A woman’s place…is in the Boardroom

I’d like to celebrate the fact that many businesses are now welcoming, encouraging and nurturing characteristics which are seen, traditionally, to be female: listening, asking questions, seeing everyone as equals, appreciating others, being at ease (rather than standing to attention and being on guard at all times), encouraging, feeling, offering up accurate information (vs information is power), humanising and creating diversity.

Their antithesis: talking (and taking) over, assuming you have all the answers, assuming superiority, not showing appreciation, controlling others, competing with others, acting tough, holding on to information (aka lying), conquering and dehumanising, and deriding difference. These behaviours have been the norm for far too long, in fact, since the first (big) businesses came into being.

It isn’t that women do the former and men the latter but that, culturally, women have been taught to do the former and men the latter. Men have had it hard because this isn’t the human condition, it’s unnatural behaviour. We’re all more comfortable and happier taking over less, collaborating instead of competing, showing our feelings, encouraging others, being honest and celebrating difference.

And I’m absolutely certain that workplaces which encourage these behaviours are happier places to be.

Fortunately for all of us, the workplace of the 21st century is more open to traditionally female behaviours and these places are attracting a more diverse workforce, which means more women. The businesses doing this are the ones that will win out, they’re thinking long term and will be fitter to diversify, develop and grow as market conditions demand.

There are 9 women CEOs in the FTSE 100 and, across the board, men far outnumber women as business leaders. In the bad old days, women had to behave like men to succeed at work – I’ve heard so many jokes about female Board members “being the most masculine member of the Board” over the years. It’s so passe. Accepting that women are women and allowing men to use their more nurturing attributes to benefit the business is thankfully becoming the norm.

Let’s celebrate that it will soon be a given that a woman’s place is on the Board though, as the picture shows, not always in the Boardroom!