Women’s development needs to include the factors they value

In developing women for leadership positions, the dominant model has been a repetition of the traditional white male path to the top. This method focus on a mindset that says: “If you’re not on track to be the next chief, it doesn’t count.” Not only does this model not resonate with many would-be female minority business leaders, but it is an expensive extension of institutional arrogance to imagine that such a one-size model fits all. For organizations that wish to truly cultivate a new generation of female leaders, it’s time to take a new approach to gender and success. This approach is less focused on traditionally defined up-or-out standards of leadership and more focused on what Mc-Kinsey & Company refer to as ‘Centered Leadership.’ This model targets five key areas necessary to develop the female business leaders of tomorrow, while also balancing the ongoing stream of data around female leadership in the business world. Only by thinking strategically about women’s leadership growth and sustainability can firms hope to fill their leadership gaps of the future.

Shifts in Women’s Leadership Strategies

Women’s roles as leaders in the business world are changing almost as rapidly as women’s roles in society. Though some publications focus their attention solely on decrying women’s lack of dominance in the top echelons of business, the fact of the matter is that women in the U.S. own 9.1 million businesses, control 40 percent of all business activity, and employ more people than all the Fortune 500 firms combined, according to the SBA and the Business Women’s Network. Women start businesses at twice the rate of men, and the current generation is more likely than any other to leave a firm to go it alone if they feel there is a lack of equity in pay or training opportunities.

Clearly, this is not a group of people who are starved for choice or opportunity. Though discrimination, harassment, and male-dominated areas of industry are issues, present and future female leaders are much more concerned with balance, meaning, and reward in pursuing work in larger organizations. They are focused on opportunities to be seized over ‘limits’ to be challenged, and they want to see that their work leads to a better world. This drive to make a difference cuts across ethnic lines and national borders, with women in Norway just as likely to be seeking meaningful work opportunities as women from the Caribbean, according to the New York Times.

An even broader social shift accompanying the trend toward meaning has been the entrenchment of the working mother in management. More than 65 percent of women in senior management positions have children, according to Women and Diversity, while 71 percent of mothers worldwide work outside the home. Women who make this choice report in study after study that they define success in terms of what allows them to have work-life balance, meaning, and pride in what they do at work. As a result, though men may outnumber women in executive roles in large firms, women in all industries are reporting dramatically higher rates of satisfaction with their jobs than men, according to McKinsey & Company.

The Centered Leadership Model

Understanding women’s high levels of satisfaction with their choices and creating pathways for them to be leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields revolves around understanding the Centered Leadership Model. This model, developed by McKinsey & Company, seeks to codify what elements make outstanding leaders in general and outstanding female leaders in particular.

The Centered Leadership Model presupposes that the great leaders of tomorrow will already have intelligence, tolerance for change, communication skills, and a desire to lead. Women have earned more college degrees than men since 1984. Women lead men in communication skills, adapt more readily to changing demands, and express individually and en masse their desires to be leaders in this world. Unlike other leadership model frameworks that presuppose a desire to be XYZ type of executive or to work in XYZ field alone, this model opens the door to exploring leadership pools from diverse backgrounds in a broad variety of work situations.

Five key circles of excellence are the drivers of success in the Centered Leadership Model. They are meaning, managing energy, positive framing, connecting, and engaging.

• Meaning in work leadership means that the tasks at hand bring happiness, are in line with signature strengths, or speak to personal purpose.
• Managing energy means minimizing the draining factors of a job, providing for work-life balance, and tap into natural flows of energy in a workspace.
• Positive framing represents elements of self-awareness, learned optimism, and the ability to move on from failures.
• Connecting is the element of partnership, networking, and mentoring that enables success for women.
• Engaging represents taking ownership for opportunities, collaborating and adapting, and using one’s personal voice.

This model is overall more focused on values and behavior practices. It is less about a specific background or desire for a fixed future goal than many other workplace leadership training systems. Instead, women who build strength in these five circles of leadership will be able to give your organization the driving leadership impact and presence it needs to build a competitive advantage.

Building a Successful Leadership Track

Building a leadership track around the Centered Leadership Model requires firms to think differently about women’s advancement and satisfaction with their work. A successful leadership track can’t be a numbers game, (if we have three executive leaders who are women we’re good!) but, instead, needs to focus on elements that are going to keep women engaged in your workplace. This will allow them to put their leadership potential into practice at your firm instead of departing to go their own way in the marketplace.

Toward that end, firms need to engage in more thoughtful development and evaluation of their female team members. Better strengths assessment in performance review and hiring would allow for a better match between female workers and jobs that will align with their signature strengths, allowing them to feel that their work has meaning both for the organization and for them personally. Training in positive framing provides an attitude shift that allows positive energy and forward thinking to thrive. Time invested in network development within the firm gives women the pathways to excel while also uncovering growth engines between potential leaders in your organization.

The Centered Leadership model is a new approach and a different mindset. Finding success and running with it – savoring it, even – requires your firm to reject up-or-out, one-size fits all leadership models. No two companies were built to be alike, and the same goes for any two leaders. Yet, by putting more emphasis on a Centered Leadership Model, your firm can tap into the strengths and future potential of the female members of your team, building a future leadership pipeline that will fill leadership gaps and provide positive, engaged female leaders at all levels.