For decades, women have been struggling to reach the top of the ranks in different industries, even if more women have higher educational degrees than men. Additionally, research has shown that companies can benefit more from women leaders, with many saying they “want” high-ranking female executives. But studies show the opposite, as women still lag behind men in the C-suite.
Despite this, women still fill the workforce, but only 19% of them have leadership roles. As a business owner, you can change that by implementing the following strategies and groom more women leaders.
Incorporate Quality Mentoring
Mentoring is often based on the fondness for a person or their style in leading, and many mentors perceive men as being more “worthy” of their attention, or they feel more comfortable teaching them. This way of thinking deprives women of the learnings they deserve, so to groom more women leaders, the mentoring process must be more open and organized. Schools, universities, and even performing arts academies often have programs and organizations that help women, sometimes providing mentorship programs that would help them advance in their careers.
Commitment From Executives
To groom more women leaders in different industries and businesses, the existing top leadership and executives must commit themselves to hire and promote employees while following gender diversity. After all, if the top position is adamant about this, the rest will follow. Executives can recommend women as part of their board of directors, encourage succession planning when necessary, and establish the company’s culture of inclusivity.
Implement the 70-20-10 rule
When grooming more women leaders to join your company, you need to consider implementing the 70-20-10 rule to your business’s operations. This rule pertains to 70% of a manager’s learning, and growth needs to come from on-the-job learning via completing “stretch assignments, where 20% comes from mentoring and 10% from traditional classroom learning. In other words, following the conventional path of leadership training and mentoring isn’t sufficient to launch a woman’s career and business journey to the top.
Identify Pivotal Roles
Particular company roles carry extra weight, and most executives misunderstood that women can’t handle this. Often, women are relegated to staff roles, placing them on the sidelines instead of bestowing much-deserved leadership roles. An excellent chance to groom more women leaders should begin by putting women in “heavier” positions leading to the top.
Executives and the management must identify these pivotal roles and focus on filling them with diverse employees while promoting gender equality. The people in these roles will gain more visibility and credibility, and it’s in these critical roles female employees will learn more about leadership skills that’ll bring them to the top.
Succession Planning
Businesses of all scales need to identify and build on pivotal role positions in their operations. Company executives need to quantify and standardize the process in their succession planning. They need to include women and promote their leadership abilities as they look for successors for “key roles” leading to the top.
Doing this can help keep your business stay in the spotlight, continuing to move forward while implementing diversity in all levels of the organization.
Diversity Initiatives and Transparency
As a business owner, you need to ensure that everyone in your company is making an effort to find, hire, and offer opportunities for well-established or promising female talent. You can embrace diversity by creating definitive plans and goals for your company, implementing them into your overall business plan, and taking the necessary steps to guarantee sustainability by enforcing them positively.
It’s also worth noting that you need to be transparent to enforce and build upon your goals successfully. After all, you can’t boast about your diversity successes if you aren’t clear to your team members. Whether it’s publishing reports or posting on social media, make your goals public.
Recognize and Correct Bias
Bias is usually the most significant barrier between women and the leadership roles they deserve, as men are more commonly praised, promoted, and given raises regardless of the industry. Recognizing women and the quality of work they provide is crucial in grooming a woman leader.
You can do this by shaping a work environment that doesn’t reward bias, fostering female leadership. Instead, focus on implementing strategies that go against workplace bias and give more opportunities for female employees to rise through the ranks.
Although statistics show businesses with a more prominent gender diversity among their ranks tend to be more successful and profitable, only a fraction of company CEOs have leadership roles. You can change that by following the strategies mentioned, paving the path to more women leaders in different industries.