- March 19, 2024
- Category: Thought Leadership
by Diana Markaki-Bartholdi | Published 19 March 2024 in Women’s empowerment
Gender stereotyping is the enemy of men who want to run successful, sustainable businesses. It’s also the enemy of women who want to work for successful, inclusive companies with gender diversity at every level – including the bottom line.
The societal attitude towards families since the 60s has relied heavily on the narrative that the “typical” family has a working father and a stay-at-home mother. This has created a mental model where unconscious bias can create barriers to women developing their careers, making it inordinately more challenging for them to reach a board or CEO position.
The position of women with ambition in business is demonstrably tough. In Alexander Fleischmann’s article “Women are bored of waiting: Slow progress on shattering the glass ceiling on company boards”, published here in January, he quoted me as saying: “The historic assumption of a lack of qualified, experienced women is simply not true. The larger issue is that people still simply bring in people like themselves. Women do not lack merit; what they lack is a close enough resemblance to the prevailing masculine perception of what leaders look like. Our survey – and experiences of the women of the Boardroom – therefore smash both the misconception of a lack of qualified women to serve on boards and the prevailing excuse that companies cannot find them. Women are here – and they are ready to lead.”