Leadership Challenges for Australian Women
Speech delivered by Pru Goward, Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Leadership Consortium Briefing, Melbourne and Sydney, November 2003.
- Thank you for
inviting me to speak to you today.
- Leadership for
women is a key issue. It is often described as an elite issue, nothing
to do with improving the lot of the average woman. However I think there
are two very good reasons for the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner
to take an interest in leadership.
- Foremost, there
are not many women in formal leader positions. They are under-represented
in the leadership groups.
- Today women make
up close to 51 per cent of the Australian population.
- Despite this,
they hold only 26.5 per cent of the seats in our federal parliament,
slightly fewer in state parliaments and even fewer in local government.[1]
- Only 26 per cent
of senior managers, officials and legislators are female,[2]
and 1.3 per cent of executive directors.[3]
- So leadership
is clearly an area where women experience disadvantage or lack of opportunity.
For that reason alone, it’s an issue.
- Secondly, promoting
women to leadership positions is more likely to advance the interests
of other women. Yes, we can all think of Queen Bees in our lives- those
women who are determined to drive off all female competitors and in
fact work against the interests of women. On balance however, a good
female leader will bring with her not only an understanding of the needs
of those women coming up behind her but is more likely to understand
the needs of female clients, staff, voters and consumers than her male
counterpart and may be more likely to adress these. This is not because
she is a “better person” than her male colleague but because
her woman’s life experience will inevitably affect her judgement
and outlook. Her experience as a poor child, a rich child, a black child
or a migrant child will also be part of her life experience and affect
her outlook and judgement. The same goes for men of course.
- Organisations
or nations for that matter with a diversity of leaders are also likely
to do better than those without for a quite different reason. I am sure
I do not need to remind you of the dangers of “group think”
in a leadership group.
- The probability
of a diverse group of equally accomplished leaders finding the best
answer is going to be more likely than for a group of identikit leaders.
- Arithmetically
you’re more likely to come up with the right answer if everyone
in the leadership team tosses in a different answer than if everyone
starts out with the same.
- The less perfect
the information the leadership team has to work with, the more important
diversity becomes.
- No board or government
or management team would perform well if they consisted entirely of
Melbourne Grammar School graduates, or, for that matter, of entirely
Melbourne Girls Grammar School graduates.
- Good board composition
now actively relies on skill diversity- the days of boards filled with
lawyers and accountants are long gone, invariably their companies have
gone with them! Leadership teams need to be diverse- and across society,
so does the range of individual leaders.
- International
experience suggests that female leaders do lead the way. It is no accident,
for example, that the Scandinavian countries have both a generosity
of work and family friendly initiatives and a high percentage of female
politicians. It is surely no accident that it took New Zealand two female
prime ministers in a row, plus a female governor-general, to bring about
a climate where paid maternity leave was introduced ahead of Australia,
which now remains only one of two countries in the western world without
it. Neither ourselves nor the United States have ever had a female head
of national government. Life experience counts in the decisions we take
and the priorities we set. You have to “get it” to do it.
- The case for women
leaders is not hard to make; addressing the difficulties they encounter
along the way is more problematic.
- As a journalist
and public servant, I’ve been privileged to observe many leaders
– in government, politics, in the household, in the community,
in business.
- A leader does
one thing that nobody else can; they make decisions on behalf of others,
they take action on behalf of others. More importantly, other people
let them.
- Strangely, many
people hate making decisions, even about the colour to paint their house,
but leaders love deciding, they dislike uncertainty.
- There are leaders
and leaders. Good and bad. The good leader makes decisions based on
good judgement. The less information the leader has, the more the decision
is made on that indefinable quality known as judgement. Judgement means
knowing how to mould what information you have with past experiences,
emotional intelligence and knowledge of life into a sound decision.
Judgement is wisdom and it can only be learned.
- strict hierarchies,
the human spirit eventually prevails and good leaders achieve more with
their staff and have happier staff than poor leaders.
- Finally, a leader
must take responsibility for their decisions and manage mistakes as
well as successes.
- These three tasks of leadership: decision making, inspiring others and taking responsibility for the outcomes require certain personal qualities. They do not come from a formula or a text book. Some are learned, some will be innate, others need to be managed. Whatever walk of life we are talking about, whether it is male or female, there are six qualities that any leader must possess:
1. intelligence – by this I mean a grasp of the issues and capacity to understand facts and arguments, to make decisions based on a sound grasp of the consequences. This gives the leader judgement and also enables them to command the confidence of their followers.
