The Biggest Barriers Women Face on the Path to Senior Leadership

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by Alexandra Roulet and Asher Lawson

 

True parity in the workplace is still a distant goal. INSEAD faculty outline why women aren’t advancing and the role gender stereotypes play.

 

Despite women comprising nearly half of the global workforce, only around 32 percent occupy senior leadership roles (director, vice-president or C-suite), according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2023 from the World Economic Forum. Leveraging LinkedIn data from 163 countries, the report reveals that in C-suite positions, women’s representation drops to just 25 percent. 

Meanwhile, in corporate America and Canada, representation of women in the C-suite has reached the highest level recorded so far – 28 percent – as per the recent Women in the Workplace study by Lean In and McKinsey. Although these gains are cause for modest celebration, the road to workplace equality remains considerably long.

As outlined in the study, women, especially women of colour, face their biggest hurdle at the first step up to managerial roles. Due to the gender imbalance in initial promotions, men end up occupying 60 percent of manager-level positions in a typical company. With fewer women promoted to senior managerial roles, the number of women further diminishes at higher levels within the organisation.

While there is considerable focus on the “glass ceiling”, it appears that women encounter significant career barriers long before reaching top leadership positions. So, what is impeding the progress of women, and how can we remove some of these roadblocks? Continue reading →

How Do You Know If You Have The Right Talent To Be Positioned For Success?

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by Larry Janis  

Having the right talent in the right roles is essential for a successful business strategy. Strategy execution demands a thorough evaluation of not only people, but also of their roles and responsibilities, their impact and their alignment with the company’s business goals.

Corporate leadership and business leaders focused on strategy execution need a talent assessment program that functions as an extension of their strategy planning that addresses the following thoughts and processes:

  • An understanding of the talent implications associated with the strategy. Without this context, talent reviews may provide a false sense of security and lead to misaligned, well intended talent plans that actually work against the strategy.
  • Differentiation between important and critical roles. The successful execution of strategy requires talented people, more importantly talented people in the right roles. Without clear differentiation the people most likely to positively impact strategy may be in the wrong roles or not in the organization at all!
  • A facilitated talent discussion that evaluates talent in an integrated manner; standardizes the organizations’ talent “language” and calibrates talent between divisions, departments and teams.
  • A talent map that summarizes the organization’s talent “picture” in a simple, powerful format. The talent map can be easily referenced for future planned, or unplanned talent decisions.
  • A talent plan that captures the key talent actions required to support the strategy; assigns accountability for completion; encourages all leaders to accept responsibility for the organization talent pool; and provides a mechanism for tracking progress.
  • A partnership with an external recruitment firm that has a solid knowledge of your industry, your competitors and has the ability to react in a timely fashion to acquire the talent you have defined as essential to your business goals.

Continue reading →

The Secret Ingredient For a Successful Career Change

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by Winnie Jiang

Why some people seamlessly switch occupations while others struggle to reinvent their careers.

 

A stable job offers more than just a pay cheque; it provides a sense of belonging, self-worth and purpose. However, job stability is increasingly at risk. Technological advancements and economic shifts are challenging established roles, compelling workers to acquire new skills, change occupations or even re-evaluate their career paths to stay relevant.

By 2030, a significant portion of the global workforce – ranging from 3 to 14 percent, equivalent to 75 to 375 million workers – will need to switch occupations and learn new skills, according to aMcKinsey report. In advanced economies like the United States and Japan, this figure rises significantly to 32 percent and 46 percent, respectively.

Navigating career disruption can be particularly difficult for individuals who strongly identify with their profession and consider it a fundamental part of who they are. In contrast, research suggests that those who hold “multiple identities” are more resilient in the face of job loss, as they can use other identities as a protective buffer. In other words, when their work identity is threatened after being laid off, they can draw on other identities, like being a parent or community member, to derive a sense of self-worth and successfully change careers.

