Women and leadershipDo we still need to talk about it?

Professor Carolyn Evans, Dean, Melbourne Law School

Given that Australia’s prime minister and governor-general are women, is the discussion around women in leadership in this country done and dusted? Caro Cooper scrutinises the debate.

There is no shortage of examples of Australian women in high-ranking positions today; the Prime Minister, and Melbourne alumna, the Hon. Julia Gillard MP, Premier of Queensland Anna Bligh MP, Governor-General Quentin Bryce and Westpac CEO Gail Kelly, among others.

Gratifying as it may be to contemplate this evidence of a shattered glass ceiling, women holding executive positions is far from an established tradition in this country. In each case mentioned above, these women are the first of their gender to hold their respective appointments.

Despite the fact that women graduates now outnumber their male counterparts and encounter few barriers in gaining graduate and mid-level positions, the number of women reaching the top dramatically tapers off. Women in leadership remain the exception rather than the rule, particularly in the corporate world. As discussed in media commentary around this year’s International Women’s Day, Australia lags behind countries such as New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States with regard to the number of women in the boardroom.

Leadership, as Professor Amanda Sinclair (BA (Hons), PhD), Foundation Professor Management Diversity & Change from the Melbourne Business School points out, is culturally constructed. In Australia, leadership is defined by broadly masculine traits: assertiveness; an authoritative style; and dominance. Professor Sinclair recognises this as the first hurdle for women pursuing advancement in corporate life. In her book Trials at the Top, she writes, ‘The traditional view of the executive is as a solitary hero engaged on a journey of relentless trials from which he must not be diverted or rest. In this quest women have been faithful observers or seductive diverters.’

Joan Kirner (BA 1958), Victoria’s first female premier, asserts that the biggest hurdle in her career was male hegemony over power positions, which, she says, existed in ‘politics until the nineties and business to this day’. While this hegemony is breaking down, many women leaders attempt, or feel pressured to emulate a masculine style of leadership, often against their nature. Professor Sinclair believes that to allow women to contribute and be involved in leadership we need to move beyond the embedded stereotypes that ‘enshrine a traditional masculinism as executive eligibility’.

Professor Patricia Grimshaw and Professor Joy Damousi from the Melbourne University School of Historical Studies have embarked upon an Australian Research Council funded project titled ‘Women and leadership in a century of Australian democracy’. Their goal is to provide a more balanced understanding of the extent and contribution of Australian women in leadership roles. The project plans to look at women leaders, both indigenous and non-indigenous, and the contributions they have made to the historical and cultural definition of leadership, as well as their efforts to lead in their own ways despite various challenges.

One such challenge for women in domestic relationships is that even when both partners work full time they still, on average, do twice the amount of housework and three times the amount of childcare their male partners perform. It’s no surprise then, that a significant proportion of women opt to temporarily or permanently leave the workforce to raise their families while their partners remain employed. Fortunately, there is a growing understanding of the need to support women juggling their domestic and work lives. At the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) 2010 Census launch in October last year, ANZ CEO, Mike Smith, commented ‘Clearly there’s a need for a new way forward. One issue is to address the reality of what happens to women in business when they take time off to have children. We need to stop penalising mothers.’

One mooted solution to combat the dearth of women on company boards is the adoption of government-mandated quotas. Many of Australia’s top companies have already instituted quotas with the aim of reaching close to 50 per cent female board membership. Pacific Brands, under the guidance of CEO Sue Morphet (BSc 1977), has almost reached this target and has around 43 per cent of executive key management positions filled by women. Even with such demonstrated success, however, opinion on this strategy remains divided.

Joan Kirner is a supporter of such measures, citing the Victorian Labor Party’s affirmative-action rules for pre-selecting women in winnable seats as a good example of the success possible with quota-style targets. Others, such as Monique Conheady (BA/BE (EnvEng) 1998), CEO and cofounder of Flexicar, a car sharing enterprise that provides members with an alternative to car ownership, remain doubtful. Conheady prefers a merit-based approach to appointments, but concedes that quotas may be a temporary necessity if women continue to be denied the same opportunities as men.

While the percentage of women on company boards does give pause for thought, it is only one measure of women’s achievements. As a panellist at the Melbourne Leadership Series launch in March this year, Margaret Jackson AC (MBA 1982), Chairman of FlexiGroup Ltd and Director of Billabong International Ltd, voiced her disappointment that International Women’s Day media commentary had been limited, she felt, to the issue of company board gender quotas. Such a narrow focus, she said, only takes into account the contribution of a tiny proportion of women. If debate had been widened to include the participation of women in senior management in business or in institutions such as the police force, a very different, and much richer, story could have been told.

Yet, gender-specific barriers undeniably persist. Professor Sinclair acknowledges that factors inhibiting women’s progress such as negative discrimination, the culture of the boys’ club, the tension between personal and professional life, and isolation are still prevalent in both corporate and university life.

The Academic Women in Leadership Program is one of several strategies aimed at addressing women’s under-representation in higher-level academic appointments and key policy and decision-making bodies at the University of Melbourne. The program aims to increase women’s participation through skill development, coaching and mentoring. Signs of progress include the 2010 appointment of the University’s first female Dean of Law, Professor Carolyn Evans and, this year, its second female Chancellor, Elizabeth Alexander AM.

By virtue of the diversity of people it attracts, Professor Evans views law as having led the field in respect of admitting women into its ranks. ‘I feel that women have now been accepted in the law for a very long time. Traditionally, yes, it was a male dominated field, yet just as the numbers of women studying at university have increased, so too have the numbers of women studying and working in the law. For many years now, law schools have regularly taken in more female students than male students, for no other reason than the numbers of suitable female candidates.’

Despite the glittering achievements of Julia Gillard, Quentin Bryce, Gail Kelly and their ilk, there are many more women capable and willing to take on the challenges of leadership. If gender equity in the corporate sphere fails to materialise in the coming years, quotas for company boards may well become a reality. And when more than half of university graduates are women – their education supported by our taxes – then similar numbers of women should be reflected at the top of all professions.