How To Be An Effective Female Leader, According To An HR Expert

As a champion for gender equality, I’ve seen firsthand how gender perceptions affect the careers of women and their ability to command a ‘seat at the table’. Recently a Cornell HR Review article stated that, “women now make up over half of the current workforce . . . yet there is stagnant growth of women in some positions and the demographic makeup of top leadership remains largely unchanged. It is hard for women to enter the upper echelons of the workplace . . . just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and less than 15% of corporate executives at top companies worldwide are female. Just over 5% of executive management women hold positions in Fortune 500 companies. A full 75% of Fortune 500 companies report no women as top earners. Organizations will have a unique opportunity in the next ten years to reconcile this discrepancy between women’s apparent advancement and the reality of an entrenched “glass ceiling.”