2. empathy – the ability to understand the experiences, values and needs of those you seek to lead, again to both inform your judgement but also to inspire the loyalty of your team. Empathy is a two way street; not only must leaders empathise with their people, but their people must be able to empathise with their leader. Leaders and followers need to understand each other. I would go so far as to say that many leaders actively crave the need to be understood and loved as well as to understand and to love; often they are emotionally expressive people. Think Churchill, Bob Hawke.
3. integrity/values – so that your people can be sure that your judgements will be based on shared and sound values like honesty, respect for the law and for the rights of others. This assists with judgement and with commanding trust and respect.
4. passion/commitment/drive – you inspire others with your strength of commitment, with the intensity of your belief. What is more, only passion and commitment will keep you going through the dark days.
5. Self belief. You must have confidence in your abilities and your capacity to achieve. People will only have belief in those who believe in themselves. Self belief also enables the leader to take a risk, “have a go” and stick with it. Some people are born confident, others have to learn it.
6. courage – the courage to make decisions, even nasty ones, make mistakes and take responsibility for the consequences. If you make a mistake don’t give up.
Mistakes are the one of the most valuable things you can ever make. From them you learn the most. If you give in to a mistake, all you’ve done is fail. Although a mistake may feel shattering at the time, in time it falls into perspective and the confident and courageous decision-maker will see it as an opportunity to learn rather than a reason to give in. Being a leader often means being alone. Making those decisions no one else is prepared to make; being subject to scrutiny and criticism. It can be a very lonely experience. It is not for those who need to be liked all the time. Leaders usually have to learn to be loners, to accept that leadership isn’t a popularity contest.
- We become leaders,
nobody is born to it.
- Becoming a leader
is a long journey. The getting of judgement alone demands that.
- Even if the proud
mother can pick the driven one, the determined one, the one who other
children can follow, often ‘born leaders’ need to learn
how to manage and use their personality effectively.
- You all know
the kid who rounds up the others, puts their hand up first, wants to
take charge, have the biggest piece of cake, best position in the back
seat of the car on family outings and is generally irrepressible. They
are right little pains in the neck. They can stay like that all their
lives, or they can manage their personalities for their good. How often
do you hear the phrase “you are your own worst enemy”. Learn
to love the enemy, learn to subdue it.
- You might think
it has all been determined - she who duxes will become the most successful;
she who is prefect or school captain will be the one to become our next
great leader; and she who sneaks out of class to smoke in the toilets
will not amount to much.
- In fact, the
‘year ten girls’ toilet girls’ – the group of
girls notorious for smoking in the bathroom and making everyone else’s
lives a misery often turn out to be highly successful business women.
Their independence and love of a good risk are vital to entrepreneurs.
- But the trials
of the Year Ten Girls Toilet girls also confirms that many of the traits
a born leader possesses also make them their own worst enemy –they
can quite easily fail. They are not necessarily good listeners or learners.
For example, they are risk takers, which often means they lose out.
They are more inclined to act first, listen later.
Leadership takes time to grow.
- You don’t
just wake up one day as Australia’s leading hair dresser, the
Prime Minister or the head of a bank.
- Having the necessary
knowledge and experience to become an effective leader in a field requires
time, dedication, training.
- This is where
it gets tricky for women.
- Female life experience
means women do not ‘hop’ on their career path at age 20,
put their head down, focus on work and emerge as CEO 30 or 40 years
later.
- This is not because
women are less focused or committed. In fact, at this point it is important
to point out that of course women are equally competent in leadership
positions as men.
- In some part,
it may be because women are different, so that men ( and sometimes other
women) may not always recognise their leadership qualities or even seek
to denigrate their skills, say their negotiation skills, as “feminine
wiles” or “yes, but she is not likely to take the tough
decisions.”
- Where a young
man is tipped as a future leader, the young woman is derided as ambitious.
- Even if we could
rid society of these sorts of ridiculous prejudices, leadership is still
more difficult for women to attain in today’s world because of
the interrupted career paths that many women follow. Many women enter
and leave the workforce during their lifetime as they remain primarily
responsible for the caring of children in society. Overwhelmingly, motherhood
is the major barrier to leadership.
- Women who spend
years out of the workforce with small children often do voluntary work
or get involved in school activities, but many times this will not be
mentioned in their brand new CV when they go to re-enter the workforce,
and you can forget expecting them to provide any explanation about what
skills those often very difficult jobs have taught them!
