The Case for Women’s Development

Jean brings to this work her experience of being a woman in a senior leadership role within an organisation and currently as a Non-Executive Director.

The Equal Opportunities Commission published its final report ‘Sex and Power’ on the role of women in organisations and in government in 2007. Their key message is chilling.  The 2007 survey shows that:

‘progress on women’s representation across a wide range of professions and sectors is painfully slow, and in some cases has gone into reverse...’ (p3)

Alongside the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business published their research Inspiring Women – Corporate Best Practice in Europe in May 2007 suggests that while 50% of people entering organisations are women, only 30% of management roles are filled by women and this drops to 15% for senior leadership roles. 
Research also suggests that women are more likely to seek leadership roles if there are already role models present.

We know that it is not that women don’t want to work hard or be leaders.  Instead of leading in Corporate Organisations they are starting up their own companies in increasing numbers. The challenge is therefore to help women identify ways of working effectively in senior leadership roles within organisations. There is also a challenge for organisations to explore why women may not be achieving senior roles and to identify ways of rectifying this. So, whilst developing women is only part of the range of initiatives which will redress some of the gender imbalance it forms a key cornerstone.

We can offer women’s development in the following forms.

• Women only action learning sets
• Women’s career development workshops
• Women’s leadership programmes
• Executive Coaching