10 ways to get more women at the top – female leaders tell

Bob Katter raised a few wry smiles when he pointed to women’s prominence in public life at the start of the year.

Responding to comments by Greens leader Bob Brown that Prime Minister Julia Gillard was receiving sexist treatment, the outspoken Queensland MP said: “Our governor general is a woman, our governor is a woman, our premier is a woman and our prime minister is a woman.”

“I don’t think sexism is riding high in Australia. If anything, it’s probably the other way around.”

Hang on, Bob.

Yes, it is true that there are plenty of high-profile and talented women making waves in Australia, as the third annual SmartCompany list of Australia’s top 30 female entrepreneurs will demonstrate when it is released on International Women’s Day later this week.

And female entrepreneurship in Australia is strong. A recent study conducted by the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship at Queensland University of Technology has found there are 500,000 women entrepreneurs in Australia and an equal amount of men and women are involved in young businesses.

Progress is being made in listed companies too, with female participation on ASX 200 boards increasing from 8.6% in the 2010 fiscal year to an historic high of 12.7% in fiscal 2011. This is partly due to new regulations requiring all ASX-listed companies to satisfy diversity reporting requirements.

And beyond greater political leadership, the past few years has seen significant policy initiatives for women: the Federal Government’s modest but long-awaited paid parental leave, which is expected to be followed by the Coalition’s ‘Rolls Royce’ scheme offering up to $75,000 per year, plus an increase in the Government’s childcare rebate to 50%.

But there are still many rivers to cross.

Although Australia is much closer to gender equity than many other countries, men here still dominate public life through business, politics and sport, and earn more and hold more assets – just take a look at the rich list.

SmartCompany has picked the brain of prominent female leaders and experts in the business of feminism to find out how Australia can boost female entrepreneurship and women’s leadership in business.

Here are 10 ways to continue to improve equality.

Get in early

Jo Burston, managing director and founder of payroll and people management business Job Capital, says many entrepreneurial programs come too late to whet the appetite of potential female entrepreneurs.

Burston says young people need to be introduced to entrepreneurialism – by entrepreneurs – at high school.

“There should be some incentive at high school years to be driven into entrepreneurship as a career,” she says.

As Burston explains it, entrepreneurialism is a new career, so it’s important to show positive role models to students in their formative years.

Widen the net

Paul Steffens, associate professor at the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship, says women are more likely to be involved in retail and services start-ups – but miss out on the boom areas of resources, IT and science.

“There are programs in places and initiatives to encourage high school and university students into these fields, but a cultural shift needs to occur for women to better embrace them,” Steffens says.

More role models with higher profiles

Steffens says acceptance of female entrepreneurship is one of the reasons why Australia leads developed nations for female participation in new businesses. (Others include a good education system and the relative absence of ‘men’s clubs’ in business.)

The media plays a role, too.

“The cultural dimensions around female entrepreneurship are pretty positive [in Australia], and that’s reflected in the media,” Steffens says.

Naomi Simson, founding director of gift-experience site RedBalloon, says role models are crucial to boosting female entrepreneurship and business leadership.

“We need role models – peers, mentors, and networks,” she says.

Advisory boards, peer networks, mentoring and coaching

Amanda Cole is the chair of the The Executive Connection, which seeks to help CEOs from SMEs become better leaders.

She says Australian women already have a good record of business longevity, besting men when it comes to continuing past the critical five-year mark, but a recent Government report into what makes a business successful found that individuals with an advisory body and access to a group of peers have more sustained growth.

“We know from the growth shown by our members, seeing how they respond, that it works,” Cole, founder of design consultancy Spark Consultants, says.

“That knowledge, that skill transfer is crucial.”

Diann Rodgers-Healy, founder of the Centre for Leadership for Women, adds that mentoring and coaching for women are crucial in boosting female business leadership.

Take networking to the next level

According to SmartCompany founder and Private Media CEO Amanda Gome and The Executive Connection’s Amanda Cole, women are often lacking when it comes to networking.

