Mentoring Movement Needed, But Won’t Work Unless Men Feel Invited

In the wake of their recent survey that revealed men are more hesitant to mentor women since the #MeToo dialogue started last fall, Lean In has launched a new initiative for men to mentor women. Called #MentorHer, this important program adds another welcome push on men to do their part in making workplace gender inequities everyone’s issue, not just a women’s issue.

Building a Business Case for Integrated Leadership

In my last post, “Why We Need Integrated Leadership”, I discussed several reasons why companies need to begin moving toward a more balanced, integrated approach to leadership. I explained how in our ever more complex and connected world, organizations no longer have the luxury of failing to tap into the full capacity of their leadership team. We need all voices on deck to create a unified and integrated group of leaders who can leverage each other’s unique strengths, while integrating both the practical and creative insights of different perspectives.

Top 3 Leadership Attributes Women Need in the 21st Century

A 2015 study from Pew Research Center found that the majority of the American public agrees that women are as capable and qualified for corporate leadership as men are. Pew reports that “most Americans find women indistinguishable from men on key leadership traits such as intelligence and capacity for innovation, with many saying they’re stronger than men in terms of being compassionate and organized leaders.”

But as we all know, at the end of the day, that vote of confidence hasn’t resulted in gender equality in top leadership positions. There’s no need to restate the numbers; if you need a refresher, my recent post on growing momentum globally for gender quotas tells some of the story.

At SHAMBAUGH, our goal is to provide solutions rather than to dwell on why these challenges relating to women’s leadership aren’t progressing quickly enough. To that end, here is a summary of three top capabilities that women need to thrive as leaders, based on a recent McKinsey study of 250 high-ranking female executives and validated by SHAMBAUGH’s own research:

The Missing Link: Approach to Women’s Leadership Must Be Multifaceted

My last post focused on common problems that companies face in realizing a meaningful return on their investment in attracting, retaining, and advancing women leaders. While many forward-thinking organizations have well-developed programs in place to support their women leaders, the desired results are just not being seen in a large number of these Fortune 500 organizations.

Problems are easy to pinpoint, evidenced by the large number of articles in the media elaborating on them. Solutions, on the other hand, have been elusive for this particular challenge. While there are several first-level strategies that women, men, and organizations can execute to improve the situation (as detailed in my last post), none of these approaches by itself is sufficient to truly solve the problem. The solution lies in consistently following through at each of these three levels simultaneously.