It is a brave new world in which we live. No longer does the measure of success in today’s global economy depend solely upon capital as the definitive component of production. Gone are decades past, when monetary sovereignty alone ruled the competitive edge of a company. Today, it seems that a company must possess so much more. It must incorporate innovative initiatives and ideas. It must provide connections with its constituencies on an emotional level. It must provide a level of service. It must do all of these things while remaining profitable.
Human capital is the new name of the game, and gender parity may no longer be treated as superfluous. Within the talent pool of this human capital lie professional women, and they make up significant segments of the American workforce.
The glass ceiling is not only an egregious denial of social justice that affects roughly two-thirds (I am guesstimating here) of the population, but constitutes a serious economic problem that takes an egregious financial toll on American business. Equity demands that the glass ceiling be destroyed. Even the concept of smart business demands the same.
Minorities and women make up a growing percentage of the workforce and consumer market. Thusly, managerial talent must be drawn from an increasingly diverse pool. It only makes logical sense. In this increasingly diverse marketplace, companies must be prepared to do business with customers, competitors and partners that are also becoming increasingly diverse.
MBartlett says
There was an article in Forbes magazine just this week that spoke about creating equal opportunities for men and women as “good business.” Your company becomes more attractive to an entire population of people and you reap the rewards of having top talent from both pools. It seems crude to hear (after all, shouldn’t things simply be done because they are “right”?) but logical nonetheless.
In Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, she quoted Warren Buffett, who was stated as saying that his success can be attributed to the fact that he only ever had to compete against half of the workforce (meaning that if women had been taken as seriously as they should have been, he’d have had a tougher time in business looking to outperform them). That’s a pretty powerful statement.
One of the most important lessons I think I’ll take away from this class has been that these theories we’ve learned give backing to the belief that there are multiple ways to achieve results. And while arguments could be made for why one is preferable to another, it still validates that there are many ways to look at the subject of leadership. This is no different when considering women in leadership roles. There’s no denying that the struggles and methods employed are different in most male/female comparisons. However, one isn’t less effective than they other. Hopefully focusing on diversity now enables the norms to shift in a way that demolish the need for diversity in a future state.