Gender balance in senior management

OPINION: The issue of gender balance on Boards of Directors and in senior management has been in the news recently for two reasons. The first is that, to everyone’s surprise I think, the percentage of women on Boards or in senior management positions has actually fallen – from about 30% a few years ago to only 14% this year. The second issue is the rather ill-advised comment from Julie-Anne Genter, The Minister for Womens’ Affairs, that women should replace the 60-year-old men who currently occupy many Board positions. Her comment has been widely criticised and rightly so. Barring middle-aged men from accepting Board positions is no solution to anything.

However, the Genter comments really just distract from the real issue which is that of understanding what is going on the with the adverse movement in the gender balance. And I think the only way of finding out is to talk to Boards and CEOs to find out about why they do what they do.

I think there are structural reasons for the percentage being low (but this does not explain the fall in % age). One of those reasons is the limited pool of women with the right skill sets for particular Boards, relative to the pool of eligible men. I think this is probably especially so in specialist businesses.

I think the fundamental reason of this is that too few women make it into the ranks of senior management where they can qualify themselves for Board appointment. So, the low Board percentage is really just a symptom of a wider problem. The reasons that too few women make it into senior management are wide and varied and I will come back to that below. But for sure it is not lack of ability. History says that when women do make it to the top they are just as successful, if not more so, than their male counterparts.

A contributing reason is the biological fact that women who do wish to also have a family have to be pregnant to do so and that does have an impact on their ability to contribute at work, if only because of days off. I think too many companies are indifferent to that reality and are not prepared rot make allowances, which automatically benefits males competing in the same management pool. As far as the time commitment to raising a family is concerned, I think that load is far more evenly spread between men and women than it was in the past, so it should not be a major factor.

Unfortunately, a further reason is that some businesses are simply prejudiced against women in positions of power or high responsibility. You can’t help feeling that some law firms might fall into that category.
One way around the issue is to have targets for gender representation and to make them moving targets so the pressure is to move toward having more women not less. Targets engender mixed feelings and many women are themselves against such a formulaic approach – they want to be appointed on merit, not any other basis. And I am inclined to agree. But targets are a good way of measuring progress.

But the basic issue is that of culture – particularly at senior level in businesses. I suspect there are too many businesses who do not have a woman oriented or even a gender-neutral culture, and who regard a men only Board or management team as quite acceptable so long as they are clearly competent to do the job. Part of having the right sort go culture is to recognise that diversity is important – not only because it has value in itself but because it contributes positively to better decision-making. A commitment to diversity is a powerful lever toward balanced gender participation in business at the highest levels.

By Bas Walker

This is another of Bas Walker’s posts on GrownUps.  Please look out for his articles, containing his Beachside Ponderings.