Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers – 3 Actions to support womens access to leadership roles

Posted on November 18, 2014 by

An article in Harvard Business Review by Herminia Ibarra, Robin Ely and Deborah Kolb

Many CEOs who make gender diversity a priority—by setting aspirational goals for the proportion of women in leadership roles, insisting on diverse slates of candidates for senior positions, and developing mentoring and training programs—are frustrated. They and their companies spend time, money, and good intentions on efforts to build a more robust pipeline of upwardly mobile women, and then not much happens.

They instead suggest three actions to support women’s access to leadership positions: (1) educate women and men about second-generation gender bias, (2) create safe “identity workspaces” to support transitions to bigger roles, and (3) anchor women’s development efforts in a sense of leadership purpose rather than in how women are perceived. These actions will give women insight into themselves and their organizations, enabling them to more effectively chart a course to leadership. Read more here.