connect on YouTube and Twitter!
I’m Ehren Muhammad, Founder of EMPro, Ltd
Let’s connect!
P.S.
I wrote this while listening to “Nina” and “Maya” by Rapsody
References
The Bottom Line: Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity — Catalyst
The Business Case for Women in the C-Suite — Fast Company
Women in Leadership are Driving Profits — Everwise
Ways Businesses Benefit From Women in Leadership Position Is — Wall Street Insanity
Dynamics of the Gender Gap — The National Bureau of Economic Research
Why Diversity Matters — McKinsey & Company
Women are the Key to Economic Development in the Third World countries — King’s College London
Closing the Black women’s earnings gap would add $300 billion US GDP per year — Yahoo! Finance
Pursuing Women’s Economic Empowerment — International Monetary Fund
Globally, Countries Lose $160 Trillion in Wealth Due to Earnings Gaps Between Women and Men — The World Bank