Cole says although women are keen to meet for coffee or lunch, for example, they often struggle to create strong relationships within those networks.

“They often don’t reveal a lot about their business to put issues on the table, so the individual learnings are pretty surface.”

Women shouldn’t hesitate in putting their networks to use. Just ask Heat Group founder Gillian Franklin, who got former Reserve Bank director Hugh Morgan on the cosmetic company’s board simply by asking.

More awareness of support programs

Government support for fledgling and medium-stage companies is actually pretty good, says Cole.

Whether it’s grants or consulting support for more advanced business, it’s in female entrepreneurs’ best interests to find out what’s out there and get a piece of their own.

Quotas – how to make the horse drink

Not surprisingly, women have mixed views on quotas. Although some say they are tokenistic and patronising, others say there’s never been a shortage of talented women able to take the next step – what’s lacking is men’s willingness to give them a shot.

It’s an issue touched on by an Ernst & Young report last year that stated that “around the world we are seeing a growing body of evidence that unconscious bias – not the lack of female ambition or being unwilling to ‘play the game’ – is the main barrier to women attaining senior leadership levels.”

“Until this is acknowledged, organisations will continue to put in place programs and initiatives to ‘fix the women’ rather than review the underlying systemic issue leading to inquiry – namely unconscious bias,” the E&Y report, released in September, said.

Rodgers-Healy says quotas for women in all line management and board positions are a step in the right direction.

Julie McKay, executive director of UN Women Australia, has gone a step further, last month calling on companies to link gender diversity targets and key performance indicators to executive remuneration.

Improved access to child care in all its forms

While the Federal Government has introduced changes this year to boost staff-to-child ratios and professionalise the childcare industry, many women complain that centre hours are inflexible and poor value for money when compared with a nanny.

Nareen Young, the chief executive of Diversity Council of Australia, says there’s no question that “childcare is unfinished business in Australia.”

“We need workplaces to understand that childcare doesn’t finish when kids turn five and go to school.”

One idea that’s gathered momentum is making all childcare – including nannies – tax deductible.

The lobby group Chief Executive Women says extending the Government’s financial support for childcare to nannies would boost female participation in senior leadership.

CEW is also calling for a doubling of the childcare rebate to $15,000, with CEW member Jenny Fagg noting that the “lack of affordable, reliable childcare” is cited in surveys across women of all professional levels as “one of the biggest obstacles to women returning to work after having children.”

Stay in contact

As Private Media CEO Amanda Gome puts it, when men have a baby they might be off work for a fortnight; for women, it could be six or seven years if they have a few children in quick succession.

“That’s an enormous amount of time to be out of the workforce,” Gome says, with often severe career and financial consequences.

The best thing for women is to stay involved with the workforce, she says.

Rodgers-Healy agrees with Gome that women need to plan how to manage motherhood with their career. She nominates “career strategising” as a crucial step in boosting gender equality in business.

Offer and demand flexibility

There’s plenty of talk about flexible workplaces, but not enough action.

As the Diversity Council Australia’s Nareen Young puts it: “The lack of quality part-time work, especially in management positions, contributes to considerable underutilisation of women’s skills and capabilities in the workforce.”

Young says with women often asked to juggle not just motherhood but their parents’ care needs, it’s time to “take a good look at the way we work and the way we think about flexibility to ensure flexible working is seen as a legitimate career choice.”

Diann Rodgers-Healy, of the Centre for Leadership for Women, says more flexibility and recognising women’s dual roles of career and caring are key steps.

A study by Bain and Company in 2010 stated that although women enter the workforce in large numbers, “over time they steadily ‘vapourise’ from the higher echelons of organisation hierarchy.”

But with study after study showing a correlation between women at the top and an organisation’s success, there are ways – big and small – for women to rise to the top of business.

Visit Women’s Agenda for more news and advice for professional women.