Dive Brief:
- While almost every executive she has met around the world answer "yes" when asked if men and women are different, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox writes at the Harvard Business Review that most diversity policies are designed as if the answer were "no."
- As long as men and women are treated exactly the same by organizations, most women will continue to be shut out of senior roles, argues Cox, the CEO at 20-first, a leading gender consulting firm.
- Most professional services firms, she says, are still hovering well below the 20% female partner level as a result of this trend. While denying differences is considered the progressive thing to do, she believes that the business world’s denial of differences hurts women, and excludes them in a myriad of ways – consciously and unconsciously – from leadership.
Dive Insight:
Wittenberg-Cox writes that it will take education to drive change. In this case, educating means getting leaders "to prioritize gender balance and be familiar with the kind of cultures and systems that enable it – and those that eliminate it."
It will take strong, clear leadership from the highest levels that says gender balance is a strategic priority for the organization. And that means having committed leaders in the form of aligned senior teams that are both convinced that change needs to happen, and equipped to lead it. Finally, it will take skilled, accountable managers who are adept at managing across gender differences – both as talent and customers – and focus on it as an organizational priority.
Denying the existence of differences between men and women was a useful phase we had to go through. It got us to here. Now that the reality of gender has changed, so should our approach. Managers – both male and female – should embrace the differences to help everyone to succeed, she concludes.
