Growing the pool of future female leaders

Growing the pool of future female leaders

The New Zealand Herald’s recent survey of executive pay not only failed to find any women earning top dollars – it also revealed there are currently no female chief executives of NZX 50-listed companies.

The lack of women in leadership positions is a vexing and persistent problem that Massey University management professor Sarah Leberman has spent her career researching and trying to solve. Her latest initiative, the Young Women’s Leadership Programme, aims to reach young women before they leave school.

This year the programme has brought over 150 Year 12 students together on the university’s Auckland and Manawatū campuses to learn about leadership and build their confidence and networks. The students have also been divided into groups and are currently working to deliver a project that makes a difference to their local community.

Before participating in the programme, most of the young women did not see themselves as leaders.

“Traditionally the people who are identified as leaders in school environments are those who are confident and get noticed – the prefects, head girls and sports team captains,” Professor Leberman says. “I think we lose a lot of potential leaders because we don’t nurture the more naturally quiet students or those who don’t quite fit in that box. This programme is aimed at young women who are not in leadership positions, but seek to exercise leadership.”

While the first part of the programme focuses on leadership concepts, values, identifying passions, communication and self awareness, the second phase is about putting those skills into practice. The students return to Massey at the end of July to report on their projects, which range from drug and alcohol education schemes, to charity fundraisers and encouraging more students to take an interest in science or sport.

In the meantime, each group has been assigned a female staff member from Massey as a mentor to monitor progress and provide advice via Skype.

Former Black Ferns captain and senior lecturer Dr Farah Palmer, who is responsible for running the Manawatū campus workshop, says she is looking forward to hearing how the young women put their leadership skills into practice.

“The project will really let the young women see where their strengths lie and how a team can work together to achieve something,” Dr Palmer says. “I think when they reflect on what they have learned there will be Eureka moments where they will think ‘I’m good at this’.

“It’s about triggering belief and opening their minds to the full scope of leadership possibilities – everyone can learn to be a leader in their own way. If we can build the confidence of these young women, we can increase the pool of female leaders out there.”

While Professor Leberman acknowledges young men who do not “fit the box” may need leadership programmes too, she says the dynamics of an all-female programme is very different.

“I’ve run mixed programmes before and you don’t get the same level of openness, particularly at this age. There is fundamentally a confidence gap between men and women, the research shows that, so I think there is greater need for a young women’s programme.

“When women go out into the workplace they get paid less and there are challenges that men do not seem to face. While there is still a pay gap one year out from graduation, I think we have an issue.”

She says that while there are many organisational and societal reasons behind the relatively low number of women in leadership roles, the “confidence gap” is something that can be addressed at an individual level.

There are plenty of young women who agree because the Young Women’s Leadership Programme is always oversubscribed.

“Some schools do have active leadership programmes, but many don’t. For those young women who haven’t been identified as leaders, there’s often little access to resources to build confidence and skills, so we are helping to fill that gap.”

ENDS

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