Women in Leadership: Without A Doubt #EveryWomanIsALeader

The woman has always been a symbol of power, determination and energy right since the beginning of mankind. A woman is a key unit of our family, society and now workplace. Over a period of last couple of decades, women at the workplace have reached tremendous heights be it on corporate or on personal fronts. In earlier era woman was always shadowed by man but history proves that at the demand of time, a woman never hesitated to come in front and take the lead to draw great transformations in the world. If we look at the era of the oldest Hindu mythology epic Ramayana, we witness the extreme character of women.

On one hand we see the negative side of a woman who forced the king Dashratha for sending Lord Rama to exile and on the other end we see the fully devoted Sita who refused to stay in Ayodhya and decided to go along with Rama for the most painful journey of their life that lasted for fourteen years. A woman has always been seen as a giver – be it a mother, sister, wife or any other role they take in real life.

For years, women took the onus of the aspiration factor behind successful men. But when time and instance challenged a woman, she never failed in undertaking any kind of job, howsoever tough it may be and has been successful. Today we see a lot of women to the top of the corporate ladder and running the show successfully. A Global Leadership Survey conducted for women as workforce represents a wide gap between the women and men aspiring to reach C-level which is 36 percent to 64 percent. But then that does not prove the incapability of women.  Women can always do more and better than men, as stated in a report published by Fortune in 2014. The top Fortune 500 companies were 24, reaching a new height in 2014, taking it to near to five percent.

Women have always been facing more challenges than men in the corporate world and by crossing all these obstacles by reaching the top slots, they have proved their mettle. Feminine traits have been psychologically found different to masculine ones and it has been proved that a woman has been able to do her best in balancing demands, expectations and aspirations in all aspects. There is something called inner glass ceiling that a woman has to face in taking any call. It is a well-proven fact that when a woman is at C-level of a company, the administration control is much better and the company performs better in financial terms. The corporate world has understood this fact very well and that is why we see today at least a woman on the board of most of the successful companies. It is all on a corporate to give equal opportunities to women and provide them a successful path to reach the top of the corporate ladder.

Bosch has decided to make sure that at least twenty percent of women in the whole organization worldwide reach to the leadership positions by 2020 for which a budget of over $200 million per annum is already allocated for training, development, and exclusive mentoring charters. That is a great respect shown for heterogeneity and unusual career growth. This is one of the best policies of diversity management. In a similar attempt, European School of Management and Technology has started offering exclusive scholarships to women applicants in leadership positions for their executive transition program. Aon Hewitt has recognized recently DHL New Zealand as a great place for the development of women leaders where diversity is the key factor. The company aims to allocate more leadership positions to women to beat the gender inequality without any compromise in the pay packages. MakeMyTrip in India is also following the same path.

Bonnie Marcus in her recent article on Forbes, published just two days back, advocates full support to women by saying that provided a right kind of atmosphere is there and there is a sponsor on board to support, nothing can stop a woman to reach the top of a corporate ladder. Who had imagined that among Forbes Fifty Greatest Leaders of the World 2014, there will be a sixteen-year-old girl from Pakistan? Thirty-eight percent of world’s top leaders are women. And look at the chart below to see a great variation in the roles they are carrying in their successful journey. What else to say except #EveryWomanIsALeader.

Note: This post is a part of the blogging competition held by www.shethepeople.tv on the topic ‘Women in Leadership’. Entries can win an all-paid expense trip to an exciting destination. You are welcome to participate in the contest by visiting here: http://shethepeople.tv/leadership-contest/