However, my recent research with Amy Wrzesniewski from The Wharton School reveals a different pattern. We focused on the field of journalism, which has experienced widespread job cuts and closures. Although all former journalists in our study considered their profession as central to their identity, there was a notable difference in their responses to losing their job. Some found it challenging to recover, while others quickly rebounded and reinvented their careers.

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The Three Next-Generation Marketing Skills You Need

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by Wolfgang Ulaga and Christoph Senn

Companies must secure “killer marketing and sales skills” in a dynamic landscape where commercial competencies rapidly become obsolete.

 

 

The marketing landscape is undergoing a remarkable transformation, driven by the rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2019, the estimated number of IoT-connected devices stood at 8.6 billion, but by 2030, this figure is projected to soar to 29.4 billion. This exponential growth is blurring the boundaries between products, services, data and software, heralding a significant shift in how marketing is perceived and executed.

On September 21st, INSEAD’s Marketing and Sales Excellence Initiative (MSEI) hosted a members-only event in Fontainebleau, France, titled “Next-Generation Marketing Skills”. Speakers at this seminar delved into two pivotal inquiries: What are the competencies required for next-generation marketing? And how can Marketing & Sales professionals best collaborate with Human Resources and Learning & Development teams so their firms acquire, grow, and retain the essential talent and skills? 

What’s happening in the marketing landscape?

The burgeoning array of IoT devices offers both blessings and curses for marketers. On the bright side, it presents a golden opportunity to enhance value propositions and build trust with customers. However, the complexity of managing and leveraging this ecosystem will inevitably pose challenges, making it somewhat of a curse. Moreover, as customers become increasingly aware of the growing number of sensors in everyday devices, their expectations of value from marketers are set to reach new heights.

Internally, the pressure on marketing teams will also mount. As investments in IoT marketing strategies increase, business leaders, including CEOs, will demand a clear demonstration of the return on investment (ROI). The famous line, “Show me the money,” will echo through boardrooms, underscoring the need for marketers to prove the value of their initiatives. 

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Leaders, Make Curiosity the Core of Your Organizational Culture

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by John Coleman

 

 

Organizational culture is a remarkable competitive advantage. McKinsey & Company, for example, has found that top quartile cultures outperform median cultures by 60% — and bottom quartile cultures by 200% — and that those company’s cultures are both difficult for competitors to replicate and allow the organization to better adapt to changing circumstances. These findings are echoed in the research of Alex Edmans of London Business School, who found similar outperformance among companies with exceptional cultures.

Great corporate cultures are not just good for performance, but for the flourishing and engagement of the people who work in them. In my own work, I focus frequently on the need for strong culture, its components, and how to craft an organization’s culture to deliver greater meaning and purpose. But oft overlooked is the central role that curiosity plays in shaping these norms. To unlock the potential of their institutions and the people within them, great leaders need to demonstrate consistent curiosity about their employees, customers, their own roles, and the changes occurring in their institutions over time.

Curiosity about employees

Leaders must be curious about the values and motivations of their employees in shaping and maintaining a corporate culture. Organizations are a collection of the mindsets, attitudes, and values of the people that work within them. Founders and leaders have great influence on the types of people who join an organization and the values they bring with them. But by tapping the collective intelligence of the group, organizations can seek to be truly distinctive. That requires even brilliant leaders to display curiosity toward those with whom they work.

In the early days of Whole Foods, for example, founder John Mackey elected to engage his entire company in shaping their mission and values — an effort spurred by his desire to tap the collective intelligence of his people and build a “flat” organization where everyone was engaged. The document that resulted in 1985, their “Declaration of Interdependence,” survives to this day and was fundamentally shaped by employees from top to bottom. Similarly, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio famously created the principles by which Bridgewater is managed through an open-source document that allowed employees to challenge existing precepts, offer up new ones, and collectively codify their model of success (a process I experienced while working there one summer).

Whether through walking the halls and talking to people directly, formally surveying employees, or engaging them in focus groups about the tenets of culture, every leader has the same opportunity to display curiosity in shaping mission, vision, and values.

Curiosity about customers

Continue reading →