I found an article on the Coco-Cola Company, which is about their decision to invest more focus on placing women in leadership roles. Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO, of the Coca-Cola Company spoke about ongoing initiatives of the Company, to put more women in leadership roles. In fact, in the last eight years, the Coca-Cola Company has increased representation of women in leadership to about 30 percent on a global scale, including the board of director’s level, and increasing its hiring of women at senior levels to 40 percent. Participation of women in internal development and assessment programs has doubled as well (Weaver Heartman, H., 2015).
Apparently, Kent recognized that women make 70 percent of all household purchasing decisions, and those decisions, he discovered, is worth an estimated $20 trillion, yet women represented only 23 percent of leadership roles at the Coca-Cola Company. He claims, “This was a huge mismatch between the Company’s purchasing base and the decision makers in the Company.”
Kent was adamant about making strategic changes to increase focus on gender equity throughout the company to better serve external customers and ensure the Coca-Cola Company had full access to the best talent. And so, the Company began working on “initiatives” to accelerate the development and movement of female talent into roles of increasing responsibility and influence (Weaver Heartman, H., 2015). Those initiatives included:
- Separating women’s issues out of the diversity program
- Forming a Global Women Initiative to develop female leaders inside the Coca-Cola Company system and female entrepreneurs in developing markets outside the system
- Creating a Women’s Leadership Council comprising of 17 leaders from across the Company to focus on recruiting and advancing women through assessment and development programs
The Coca-Cola Company’s ultimate goal was to create a multiplier effect that will expand opportunities, strengthen families and build communities. To take it a step further, Coca-Cola Company decided the 21st century would be all about women, and their power to shape the world. The Coca-Cola Company is committed to empower 5 million female entrepreneurs across the value change of the Company by 2020 (Weaver Heartman, H., 2015).
In the scope of things, it seems the Coco-Cola Company has removed organizational barriers, which are conditions and practices that would typically put women at a disadvantage, and those barriers in which the Coco-Cola Company has intercepted, are as follows: 1) higher standards of performance; 2) inhospitable corporate culture; 3) preference for gender similarity in promotion decisions; and 4) ignorance by male CEO’s and male peers/lack of development opportunities. Barriers that could pose a problem is interpersonal barriers which are obstacles that occur in working relationships (gender prejudice; lack of emotional support/access to informal networks; and lack of white male mentors). Lastly, other barriers that may interfere are personal barriers, which is referring to those elements of women’s personal lives that are obstacles (lack of political savvy & work-home conflict) (PSU, Lesson 13).
The Coco-Cola Company is putting forth an effort to make a difference culturally in the way they do business that will extend beyond the company to impact families and community, and we hope it will continue.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Penn State World Campus (n.d.). Leadership in Work Settings. [Commentary]. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1834747/discussion_topics/11489414
Weaver Heartman, H. (2015). How The Coca-Cola Company Is Encouraging Women in Leadership. The Coke Solutions. Retrieve from https://www.cokesolutions.com/trends-insights/articles/how-the-coca-cola-company-is-encouraging-women-in-leadership