The Evolution of Women’s Leadership

Though women have made substantial progress in the world of business, still their numbers are relatively very low. The reason behind this is a wrong perception that women are not qualified enough to make big decisions; don’t understand the strategy and lack vision and guts. Contrary to this, more women have assumed leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies and global institutions. In 2020, 37 women were CEOs in Fortune 500 companies – a record high, but still low in number. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Women’s Power Index shows that 64 countries have had a female head of state or government since 1946.  

These facts reveal that today women have become far more confident about what they have to contribute. They have become more comfortable enlisting men as allies, just as men have become more open to being allies. All these changes have specific causes and effects, yet they all reinforce one another. In fact, what holds true for women also holds true for others in mainstream leadership and business. The path to power has been particularly narrow and uniquely challenging for women of color.  

Excellence in leadership

From the beginning of the 1990s, women have been participating at the workplace in larger numbers. Yet in those days, the expectation among both women as well as the organizations they worked for was that women would simply slot into cultures and structures that had been designed entirely by and for men. Consequently, it was assumed that any woman who aspired to a high position would need to adopt traditional male behaviors and styles. The economic boom in the 1990s reinforced women’s presence in the workplace and ambitions.  

The influx of women into businesses and organizations continued alongside the technological and economic evolution, a fortunate convergence considering the skills many women brought to the workplace. They supported the kind of personal engagement the new economy required. These skills included their ability to build strong relationships across levels, a preference for leading from the center rather than the top, a bias for communicating directly as opposed to up and down a chain of command, and comfort with diverse perspectives instilled by having held outsider status.  

Competence and confidence

Despite the fact that the developments during the 1990s showed that women possessed the skills and competence needed for leadership roles in business, many still continued to suffer from the lack of confidence, which is freely expressed by their male counterparts. The “confidence gap” as it was called, has always remained a problem for most women. Not all women lacked confidence, as the corporate scandals unearthed in 2002 revealed. Sherron Watkins at Enron and Cynthia Cooper at WorldCom, who turned out to be whistleblowers after their warnings of wrongdoings to their company’s leaders went unheeded These two women along with FBI agent Coleen Rowdley appeared on the cover of Time magazine as the Persons of the Year. Rowley had fruitlessly tried to alert her superiors to suspicious aircraft rentals in the lead-up to 9/11.  

Data demonstrates that women’s confidence more or less aligns with their level of competence – or falls below it, which is different from that of men, especially those in leadership roles. This is true because the number of overconfident men is relatively high. And overconfidence, and the assertiveness it causes, can be very helpful for someone who is pursuing a senior position, where unquestioning self-belief often translates as charisma, mastery, and drive.  

Growing solidarity

While increasing levels of confidence based on demonstrated competence has enhanced women’s determination to reach their full potential, in recent times, they have shown more solidarity among them. This is one of the most dramatic shifts that have taken place over the past 30 years as growing solidarity among women has led to the creation of an infrastructure of support for women almost entirely missing in previous decades. Increasing solidarity has helped address the isolation that made pursuing a career in the 1990s feel unrewarding for many women.  

It was difficult to find such support before the early 2000s because women were generally assumed to be in fierce competition with one another and therefore unwilling to offer assistance. Solidarity has also flourished because organizations over the past decade have become serious about identifying and developing talented women and introduced robust leadership development to support this effort. Well into the early 2000s, companies tended to view women’s advancement primarily as a women’s issue, rather than leadership, business, or strategic concern. Initiatives aimed at helping women advance were, therefore, regarded as a nice thing to have or an easy way to position a company as a desirable place to work, but were rarely considered intrinsic to the cultivation of talent. Moreover, research has shown that diverse teams make smarter decisions and are more effective. All this has resulted in far stronger support for women’s initiatives.  

In 2020, the signs for women leaders were unprecedentedly positive. A strong economy, highly visible women leaders in the public and private sectors, global competition for talent, well-developed women’s leadership initiatives, increasing confidence and solidarity among women, and greater engagement from male allies combined to signal a strong path forward. But all expectations were upended with the coronavirus pandemic still unfolding, it’s difficult to hazard predictions.  

Highly visible female leaders such as Angela Merkel of Germany, Tsai Ing-Wen of Taiwan, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, and Mette Frederiksen of Denmark have offered strong examples of leadership during crisis. The physical, cultural, and political circumstances of each country, state, city, or territory have played a role in shaping their crisis response, and every leader has critics. Although surveys have shown that people in general view women as more trustworthy than men, men have continued to rank higher on having the strength to lead in times of crisis. But what we are now witnessing suggests that this perception may be about to shift.