There is a new future being written about women and business leadership. Choosing to challenge will lead to greater disruption to enter and complacency’s exit.
Sam Palazzolo, Principal Officer @ The Javelin Institute
It’s International Women’s Day 2021 and the theme this year is “Choose to Challenge.”
Business organizations and the leadership within unfortunately rarely differentiates between moments for those desiring to hold a leadership position and those that do. These moments of differentiation demand effective communication skills, relentless motivation, morals, creativity, trustworthiness, commitment, responsibility, flexibility, etc.
Organizational leadership, regardless of gender, should look for individuals who possess these abilities and the ability to improve daily. The concept of leadership doesn’t distinguish between gender, nationality, ethnicity or faith of an individual. In its simplest terms, when a person is the best fit for a situation, leadership belongs to that person.
So with today marking International Women’s Day, the stage is set in which the spotlight needs to go away from the discussion about the biological differences between women and men, and the inherent way that it contributes to the gender inequality in business opportunities it may cause. There has been enough discussions on what is wrong with the fact that women frequently don’t achieve their best, however there are many at the ready that should not have to wait their turn — This is not a “timing” issue.
Women are more appropriate for the future direction of business because they’re skillful in private interaction, have been guided more by heart than by head, and possess a wonderful networking power. That is not all. These emotional intelligence skills that provide them an upper-hand are backed by tactical, performance-oriented, and analytical data.
The positive changes are creating an avenue for entrance into the leadership offices around the world — But not enough. Studies show the gender-balanced companies work better than those that aren’t. Skeptics will always be present to negate the issue of who should/shouldn’t be in a leadership position, but there are a few courageous leaders who are welcoming the change. The business world is seeing the office culture revolution and novelty takes time to develop into the standards.
If the theme this year for International Women’s Day is to choose the challenge, then a challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change. So let’s all choose to challenge!