Women in Leadership – What’s holding female talent back in MENAT? With the ever accelerating pace of change, combined with the increasing need for sustainability, it is no wonder the gender diversity and women in leadership agenda are dominating global HR. But it seems this is particularly the case in many organisations in the Middle East and Africa.
In an Ochre House HR Network think tank, we found that there are still barriers preventing women from entering into leadership roles. Females are missing out at higher levels in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey region (MENAT) as organisations are struggling to make the shift. So why is this?
Research carried out in the lead up to the think tank suggested that there are a number of reasons as to why women are prevented from reaching the top jobs. When we look at the external factors there are two key barriers to change; government practice and policy, and family and societal culture – both of which have long been recognised as inhibitors to the progression of women into leadership roles. Examples of the internal factors include: absence of role models, lack of opportunities for women and traditional male oriented social norms.
However, in light of current cultural and socio economic shifts, many organisations in the MENAT region feel there is now a real opportunity to make a difference. Senior managers have recognised the importance of collaborating in order to remove some of the barriers, and every interviewee we spoke to believed that it is important to have woman at leadership level. Their reasons include: to enhance company performance; to acknowledge the female talent pool in order to fill increasing skills gaps; and to ensure they have motivated staff as it has been found that women will often outperform male colleagues.
Having the desire to tackle this issue is important, but we now need to move forward and look at how this is done. The majority of delegates involved in the event maintained that they were committed to instituting some form of change in the next 12 months, and we’ll be helping them to develop a working group to share best practice and innovation.
