Women, leadership, and missed opportunities: The India perspective

In 2019, IBM launched its first study on women and leadership. Our goal was to see if the attention and resources devoted to supporting women’s professional advancement had made a demonstrable difference in closing the gender gap. Two years have elapsed, and this past year brought a global pandemic. We wondered: how have things changed? Here’s what we learned.

Despite increased awareness, the lagging number of women leaders has barely moved.

If awareness is the first step to action, then it’s hard to imagine circumstances more rattling than the events of 2020. In the span of a year, the pandemic upended generations of working women globally. The disruptions brought renewed attention to the challenges women face as they endeavor to advance their careers, from the “second shift” that women work after their day jobs to the steep onramp many face when returning from a career break, and much more. These challenges are not new.

Some organizations did step up interventions over the past year, expanding access to childcare and introducing flexible work programs to accommodate women, who globally continue to bear majority responsibility for childcare and eldercare in their families. But the IBM survey found most gender-equity efforts move too slowly and, in some cases, are slipping backward.

Organizations want to change, but most are moving too slowly.

The sobering reality is that executive boardrooms and C-suites around the world look essentially the same as they did 2 years ago. Our data indicates they comprise the same small percentage of women in leadership positions (8% for executive boards and 10% for C-suites globally; 9% for executive boards and 12% for C-suites in India) despite a heavy push for diversity, along with national mandates in a growing list of countries that includes Norway, Spain, France, Iceland, and Germany.

The shrinking pipeline: Since 2019, the pipeline of women leaders in India has gotten smaller.

Alarmingly, these low percentages risk shrinking further. Our data indicates, both globally and in India, the pipeline of women needed to fill open executive positions has narrowed. Fewer women hold senior vice president, vice president, director, and manager roles in 2021 than in 2019. Without effective, immediate interventions, the loss of future leadership talent poses a long-term risk for organizations and for the economy as a whole.

The events of 2020 showed organizations can move boldly on gender equity when they want to.

In 2017 the Indian Government passed the 'Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017’. The act increased paid maternity leave from the then 12 weeks to current 26 weeks.

Fashion e-commerce company Myntra has a leadership development programme specifically for women called ‘Flying Lessons’ where women at the mid-to-senior levels are groomed for leadership

positions through a structured classroom approach along with support from leaders, while on the job. Myntra Studio, the organisation’s content hub for fashion and lifestyle, has over 1,800 influencers, 70% of them women.

Globally, only 1 in 4 organizations make the advancement of women a top 10 priority.  

Payments company PhonePe, as part of its new diversity and inclusion charter, has pledged to increase the share of women in senior leadership roles, including directors and vice presidents, from 16% to 25% by December 2021.

We keep inching our way toward gender equity, expecting breakthroughs

Numerous studies confirm that organizations with high scores in gender equity gain not only a performance bump, but have happier employees. Organizations with the most women at the top can potentially deliver share performance and profits that are close to 50% higher than those organizations with the fewest, according to McKinsey analysis.

Our own study found that more men who work for organizations with a higher ratio of female executives report being satisfied with their jobs versus men at companies with fewer women in top roles. These sentiments are all the more striking given that the survey was fielded during the stressful COVID-19 crisis. But despite best intentions, only a small number of companies are achieving these benefits.

Read the full report to learn what it will take to achieve gender equity in the workplace, and how your company can reap the benefits of a more diverse and equitable workforce.