A taboo subject, or at least one that doesn’t get enough recognition throughout all North America, is the role that women play in leadership positions.
Males are dominating the many profitable industries and undermining the leadership abilities of women. Statistics show that women are more likely to get paid higher for jobs that men don’t necessarily seek.
The problem lies in industries where both genders have the same amount of employees, yet, a female worker isn’t compensated or treated with the same amount of respect as their male counterparts.
Although we are making a lot of progress, how can women hold more leadership positions? And how can we find a way for those archaic views of women and leadership to die down?
Females In The Boardroom
The corporate world, specifically the banking and investment industries, seem to be against the notion of women being willing to hold executive positions.
In an interview with business insider, an old investment bank employee (not affiliated with Goldman Sachs) who runs a satirical twitter account, talks about some of the views within the investment banking industry and discusses the overall treatment of female employees within the organization.
Though it may seem like something out of the film The Wolf of Wall Street, the employee was candid in admitting that the older executives wouldn’t have hired a female employee to a leadership position, unless she was physically appealing.
He even went on to say that he would look for certain accolades that she had won (like winning a swimsuit competition, or a superlative in a sorority) as opposed to career accomplishments.Though this may not be every industry, it still shows that as progressive as we may be over here on the Western hemisphere, we still have lots to learn about the ladies.
For a woman to get half as much credit as a man, she has to work twice as hard, and be twice as smart.
– Charlotte Whitton
With the current tech boom, a lot of companies are looking for the best possible employees to take the mantle. Regardless of their gender, color, sexual orientation, or age.
As we move forward, we’ll have younger, forward-thinking leaders to take the throne, and we should be seeing a tectonic shift in the workplace in terms of who holds leadership positions and the diversity of those groups.
Let’s hope we start seeing some changes sooner, rather than later.
Gender Wage Gap, A Myth Or Reality?
Many economists (including female economists) will argue that the gender wage gap is a myth. They tend to include more global facts about earnings per industry and don’t really drill down per industry and country.
Everyone has a different take on it but if we look at high-paying, white collar jobs men have higher earnings for doing the same jobs as women.
There are several initiatives being started to bring those percentages down, but do we really want talented employees potentially walking away to another company?
One of the things I really like about Google is the fact that they tend to give everyone great pay, but more importantly, you can’t negotiate your pay. So there’s no way an extroverted sales type can go in there and pitch their way to a higher salary in order to make more than an introverted marketer.
Along with their unique hiring processes, that kind of transparency (everyone knows the wages per department) lets people know that any and all genders can go in and apply and as long as they bring results, they’ll hold the job and be groomed to advance.
As a strapping young lad, I do have to admit that I enjoy being compensated, but if I am working with a female Elon Musk, I’m going to do my best to be quiet, listen, and though I’d never ask if she’s getting paid less than me, the least I would expect from management is that she be fairly compensated.
The way I see it, if female employees are going to bring more value to a company than a male employee (or any employee in general), there’s no way that they should not be compensated as much or more than their male counterparts.
Leadership Opportunities Should Be Fair For Everyone
From day one, women are already scrutinized in the workplace. If you’re fortunate enough to work with a diverse group of people from around the world, you’ll get to hear about all kinds of treatment of different work conditions.
It’s sad to say, but as bad as it may appear, North America is actually progressive among some of the other countries, even continents in the world.
Man, Woman, in between, a person of any gender should be given a fair opportunity to lead. If a person is a good fit for a position, they should be the ones that are good enough the job.
It’s long overdue that we start giving different people different opportunities. This goes beyond any political, scientific, religious, or geographical rule or order. Not having a gender-diverse workplace is a simple workplace/human rights issue. It’s not allowing people to have the freedom to work freely and fairly within different industries.
Women And Leadership Are Synonymous
I happen to believe that women make great leaders. Especially some of the ones that I have had the honor to work with, and the awesome one I was raised by.
If given the opportunity to move up and having male leaders/C-level employees that are more tolerant toward having women take leadership roles, a company can not only perform better, but boost the morale of other employees that know that everybody has an opportunity to lead.
What are your thoughts about female leaders? Let us know in the comments below!