The State of Women in Tech Leadership - It’s Time for Change

In early June, I had the opportunity to both attend and present at Brandon Hall’s Women in Leadership Summit. In its second year, the event plays host to organizations, large and small, from across the globe. This event isn’t for women only. Men are invited to attend; in fact, it was great to see men actively participating, sharing how their organizations are working towards gender parity through mentorship programs and implementation of software to remove hiring bias, as an example.

The conference highlighted a number of topics that are top of mind for not only HR leaders but those in the C-Suite. We heard from leaders at companies such as KitchenAid, Shell, Bank of America, Accenture, The Kellogg Company, TATA, MetLife just to name a few. They spoke on subjects ranging from building an ROI for women’s leadership initiatives, creating a culture of sponsorship for women leaders to developing a more inclusive culture and the current state of female leadership.

The session that had everyone on the edge of their seats was the unveiling of a joint study by Brandon Hall Group and Blue Circle Leadership Institute on “The State of Women in Technology Leadership.” In this research, Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group, Bonnie St. John, CEO of the Blue Circle Leadership Institute, and Nisha Sharma, Managing Director at Accenture Digital, highlighted the current state of women in technology leadership roles, the barriers that limit growth and the delta between how women view the issue vs. that of their male counterparts.

Here were a few results shared with the audience:

• Women hold less than one-half of technology roles in 87% of organizations surveyed
• When they looked at companies with female Chief Information Officers, only 15% of the organizations have women in that role. Small companies fared better with 26%; midsize and large companies were at 14% and 20% respectively. The research notes that organizations that viewed themselves as having a collaborative culture, 31% of those have female CIOs.
• When looking at the barriers to advancing women into technology leadership roles, lack of role models, targeted development programs, inadequate management of leadership pipeline, and the inability to succeed in “Bro Cultures” were cited across companies of all sizes.

The findings shared on the divergent views between men and women on this issue were pretty startling.

While I don’t think anyone was necessarily surprised that issues persist for women in technology roles (or more broadly), the results were notable. For this group, they were energized to do more and to problem-solve not only in their own organizations but in their community.

In the research, Brandon Hall Group and Blue Circle Leadership Institute surveyed participants on advancement strategies as well as the current state. While there are many initiatives and programs in place, the views on their respective effectiveness varied. For example, 44% of those surveyed have diversity targets in place but only 27% found them effective. Conversely, only 8% had financial incentives linked to gender diversity in tech leadership in place yet 31% found them effective. As an aside, at HR Transform in early April, Fraeda Kapor Klein noted in her presentation that when a combination of strategies are employed, organizations see marked improvement.

For those in the global mobility space (and who follow Topia), we believe global mobility can be an effective strategy to growing the ranks of women leaders and nurturing female talent across the organization. In Meghan Biro’s recent blog on “How Global Mobility Can Advance Diversity & Inclusion”, it’s noted:

Global mobility is one possible solution to the lack of D&I. "Companies can build diverse teams with the power of global mobility,” says Peggy Smith, CEO and president of Worldwide ERC, a nonprofit that promotes global mobility. “D&I creates engaged work cultures, and drives the kind of innovation that makes companies more competitive.”

I’d encourage you to take a look at what Brandon Hall and Blue Circle Leadership Institute have put together. If you have an interest in this space and are actively working on D&I programs in your organization, it may help you in creating that business case for change.

For more on the event and the research:

• Press Release: Women In Leadership Summit Tackles Ways to Achieve Gender Parity
• Brandon Hall “Advancing Women in Tech Leadership” website