While some progress has been made toward gender equality in the workplace over the years, women continue to be significantly underrepresented in leadership roles. According to the latest annual Women in the Workplace report from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, women continue to be far behind men when it comes to being promoted managerial roles and reaching other leadership positions within organizations.
The report shows that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women are promoted. The number of women in leadership continues to dwindle for higher positions. Women hold 48% of entry-level roles, but only hold 29% of C-suite positions. Another report from S&P Global found that women’s share of C-suite positions at publicly traded U.S. companies fell in 2023 for the first time in two decades.
Not only is supporting and promoting women in leadership the right thing to do from an equality and fairness standpoint, but gender diverse teams also drive business success. According to another research report from McKinsey & Company, companies in the top quartile of gender-diverse executive teams are 39% more likely to have better-than-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile.
What can your organization do to help women reach their full potential and support gender diversity across your leadership team? The strategies below can help you address the ongoing shortage of women in leadership.
One of the first steps toward building a diverse leadership team is writing inclusive job descriptions. A widely cited statistic from Harvard Business Review shows that women typically only apply to jobs if they meet 100% of the qualifications, while men apply even if they only meet 60% of qualifications.
In your job descriptions, highlight the most important must haves or requirements and also clearly share how you’ll offer training, mentoring, or development resources to help employees continue to learn on the job.
Also use inclusive language in your job descriptions, such as neutral terms versus gendered terms and avoid using jargon keywords such as “rockstar” or “ninja,” as they may turn away women or other potential job seekers.
SucceedSmart’s generative AI platform, Taylor, creates unbiased, accomplishment-based — rather than skills — job descriptions and flags existing job descriptions for bias, provides rationale, and produces new unbiased job descriptions. Including sought after accomplishments in your job descriptions can also help you attract prospective candidates who have the background and achievements you need to take on leadership roles at your organization.
Research from the World Economic Forum found that while the share of women in leadership was on the rise from 2016 through 2022, peaking at 38%, it has dropped over the past two years to 36%. One positive stride companies are making toward increasing women’s representation in leadership is identifying ways to minimize bias in the hiring process.
However, the LeanIn.org and McKinsey and Company report shows that while more companies are putting practices in place to make hiring more fair — such as developing clear evaluation criteria for all candidates and conducting bias training — only one in four companies have adopted all of the core practices experts recommend.
One area in which most companies are behind, according to the report, is removing personally identifying candidates information from resumes during the hiring process, with only one in 10 companies indicating they’re currently doing so. Including details that can indicate a candidate’s gender, race, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, or other information, can introduce conscious and unconscious bias into the hiring process — which can hold women and other underrepresented groups back.
At SucceedSmart, our patented, AI-powered accomplishment-based algorithm evaluates candidates based on how specific past accomplishments align with an organization’s requirements and must-haves. This helps organizations support diversity and inclusivity in the hiring process by evaluating all candidates equally and enables companies to quickly hire the most qualified individuals for open leadership positions.
According to the LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company report, there’s a disconnect between how men and women view womens’ representation in leadership. Among senior leaders, 79% of men think women are well represented in senior leadership, while only 55% of women say the same. Additionally, 36% of women said their gender has played a role in missing out on a raise, promotion, or chance to get ahead, compared to 15% of men.
In addition to the hiring process, conscious and unconscious bias can also come into play when determining internal promotions or growth opportunities. The report shows that only 59% of companies have formal processes in place to avoid bias during the performance review process and only one in three have a mechanism to surface biased evaluations or comments during performance reviews.
By evaluating current employees based on specific, measurable accomplishments, your organization can support a more objective performance review process, which can help you identify qualified internal candidates for promotions and other internal opportunities. As a result, you can prioritize diversity and inclusivity in your workforce planning, talent pipelining, and succession planning strategies while identifying the most qualified individuals to take on leadership roles.
Another finding from the report shows that many organizations have scaled back programs designed to advance women, such as formal mentorship and sponsorship programs focused on women.
No matter their gender or background, once employees reach executive or leadership roles, offering executive coaching can help set new leaders up for success, which can drive engagement and retention.
Executive coaching enables leaders to acclimate quickly. Effective coaching resources can lead to improved self-awareness, emotional intelligence, empathy, and communication skills. Offering all leaders at your organization executive coaching can also help them be better prepared to manage transitions and lead change — such as rejoining the workforce following parental leave, managing teams during a return-to-office transition.
At SucceedSmart, we offer all new executives hired through our platform six months of complementary 1:1 executive coaching from an ICF-certified coach, which empowers new leaders to quickly begin to make an impact at their organizations. Executive coaching for all leaders also enables equal opportunities to access expertise to help them continue to advance in their careers.
Recruiting and hiring a diverse leadership team is critical to enabling inclusivity and supporting women in leadership at your organization. This doesn’t only mean hiring diverse leaders for your immediate openings, but also taking a proactive approach to building a diverse pipeline for future executive and leadership openings and offering all leaders resources to continue to achieve their career goals.
At SucceedSmart, our modern, AI-led executive recruitment platform can help you quickly hire and build a pipeline of qualified diverse executive and other leadership candidates. After the platform technology does the heavy lifting, expert human Talent Advisors oversee the “last mile” to evaluate candidates for culture fit and other criteria, and only present the most qualified candidates to internal recruiting teams and hiring managers. With a diverse leadership team in place, you can gain a competitive advantage in the market and increase the likelihood of achieving strategic business goals.Whether you have immediate hiring needs on your leadership team or are looking to build a pipeline of qualified diverse executive candidates for future opportunities, SucceedSmart executive recruitment software can help you quickly hire the most qualified candidates. Learn more — request a demo today.
