Today, March 8th, we celebrate International Women's Day! While there were forerunners to this special day, International Women's Day was first celebrated officially by the United Nations in 1977. While we celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, today also serves as a call to action for accelerating women's equality. The theme for this year's celebration is "Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow."
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women in the workforce (please see the links to reports by McKinsey & Company and the Brookings Institution for more information on this particular issue). However, in spite of these challenges with the pandemic, according to McKinsey's "Women in the Workplace 2021" survey, gender diversity improved on almost every level in the corporate hierarchy during 2020. Unfortunately, while we've made demonstrable progress in the past several years, it's clear that we have a long way to go to achieve the vision of gender equality, both within and outside of the health care industry.
McKinsey & Company calls it the "broken rung" (referring to the "corporate ladder"). Women are promoted to manager, which is often the entry level to the upper echelons of management, at far lower rates than men. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 86 women are promoted, which means that far fewer women are available for promotion to higher level management positions. As a result, women are underrepresented at the senior-manager, director, and vice-president levels compared to men.
There is no question that a diverse workplace is a better workplace. Several studies have shown the benefits of having women in the workforce, particularly in positions of leadership. Organizations with women in leadership positions have been shown to outperform organizations with less diversity. On average, these organizations have 48% higher operating margins and 45% higher earnings per share compared to their peers. Gender-diverse teams make better business decisions up to 73% of the time when compared to their less diverse peers.
As it turns out, one of the most effective ways that we can address gender diversity and equality issues in the workforce is to increase the number of women in leadership positions. It seems obvious, but the studies show that when women are in leadership positions, the number of women in the workforce also increases. Again, McKinsey's "Women in the Workplace 2021" survey found that women leaders are more supportive of their teams compared to their male peers (see the Figure below).
Women leaders are twice as likely as men to spend time outside of their normal job responsibilities to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion at least weekly. They are also more likely to champion work-life integration and actively intervene to address burnout. A study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that hiring women into senior leadership positions is associated with a reduction in gender stereotypes in organizational language. In other words, hiring women into leadership creates a work environment that is more inclusive and favorable to fostering the growth and development of future women leaders! There is a "critical mass" or tipping point (probably occurring when 20% of the individuals in an organization are women) at which the work environment becomes more inclusive and less tolerant of bias, discrimination, and outright harassment. When women are in positions of leadership, this "critical mass" likely occurs at a much lower percentage of the workforce.
Gender inequality has been deemed the "greatest human rights challenge of our time" by the United Nations. What can we as leaders do to celebrate International Women's Day every day? Mary Sharp Emerson, writing in a post earlier this year for the Harvard Professional Development blog suggested that senior leaders (who are still predominantly white men) can lead the way forward by making sure that women have the same opportunities for advancement, promotion, and career growth as their male co-workers:
1. Establish clear (and transparent) job performance evaluation criteria
2. Analyze corporate HR data by gender and by race
3. Actively prepare women for leadership roles
4. Develop nuanced strategies for sponsorship
5. Discover the value of diverse leadership styles
6. Be willing to engage in honest discussions of gender and racial bias
Today, we celebrate women everywhere and remind ourselves of the work that still lies ahead. "Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow." #BreaktheBias
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