Erica Lovelace is the VP of Marketing, North America and Global Comms for CI&T, your end-to-end digital transformation partner.
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New findings suggest that when women lead, profits increase. Consider this: 87% of the top 500 companies led by a female decision-maker delivered above-average profits.
Companies that commit to reducing gender bias and promoting women in the workplace tend to see increased revenue and, just as importantly, create inclusive workplace cultures that can help retain loyal women employees in the long term.
So what's driving these metrics? It's simple: Women introduce new perspectives to problem-solving by bringing a different lived experience to the table. In addition, there is a growing body of evidence that points to gender equality accelerating workplace innovation.
Women spur innovation.
In a study of California's largest 400 public companies, the top 25 had the highest percentage of women in leadership positions. The results are remarkable, with these leading companies delivering a 74% higher return on assets and equity than other businesses in the survey.
Recent research shows how gender equality and diversity in leadership roles increase financial performance:
• Improved innovation through openness to employee contributions from all levels.
• Improved teamwork and productivity due to increased collective intelligence and psychological safety.
• Greater loyalty and employee retention through increased job satisfaction and decreased turnover.
• Improved purchasing power by gaining access to underserved markets and bettering product-market fit through an increased understanding of customer needs.
• Enhanced reputation by recognizing harmful policies and practices and mitigating risks.
Despite clear evidence that companies can benefit from women in leadership positions in all areas, there is still a significant gender gap in leadership positions at many organizations in all industries and sectors.
Barriers to leadership still exist.
Unconscious gender bias refers to comments, assumptions and actions related to a person's gender that are unintentionally harmful. While gender bias negatively impacts women directly, research indicates that gender bias can also negatively impact business performance.
One study found that many people believe a man, even with fewer qualifications, is better suited for leadership than a woman. This outdated thinking subjects women to a double-bind bias as they navigate the workplace. For example, if women are assertive or forthright, they're often deemed aggressive, bossy and too unlikable to be good leaders. Conversely, when a man exhibits the same behavior, he's often considered a great leader.
Unconscious gender bias significantly impacts women's psychological safety in the workplace (the notion that someone can speak up, ask questions and make mistakes without fear of punishment or humiliation). In companies that have not actively developed an inclusive framework to address unconscious bias, women in leadership roles must maintain a constant level of self-awareness to navigate their situation. This barrier shouldn't be understated, as it can deter many women from wanting to climb the corporate ladder.
While gender-related bias creates tremendous barriers for women in the workplace, researchers have identified an even wider gap in resources, allyship and sponsorship for women of color who aspire to leadership roles.
So what can we do?
We now know—and study after study has driven this point home—that while women in positions of leadership can benefit business performance, significant barriers to gender equality remain.
In my career, internal allies and sponsors were critical to success. My time in the trenches and as an executive has revealed five ways to start—and continue—the work necessary to create opportunities, space and culture for women to rise to leadership. Although not an all-inclusive list, it's a strong starting place:
1. Commit to ongoing, leveled unconscious bias training.
Most biases are deeply ingrained, and annual training exercises will not deliver a solution. Continuous training throughout the year is crucial to creating and sustaining a more inclusive environment.
2. Evaluate your hiring policies.
This is deep work that demands reflection and scrutiny. Carrying unconscious bias training into active processes through policies is essential as companies cultivate more intersectional diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) frameworks. Alongside continued training, businesses can support hiring managers by using software that helps decrease recruitment bias by hiding names, for example.
3. Increase the visibility of women through special projects.
This involves creating opportunities and space specifically for women to help lead key initiatives. These opportunities aim to create more visibility in the workplace among peers and demonstrate capabilities. Ultimately, this opens up possibilities to add allies who can propel women to the next level quicker. Without these allies, it may take many more years to advance, or it may never happen if the opportunities are simply unavailable.
4. Create space for working mothers.
The "double shifts'' of moms working full-time jobs and juggling child care and the often invisible work of household operations can no longer be ignored. The challenges increase for dual-career couples, women of color and single mothers. Some key examples of how organizations can help working mothers thrive in the workplace include allowing a flexible work schedule, closing gender pay gaps, normalizing male parental leave and providing mental health support for employees.
5. Ensure you're practicing psychological safety.
Creating a workplace culture where all employees are comfortable being themselves and strive to reach career goals requires allies across the organization. These allies must be brave enough to speak up when they see problems, and programs must encourage them to do this. Consider that employees at companies that offer autonomy and trust are 74% less stressed, have 106% more energy at work and have 50% higher productivity.
As leaders, we must all work toward developing frameworks that reduce unconscious gender bias, promote psychological safety and advance women toward leadership opportunities. As Ban Ki-moon, former secretary-general of the United Nations, said, "Investing in women is not only the right thing to do; it's the smart thing to do."
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