This week, we celebrated the International Women’s Day. And it is the right time to recognize and celebrate everything that women have achieved so far. All over the world women’s participation in the labor market has increased in recent decades. In addition to that, at this moment in Estonia both our President and Prime Minister are women and women also hold the majority in our government. It is actually very important and a big message to the wider world, to encourage women to take more leadership positions. And meanwhile it is a message to the leaders, to promote women employees and see the same potential in them as they see in men.
When you look at the statistics, you can see that there aren’t still enough female leaders. But we can see that the situation is changing and in the last years more women have emerged for leadership positions. According to the data of Statistics Estonia in 2020, Estonian society contains of 47,35% men and 52,65% women. According to Eurostat, 46% of mid-level managers and 33% of top executives in stock listed companies are women.
Only 9% of members of the management board are women. On the basis of this data it can be said that we have less women in the leading positions than men. Just as elsewhere in Europe the proportion of women in the executive level is still very low, for example in Great Britain the participation of women in leading a company is only 20%.
But why is it still like this?
First of all, in many types of work areas the environment is way too men-based and in that case it is very difficult to achieve equality when for example 95% of employees are men. This means that all the odds are in favor for men.
Many promotion decisions are affected by stereotypical thinking. Stereotypical attitude has created a situation, where people often do not see the potential in women in the areas where the majority of employees are men. To improve this, the leaders should try to push aside their bias and try to see the same potential in women as they see in men. The leaders of the company should offer everybody the same management training and opportunities to achieve success.
Due to the history of having a larger role in family life, it has lead us to the situation where female leaders are in minority. This changes women’s career ladder and is the cause of why a lot of women do not reach a leading position.
Thirdly, confidence plays a huge role as well. Surveys have shown that women under 40 tend to be less confident than men. It should not be a barrier to achieve success when you have a lot of existing competence and skills.
The more leaders promote women to a leading position, the more it breaks down stereotypes and shows to coworkers that leading positions do not depend on gender, but employees are selected according to competence and accomplishments.
Overcoming the barriers that stop us from promoting women and engaging women in the management process is essential to all organisations who wish to get various benefits from more diverse perspectives and a more supportive leadership style. Gender equality in management is important because real progression cannot take place without diversity of perspectives on management roles. Teams, where there are both men and women as manager, are often more resistant and drive innovation.
Recommendation to managers – recruit an employee purely based on their existing competence, skills and the potential that they have! In addition, it is recommended to educate your team and to pay their attention to conscious equal treatment and to the existence of equal opportunities.
Read about our amazing female leaders from here.
If you feel like you need some help, feel free to let us know! We will be happy to help!