Ladies:  Do You Have What It Takes To Be a Leader?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Last week, I sat in a crowded room listening to Joanna Barsh, Director at McKinsey & Co talk about “Centered Leadership: How Talented Women Thrive”.  While listening to this very accomplished women, I wondered if this economic crisis would have been any different had there been more women at the table (see FT article which refutes this theory).  I don’t know the answer and I don’t want to turn this into a gender debate but I do wonder why so many women start off after college with just as much drive, intelligence and education as men but only a few ends up reaching the top echelons - in business, education and government.  We never seem to have a majority of women at the top.  Yes, I know there are a few women at the top levels – but are there enough of them to make a difference?  How can we, as mothers and mentors, help more women succeed?  How can we help our daughters succeed? What are the characteristics of successful women leaders?  Can women LEARN how to be more successful?  Joanna Barsh thinks so and spoke to us about the findings of a McKinsey initiative, called the McKinsey Leadership Project.  The initiative was driven in part to learn what “drives and sustains successful women leaders” and to impart this knowledge to young women to help them navigate the sometimes difficult path to leadership.  So what did Mc Kinsey find out in this study?

First, McKinsey found that there were several pre-conditions to successful leadership:  intelligence, desire to lead, communication skills and tolerance for change.  If a person already possessed these skills, McKinsey found that successful women leaders also had five “broad and interrelated” dimensions:  meaning, framing, connecting, engaging and maintaining energy – all of which can be learned.

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