The Benefits Of Women In Leadership

Did you know that engaging women in leadership positions provides a host of benefits to companies and organizations? Research points to a variety of benefits and advantages that come to companies and organizations when they include women in leadership.

Research also shows that most managers and top leadership teams do not fully realize the value of having women in key positions, both in Utah and more broadly around the world. This is the case across all sectors. Depending on the entity, this may include women in both paid and unpaid roles ranging from positions such as supervisor, coordinator, and manager, to school principal, council member, CEO, and board director. Organizations will increasingly thrive when both men and women hold management and leadership roles.

Among the benefits of engaging women are: (1) improving financial performance, (2) strengthening organizational climate, (3) increasing corporate social responsibility and reputation, (4) leveraging talent, and (5) enhancing innovation and collective intelligence.

Recent research in the business arena has shown that organizations that have more women in management and on boards, on average, attain better financial results than do other organizations and have better financial performance indicators.

• In 2012, Bloomberg published a large study (2,360 companies) conducted by the Credit Suisse Research Institute, which found that “companies with a market capitalization of more than $10 billion and with women board members outperformed comparable businesses with all-male boards by 26 percent worldwide.”
• The New York Law Journal reported that companies with at least one female director “averaged higher net income growth, lower net debt-to-equity ratio, and faster reduction in debt compared to companies with no female directors.”
• A U.K. study found clear evidence that companies with women directors had a lower risk of insolvency than did other companies.

Read the brief to learn more about this and the other benefits mentioned above.

The bottom line is that the most successful organizations of the future will be those that attract, retain, and grow talent in ways that will provide more women the opportunity to succeed at all levels. Organizations and societies that fail to fully utilize female talent will limit both their own economic and noneconomic growth and opportunities.