The decrease in numbers of women in leadership positions may have somewhat different causes than the long-existing impediments to women achieving leadership so often discussed, such as chauvinism in education, recruiting and hiring, management, etc.. We might want to consider what has happened in organizations in the last decade or so.
For instance, insistence on bottom-line results without regard for the humanity of the people in the organization could diminish the desire of women with a social conscience (and men with a social conscience) to lead large corporations. Human resources functions are all-too-often becoming number-crunchers focused on minimizing people and squeezing the last bit of contribution out of those who remain. Organization development functions have been jettisoned without a second thought. Benefits are disappearing, pension funds are abandoned, loyalty to employees is passe. Insistence on unrealistic ROI and short-term profits is driving a lot of unethical and disrespectful behavior, and CEO’s are now trusted by just 16% of the public.
Maybe a higher percentage of women are simply choosing to contribute to the world in ways that are more consistent with their values than leading organizations that are currently set up to operate in ways that are destructive to the human spirit and the planet as a whole. Paul Hawken tells us that there are now in the neighborhood of 2 million non-governmental, grassroots organizations across the world addressing social justice and environmental sustainability. My unscientific scanning of those efforts suggests to me that women hold a strong majority of leadership positions in this spontaneously emerging movement, but I imagine that the EOWA report isn’t scanning these organizations.
And, this does bring us back to polarities. At this time in our species’ development, women are generally, at least marginally, more attuned to the health of the community than are men. This seems to hold true at the family level, the village level, the national level and in our organizations. As a global community, we are confronted with the effects of centuries of ever-expanding masculine-oriented consumption and growth. Makes sense to me that a growing portion of women would be turning their attention to more life-oriented pursuits than running the average modern corporation. If this is the case, the decline of women in top leadership positions in business could be seen as a sign of impending change in the unfettered capitalism model we’ve slid into. The real leaders in the 21st century may turn out to be the women who found a higher purpose than the C-suite of a soul-less money machine. And some, hopefully, will remain to help lead the rediscovery of corporate global citizenship from the inside.
