DIVERSITY
Why women need to work harder to lead at the workplace
At an airport, I chanced on Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.” The book title was interesting, and I picked it up. As I read the book, I was struck by the similar circumstances, and challenges women face in building their careers across countries and cultures.
I had the privilege of meeting Sheryl in a media roundtable conducted by Facebook with leading industry women during her India visit in 2014. She shared compelling statistics on the positive outcomes of better representation of women in senior leadership. Countries with strong women political leaders going less often to war – was a point that stuck out.
Helping women meet their potential at work
In 2016 Lindsay Pattison, Chief Client Officer WPP, launched ‘Walk the Talk’ (WTT), a global initiative to help women meet their potential at work, focusing on assisting them in breaking the glass ceiling. What was unique about this program was that while it acknowledged the many external challenges that women face, the program helped women look internally. The kick-off WTT training workshop revealed the internal barriers women build within themselves that impede their career progress. Evidence shows women are less likely to put themselves forward. At the same time, creating a pipeline of female leaders takes time. WTT equipped participants to unlock resources at hand that men probably use better than women. I was part of the foundational group of senior women across the Maxus global network who cascaded the WTT initiative into our respective countries. Over the years, we have seen the immense impact of this program on the women who attended and the bold moves they made in playing the larger game.
Diversity a multifaceted challenge
Achieving gender equality is a multifaceted challenge, as are the paths to achieving them. This is something that we need to work at continuously and through different spheres of life.
GUEST COLUMNS
Sep 21, 2018
Men and women bring in different perspectives and both are important. Biases are of many types and gender bias is just one of them