Women in leadership: The Challenges, Successes & the Future

What do you think makes a good leader??

There are so many qualities that make a good leader, but brilliant leaders are the ones that understand that any business above all else is a people business. The most exceptional leaders that I have witnessed are the ones that are masters at understanding and reading all people and inferring or even anticipating how their teams are thinking and feeling at an organisational, team and individual level. They are able to harness this insight to inspire, energise, galvanise, reassure and where needed, direct. People that work for leaders like this feel seen, heard and valued. They will lean into the impossible, navigate the insurmountable, and collectively deliver far beyond the imaginings of any individual.

What do you see as the greatest challenge/s for female leaders?

For me the biggest challenge is that for thousands of years every aspect of society has been heavily geared towards womens’ role being wife, home-maker and mother. It is only, relatively speaking, very recently that we have warmed to the idea that women can lead outside the home at the highest level and can do pretty much any job to the same level of competence as a man. To feel absolute equality as a female leader requires a comprehensive realignment of beliefs, structures and norms across all aspects of society and life, and that hasn’t happened yet. This is no small undertaking and whilst momentum is positive, there is still a long way to go. Until that happens, there will always be expected and unexpected hurdles, and conscious and unconscious behaviours that female leaders face frequently. I’ve definitely seen it transform in the 18 years that I have been working, but we are not yet at a point where there isn’t a consistent need for more resilience, more effort, and more determination from a female leader than her average male counterpart.

How can businesses or the corporate world support women to become leaders??

Work with your current and aspiring female leaders to constantly assess where we have beliefs, structures and norms that work against or disadvantage women. Push your organisation to constantly find new ways to level the playing field. Get inventive and curious about it. For example there are studies that show that typically women are more drawn to egalitarian structures, whilst men much prefer hierarchical structures. Yet almost all businesses insist on hierarchical structures. There are theories that this stems right back to our early hunter-gatherer psyche, when men needed to know their relative position to be able to carry out effective hunts. Is this still relevant? Could we do it another way?

What advice would you give to any woman with leadership aspirations??

Focus on understanding what your super powers are, and find a business, environment and team that will appreciate and nurture them. Commit to being a life-long learner and maximise every opportunity to learn, improve and grow. And work for leaders that you find truly inspiring. It’s the best way to learn and will inspire the best in you.

What’s the future of the workplace or start-up world for women in the next 5 years??

The post-covid world has been very freeing for women. Having many more hybrid set-ups makes the blend between family and work much easier, so that is a positive; opportunities that previously felt not feasible are all of a sudden an option. At the same time I’m seeing a lot of data that women are actually leaving director positions at the fastest rate ever. A lot of girls in my generation were raised on the notion that “you can have it all”. But the reality is you can’t. You can have more bits of all of it, but there are always trade offs and sacrifices. We can still lessen the impact of these trade-offs and sacrifices; I hope we see more of that in the next 5 years, too.