- Some do try to
combine motherhood with demanding leadership roles – often without
any assistance.
- Balancing these
two roles is the greatest challenge for most women in leadership positions
today.
- A first piece
of advice at this point-women should pick their mates wisely; make sure
the family load is shared so their leadership dreams can be pursued,
not crushed. This first means, of course, admitting you are ambitious
and that achievement is a priority. But it is harder when there are
two of you.
- How many ‘power
couples’ can you name?
- Bill and Hillary.
- In Australia –
David Morgan and Ros Kelley and perhaps Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull.
- It is easy so
to name these couples.
- Why?
- Because there
are so few of them.
- Relationships
can rarely handle one power career – let alone two.
- Particularly when
there is the raising of children to consider. Being a leader is all
consuming- time, energy, focus.
- Sadly, women
leaders often choose not to have children.
- Childless women
are over-represented in the small group of female cabinet members, members
and board members.
- Sylvia Hewlett’s
shock book, Baby Hunger, documents the rise of childlessness amongst
high achieving American women and I have no doubt the figures will be
similar here.
The American Parents Association 2001 survey found that 49% of ultra achieving women were childless by the time they were forty, despite only 14% of them setting out to be. If you think we are talking about a small group of female executives here, think again. Ultra achievers were defined as those earning more than $100,000 a year. Childless was also a feature of the high achieving woman, earning more than $55,000. Naturally, for male ultra achievers, the childlessness rate was much lower, 19%.
- In australia,
the HILDA survey confirms that childlessness is most common in full
time and graduate level women.
- With 55% of all
university graduates now female, this group of unwillingly childless
women is set to become a significant proportion of our population with
obvious social implications.
- Increasingly
women recognise from the outset that it will be just too hard to manage
both- or, as the HILDA research bears out, high achieving women, who
see marriage and therefore family formation as a collaborative exercise
where both partners contribute to income and to household tasks and
child care. The trouble is, young men still see their main contribution
as being the bread winner, and low-achieving males in particular are
unwilling to partner and marry because they do not recognise the collaborative
partnership as desirable for them. They are still stuck in the bread-winner
mould. This means there is a growing gap between the numbers of men
wishing to partner and the number of women willing to do so- and a lower
rate of family formation results.
Ironically, a cultural shift by men towards a more sharing arrangement of work and family responsibilities is not only likely to enable more women to achieve in the public world of work and elected office, it’s also more likely to lead to higher rates of family formation than current cultural expectations, particularly traditional male expectations.
If we are seeking to be a country where we have more leadership opportunities for women, engaging men in the world of the home is absolutely crucial.
- Afterall, if men
can both work and have children, it should be possible for women to
enjoy the same.
- The small number
of women in leadership positions in Australia today suggests that most
women find the challenge too much.
- In the UN Human
Development Report 2002 Australia was ranked first in the world on the
gender development index.[4]
- This means that
women in Australia, have high levels of income, life expectancy at birth,
adult literacy rates and school enrolment. On a global scale we average
out to be the best.
- Our gender empowerment
measure – which focuses on women’s opportunities as opposed
to their capabilities, however sees us drop to a ranking of fifth in
the world.[5]
- This measure is
based on the number of seats held in parliament by women; the number
of female legislators, senior officials, managers, professional and
technical workers; and the ratio of estimated female to male earned
income.
- What this says
is despite women in Australia being off to a good start - positions
of power and leadership continue to be held by men.
- But the times
have never been better for women. History has never offered us a greater
chance for greatness.
- Technology has
meant that brawns have given way to brains.
- Demographic change
and low fertility in Australia, as in other western countries, means
we can no longer ignore the talents of some on the basis of gender.
- Globalisation
and international competitiveness means countries or companies that
run on prejudice, discrimination or inappropriate tradition will lose
to those economies who seek to be the best, to outcompete.
- Merit has never
stood a better chance in the power stakes than it does today.
- Merits, not diamonds,
are a girl’s best friend.
- And yes, goodness has everything to do with it.
[1]
United Nations Human Development Report 2002 UN, 226.
[2] United Nations Human Development Report 2002 UN, 226.
[3] ILO Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling: Women in Management
2001.
[4] United Nations Human Development Report 2002 UN, 222.
[5] United Nations Human Development Report 2002 UN, 226.
