What's holding women back?

However, when he publishes his eagerly-awaited report into male dominance of UK boardrooms later this month, he is unlikely to demand the imposition of quotas on the number of women at director level. Instead he is expected to urge companies to set their own voluntary targets on the number of women in top roles - with the threat of enforcement if progress is not made in the next two years.

His view is backed by The Institute of Directors, which has described quotas for women as "demeaning" while the CBI is also opposed to mandatory numbers of women on boards.

However, a new report from the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) to be published today is calling for chairmen and chief executives to set targets and to be publicly accountable if these are not met.

Its in-depth report into Ambition and Gender at Work makes a compelling business case for encouraging more women to reach the top. Out of the total 1,076 director positions in the FTSE-100 last year, only 135 were held by female directors according to research by Cranfield University. The picture is even worse in the FTSE 250, where just 7.3% of directors are female. In addition, women hold just 22% of senior management posts.

"In an increasingly complex and competitive global economy, organisations must ensure that their most talented employees rise to the top - that the best, brightest and most able employees are promoted into positions of leadership," says Penny de Valk, CEO of the ILM.

"Yet that's not the case at the moment. Despite there being roughly equal numbers of men and women in the workplace, figures show that far fewer women than men advance to become senior managers."

Greater diversity at the top of corporations makes for better business decisions and there is plenty of research to support this. Diversity tends to avert "group think" and leads to a less macho culture - both were among the reasons given for the City's collective failure to predict and avert the credit crunch.

Research by McKinsey & Co has also proven a positive correlation between a company's performance and the proportion of women serving on its executive board. It found that companies with the highest level of gender diversity in top posts outperform their sector in terms of return on equity, operating results and stock price growth.
"Workforce diversity contributes to competitive advantage. It broadens the mix of knowledge and skills in the organisation and fires up innovation. It enables organisations to capitalise on the skills of all their staff at every level, rather than only half of the talent available to them," adds de Valk.

"Yet when it comes to management careers, women tend to aim lower and settle for less than male colleagues with the same skills and experience."

But even if women are encouraged to reach the top - for example, through quotas - do they really want to get there? This is something the ILM has been investigating.

The gap in ambition

Women have lower career ambitions and expectations, according to the ILM's research.

Fewer women than men (50% versus 62%) expect to become managers and twice as many women as men did not want to become a manager.

Given the long standing focus on gender inequality in the workplace, one might expect younger women to harbour greater ambitions for senior management. Yet even among under-30s, the gender differences remain entrenched, with 45% of men under 30 expecting to become managers, but only 30% of women.

A confidence crisis

The report also found that female managers have lower career confidence, with 70% of men having high or quite high levels of self-confidence compared to 50% of women. While half of women managers admit feelings of self-doubt, just 31% of men do. "We also found that women with low confidence have lower expectations of reaching a leadership and management role and are actually less likely to achieve their career ambitions," says the report.

The difference in confidence levels is highlighted by the fact that 20%of men will apply for a role despite only partially meeting its job description, compared to 14 per cent of women.

Career breaks

Putting family first is one of the major reasons why women fail to reach the top. While 42 per cent of women managers have taken statutory maternity leave, only nine per cent of men have done so. And while 21 per cent of women surveyed had left work to care for children, just two per cent of men have opted to stay at home.

A high price

Women often pay a high price for success. The research suggests female managers are more likely to defer having children because of the impact on their careers. While 41% of women surveyed were childless, only 28% of men were.

Having children is far more of a career barrier for women than men. Almost 17% of women believe that raising and caring for children has presented problems and barriers to career development, compared with just 7% of men.

So what can be done?

The ILM research found that as men and women enjoyed equal access to training and development, a better solution may lie in tailoring leadership development to the differing needs of male and female managers.

"Coaching and mentoring, in particular, offer highly effective ways of addressing women's lower confidence and ambition, and encouraging them to realise their leadership potential," says de Valk.

"The support that can be provided in these relationships is a powerful way to build managers' self-belief, crystalise career ambitions and encourage them to take measured risks."

Better talent management should also be part of the equation to enable organisations to address the fact that women are less likely to take a risk by applying for a new job unless they are satisfied that they meet the job description.

Identifying and encouraging talented individuals to apply for leadership positions and personalised development and support programmes to help women set more ambitious goals could both be used to encourage more women to apply for more senior positions says the report.

"To stop talented women opting out of leadership careers, we need to make senior leadership roles more appealing to mothers," adds de Valk. "Career advancement should reflect skills and capabilities, with less emphasis on 'time served'. Flexible working, job and career sharing and work-life balance policies have an important part to play.

"In addition, recruitment practices also need to evolve if we are to break the cycle of business as usual. Recruitment consultants should be encouraged to widen the net. And it is up to chief executives and chairmen to take away the unconscious biases against women so that everyone's ambitions can be really exploited."