No Women in Leadership

For some, the process of pushing past a "thick layer of men" to reach the top, has also meant the need to adopt some male traits. Only the very strong women can maintain the feminine qualities of leadership.Unfortunately, a female with male qualities is not very attractive to men or women.

All these reasons point the finger at men!

Mentorship for women is already underway. Women on top are trying to help pull the younger people. But will the programs help when we have men continuing to push women down. It is not just the men within the companies, but also the men at home who want their wives to stay home to look after the kids, cook and be a "good wife."

To fix the problem, we need to fix the men!

We need men to be advocates for women to come up through the ranks. Apart from hearing from the women who have made it to the top, we also need to hear from the men who have wives in top position on how they do it.

We need to show that you CAN have a healthy family even if the woman of the family is working hard.

We also need the men in top positions to open up to the possibility of having women as part of the decision making team, and actively promote diversity programs within their company. Although a quota system is one way to start, I have seen people trying to reach a quota by inviting the person who clearly cannot fulfil the role and is only there "for show," which totally defeats the purpose and intention. It takes a conscious effort from the top.

Maybe the situation will change if everyone begins to remove the label of "leadership" for people holding the positions, but rather a person can only achieve the title of leadership when they possess certain qualities.

I recently came across a new concept of leadership in business – Spiritual Leadership. Not in a religious context, but spiritually. It is the type of leaders that looks holistically at issues, and by creating a learning organisation to increase commitment and productivity of employees. This kind of leadership not only addresses the bottom line for a company, but also addresses the wellbeing of employees (their spiritual needs) and hence employees are willing to bring their whole self to the company.

Why are we looking at that?

According to a report by Queensland Tourism Industry Council, Gen Y will represent 40 per cent of the workforce in 2012. At the same time, research has shown that Gen Y do not necessarily work for the wage, they value highly personal growth, work-life balance, meaningful work and a solid learning curve. All these have strong implications for leaders today.

With the high number of Gen Y coming into the workforce, all organisations (public, private or the not-for-profit sectors) need to move towards strategies that achieve work-life balance, help employees grow personally, and is achievement oriented rather than process oriented.

In order to achieve this, current leaders of organisations need to start leading a learning organisation, through reflecting on self critically, listening to stakeholders, and thinking creatively.Gen Y needs good guidance and mentorship from current leaders. For young women, it appears that they are not visible!

What happens if guidance is not provided? They have the power and ability to change it before you know it!