“To ensure that corporate culture supports—not hinders—the ability of women to reach top management, companies must address mind-sets and develop a more inclusive, holistic diversity agenda.
Female executives are ambitious and sure of their own abilities to become top managers, though they are much less confident that their companies’ cultures can support their rise. In our latest survey on gender and workplace diversity,the results indicate that collective, cultural factors at work are more than twice as likely as individual factors to link to women’s confidence that they can reach top management.”
What really positively surprised me were the statistics: women now openly want the corner office and are open about it. Fantastic!!! What now needs to change is company culture for them to be able to reach it.
You always hear that women don’t want senior positions in high enough numbers for change to happen or that they aren’t doing anything about it. This survey seems to prove the opposite and is saying that women are making statements and openly letting their companies know where they want to head.
“At the individual level, female respondents report that their career ambitions are just as high as those of their male peers. 79% of all midlevel or senior-level women say they have the desire to reach a top-management position over the course of their careers, compared with 81% of midlevel or senior men. Looking at responses from the senior executives who are one step away from the C-suite, women are more likely than men to strongly agree that they have top-management ambitions and want to advance in their organizations”
All the positive examples we’ve heard over the last few years happened when top leaders at company level embraced the issue and made it their down. Let’s hope McKinsey, by the weight it carries, manages to convince CEOs to change their company culture.
To read the full report: Women Matter 2013–Gender diversity in top management: Moving corporate culture, moving boundaries