I have just read report from Catalyst about ‘Underutilized Talent of High-Potential Women in Europe’. I wanted to get your thoughts on it…
I’m embedding the infographic with the key stats. Basically, what it says is that women despite trying harder (seeking out mentors, actively developing their skills, finding ways to advance their careers) still perform way worse than men in terms of progression of their career, responsibilities and salary of course. Now – it doesn’t really make much sense. Shouldn’t input = output?
Well seams like it isn’t all so simple.. But why?
- Is it because women are less ambitious? They care about careers less than men? Less naturally driven?
- Is it because they’re think about having a family early and pull back on work commitments, just in case, ahead of the time?
- Do they not ‘lean in’ enough? Not confident to stand up, speak up, ask for promotion?
I don’t know answers to any of those questions. I aspire to be a ‘high-potential woman’ and so are most of my girlfriends. In all fairness, I am not sure how reliable this survey is, considering that only 124 women were interviewed compared to 526 men.
Anyways – look forward to your thoughts and comments!
Millennial Banter 
Perhaps this is a timing issue more than anything. Todays aspiring women are tomorrows leaders and everything is to the right and up so what is the issue? Because women are becoming more ambitious and seeking out mentoring and other support doesn’t grant them keys to the executive washroom right now or even in two years in significant volume. Factors like these have to feed through corporations and so as well as looking at gender we should look at age as a demographic spread. I imagine what you’ll find is that the ambition is a higher factor in the younger age group and that complaints of lack of promotion opportunity are in the older age demographic.
Within five years this issue will have sorted itself out. Already the top IT companies have female CEO’s (HP, Yahoo, IBM, etc) and that is being reflected in many other industries from minerals to finance. Don’t live in the past, keep pushing, commit to what you want and the remaining barriers – if indeed there are any – will fall. The one thing no-one can do is demand equality in business based on gender, ethnicity or sexual proclivity. It has to be earned and the climate supports that.