Womenomics

Some excerpts from a Women on Boards Report:

BETTER COMPANY PERFORMANCE
International research shows a positive correlation between women in leadership and business performance.

The Catalyst report (The Bottom Line: Corporate performance and women’s representation on boards, 2007) found that in all measures the companies with the most women board members outperformed those with the least.

CRITICAL MASS
While women can add value to boards individually, critical mass is better.

The McKinsey study looked at the performance of companies with various numbers of women on their boards and found the largest gap in performance existed between those companies with no women on the board (poorer performance) and those with three or more (better performance).

WHY DO WOMEN IMPROVE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE?
Fresh perspectives
Boards with a balance of men and women tend to consider a wider range of issues and options, resulting in commercial decisions that are more in touch with customer needs.

Effective leadership
The McKinsey report, Women Matter 2, found that women are more likely to apply five of the top nine leadership behaviours that correlate with organisational excellence. These five leadership behaviours are those particularly linked to innovation and staff management.

Role Models
Further research by Catalyst shows that having women on boards leads to more women in senior management.

A competitive edge
Whether in times of growth or contraction, there will always be a need for the best talent possible in company leadership.
Recent economic turmoil has caused many to rethink traditional views on company membership. In late 2008, a group of 17 chief executives and heads of FTSE 100 companies in the United Kingdom wrote an open letter to the Daily Telegraph calling for gender equity in the country’s boardrooms – because “extraordinary times call for innovative solutions”.

Investor confidence
Increasingly shareholders and rating agencies are factoring into their assessments of company performance the number of women on boards.

HOW BUSINESS CAN BENEFIT
• Research shows that women on the board can be good for the bottom line. Companies with women board members outperform those with no women.
• Teams with a mix of men and women generally work better.
• Groups with more diverse skills, knowledge and experience are likely to consider a greater range of perspectives and make higher quality decisions.
• Women may help businesses avert and solve problems more effectively. For example, having women on boards can assist companies to manage key constituencies including shareholders and employees.
• Women in corporate leadership provide good role models for other women entering the workforce. They provide a goal for others to aspire to.
• Research shows that the presence of women at board level strengthens the company’s customer base and connections to markets.