Managing Leadership Development from a Gender Equity perspective

Abstract

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are one of the latest topics getting attention among companies and universities. This reflects societal representation for gender ratios and many organizations have set goals on gender equality in creating a sustainable and innovative workplace. However, the statistics show that there is sluggish growth for women in managerial positions. This is creating a problem for promoting equity at leadership levels in every organization. Equity and equality are not the same as the former is closer to justice creating the same opportunities for all people with different abilities. Even though organizations can able to promote gender equality and achieve it with a better ratio, there is a struggle to increase women's representation at different leadership levels. The global scenario also shows that the representation of women on board and C-suite (Chief executive level like CEO, CFO, etc) is very low demanding gender equity at leadership levels. Thereby, a case study is performed in Celanese, a materials company that has better gender equality across the organization.

This research is executed as an embedded single case study in both the global and Dutch context to understand this scenario and their gender representation at the management level. This is, in particular, to relate gender equality ratio progress and effectiveness for development programs to promote more women leaders supporting equitable workplace. The embedded case study is performed through ethnography research in terms of observations, qualitative interviews, and focused group discussions inside the organization. This approach helps to understand the existing scenario for women's representation and leadership development opportunities in a typical materials company. This is extended for industrial benchmarks at the global level as a comparison of gender equality ratios against their competitors. The leadership interviews with both genders focusing on women leaders are done and the outputs showed the driving factors, challenges, and future requirements to create equity-focused leadership. Further analysis is done to extract the key elements impacting gender equity for leadership development programs.

Whereas, focused group discussions are aimed at involving employees at different levels and employees who are closely involved in leadership programs. So, focused group discussion is done with the Young professional group that comprises employees at different levels and Human Resources team who drives leadership programs. These discussions acted as data triangulation for qualitative interviews and provided more insights into leadership development programs from different perspectives. As a result, the existing gaps and challenges for the leadership development of women employees in an organization are studied. Facts derived from the organizational level and qualitative results provided enough reasons for ineffective development programs in supporting equity at leadership levels. This is evident that leadership levels demanded more women employees and necessary driving factors to motivate them. This also emphasized how HR policies and role model representation can contribute better in driving more female employees into leadership levels.

However, the missing factor is equitable actions in leadership development programs to create an inclusive environment. Thereby, a leadership development cycle is developed to strengthen various processes making the leadership program as equity-focused and motivating female employees for leadership positions. However, the recommendations are derived using the embedded single case study and explained briefly about a roadmap showing the next future phases for equity at leadership levels and their decision-making impact on innovation. Finally, a leadership development framework is developed showing the possible methods and processes for driving more female employees from the organizational level to the leadership level. This leadership framework shows how women leaders need effective equity-focused development programs using equitable actions considering both social and professional barriers. Using this framework, the practical implications are summarized for promoting women leaders at leadership levels through equity-focused leadership development programs.