Why should women be provided with an equal opportunity as their male peers to progress into important leadership roles?

The moral answer is that it is the fair and just thing to do.

In 2024, as we celebrate another International Women’s Day, we would hope this is universally understood. However, while we are hopeful and will remain so, that does not make us naïve.

That is why we will be making a business case for gender diversity in the workplace, delving into the potent impact that women bring when in influential leadership positions and laying bare the objective benefits that organisations can gain. If fairness is not a good enough reason for equality, then perhaps profit and productivity can be.

Let us explore the current diversity environment and highlight the importance and value of empowering women into leadership roles.

Contextualising Gender Diversity in the Workplace

The simplest definition of gender diversity in the workplace is the equitable representation of individuals from various genders within an organisation. However, true diversity should extend beyond mere representation. It encompasses creating a safe environment for all gender identities, both psychologically and physically, and striving to eliminate unconscious bias in organisational processes and communication. To ensure an equal distribution of power across genders, there must be an equality of employment present at all seniority levels.

In order to foster a truly inclusive organisation, it is crucial to actively challenge and dismantle existing gender stereotypes. Things like the language used in corporate literature and policies, which many would assume to be innocent, can hold subconscious biases and should be examined to ensure they encourage inclusiveness and avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Amplifying a variety of voices within an organisation is key to achieving gender diversity. Ensuring that all employees, regardless of their gender, are treated equally in meetings and that their opinions are valued, is essential.

The Benefits of Gender Diversity

Prioritising gender diversity within your workforce leads to many benefits, including widening your potential talent pool when hiring, providing more varied perspectives, generating greater innovation, and enhancing team collaboration.

Widening Talent Pool

An organisation that emphasises gender diversity will naturally have a wider talent pool to employ from than one with a patriarchal hiring policy. With more people to choose from, organisations are more likely to ensure that their positions are filled by those with the best skills and knowledge to drive business objectives.

By employing a diverse mix of individuals, businesses then can access the benefits below.

Multiple Perspectives

A workforce that comprises men, women, and gender non-binary individuals will be able to provide a range of perspectives arising from different life experiences. In contrast to organisations with male-dominated teams, these diverse organisations are better positioned to identify and communicate with a wider audience.

This diversity also helps organisations challenge gender stereotypes and promote their brand as inclusive.

Innovation

Closely related to the increased range of perspectives, there is a positive correlation between gender diversity and innovative thinking. Companies with a diverse workforce, particularly in leadership roles, tend to be more innovative. Where a male-dominated organisation may get stuck in approaching problems with the same traditional process, diverse organisations are more likely to find a novel solution.

Enhanced Collaboration

There is evidence that work groups which include more women are better at taking turns in conversations. While this may sound simplistic at first glance, it is a significant aid to knowledge sharing and collaboration. An additional benefit here is that some women may feel more confident to speak up and share their talents when there are other women within the group to encourage them.

The Business Case

The previous section looked at the mechanics of how gender diversity benefits organisations. In this section, let us look at the results that they provide for organisations.

Greater Profitability

The simplest but arguably strongest demonstration of benefit: this McKinsey research shows that companies that rank in the top 25% of gender diversity are 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability.

Many studies support this finding. For instance, this research from Gallup into over 800 business units within the hospitality and retail industries shows:

• Gender-diverse business units in the hospitality sector have a 19% higher average quarterly net profit than their less-diverse counterparts. 
• Gender-diverse business units in the retail sector have a 14% higher average comparable revenue than their less-diverse counterparts.

Improved Staff Attraction and Retention

There are many studies that show the positive relationship between favourable gender diversity policies and being an attractive organisation to work at. One study from PWC found that 85% of female millennials actively look for employers with a strong and vocal stance on gender diversity. Another found that 61% of women look specifically at the gender diversity of the leadership team when determining where they want to work.

Inclusive cultures also lead to higher employee retention rates, which save businesses time, effort, and usually a lot of money spent on recruitment and training.

Audience and Reputation

A diverse workforce that reflects a company's customer base can improve communication and understanding of customer needs, while signalling shared ethics that will improve your reputation. In today’s climate, many consumers vote with their wallets, meaning they will choose who they do business with based on the morals of the company rather than traditional metrics of quality or value.

Believing is Seeing

A study from Harvard Business School, which looked at more than a 1,000 leading companies across 35 countries and 24 industries, found one particularly interesting piece of information: gender diversity leads to greater productivity in terms of market value and revenue only when in cultures that believe gender diversity to be important and positive.

The author of this study, Professor Letian Zhang, in an article in the Harvard Business Review summarised this simply by saying, “Countries and industries that view gender diversity as important capture benefits from it. Those that don’t, don’t.”

This study also found it was more essential for there to be cultural acceptance of women’s value than there was for legal regulation that protects women in the workplace, such as around maternal leave, when determining the positive correlation between gender diversity and business success.

In other words, the belief in women’s equality must be genuine to see the benefits manifest.

Promoting Gender Diversity

Promoting gender diversity begins with knowing that it is good and necessary; you will not go far without that knowledge. However, here are three simple methods to begin working towards this goal:

Ultimately, the objective benefits of gender diversity in business are clear: enhanced innovation, improved business performance, and greater profitability. It is not merely a question of morality, but of business efficacy. Empowering women into leadership roles is the correct choice from any perspective.

1. Use inclusive language
   This means to stop defaulting to male pronouns or names when talking about hypothetical people; using contemporary, gender-neutral job titles, such as server rather than waiter/waitress; and avoiding male-centric expressions like manpower or mankind (staff and humanity are easy substitutes).
2. Actively check for unconscious biases
   We all have unconscious biases that have been ingrained into us and no-one should be blamed for simply having them. What is important is that you try to recognise when you are being influenced by them. In terms of gender biases, a common example is feeling that a behaviour when exhibited by a man makes him assertive while the same behaviour in a woman would make her bossy. Checking for these biases means understanding that men and women should be judged evenly.
3. Celebrate when you hear from other perspectives
   This can present in a variety of ways. If your team includes someone who rarely speaks up, provide them positive reinforcement every time they do. If a staff member calls out another for an act of misogyny, thank that person for speaking up and demonstrate that you will not tolerate bigoted behaviour. Trust is a major part of diversity, so actively show your colleagues that you trust them and are deserving of trust yourself.

The Women in Leadership Scholarship

AIM Business School is committed to helping ambitious and deserving women gain the best opportunity to excel in their professional lives. Tuition costs are often one of the greatest barriers to accessing higher education study, which is why we made the Women in Leadership scholarship. This scholarship is designed to help establish gender equality in senior management teams and encourage greater diversity of thought with criteria based on:

• Past Success: the applicant’s previous experience developing their professional talents and creating a positive impact for others
• Present Contribution: the applicant’s current contributions to their organisation or community that demonstrates the ability to lead
• Future Trajectory: the applicant’s desire and drive to advance their career, build responsibility, and support the development of the next generation of leaders

Successful applicants to this scholarship will receive a $500 reduction to every unit of study they undertake, up to a total value of $6,000.