By Jean McIntyre (Marketing Angels)
“Why on earth with my busy schedule, and my family commitments would I want to add yet another time-zapping responsibility and become a member of a community board?”
That’s what a lot of women say when asked about the possibility of becoming involved on a the board of a commercial or community organisation. That’s a real shame though because it can benefit those organisations immensely having a woman on board and can also benefit the woman’s own business.
I’ve recently been elected president of the Chamber of Women in Business. I’m also on the boards of Exhibition Park in Canberra and Tandem Respite care. I’m involved with the Wanniassa P&C as well as the Snowy Hydro Southcare Gala Dinner organising committee. There are a lot of women on these organisations and there are some beneficial attributes I’ve noticed are common among most of these women.
Benefits for Organisations of Having Women on the Board
There are lots of reasons why (as the ACT Government has announced it will strive for) it is good to have equal representation women on the board. I’ll preface this by saying that I am of course generalising and there are always exceptions on both sides:
- Women communicate well – it’s well known that communication is women’s forte. We like talking and if an issue needs some discussion to flesh it out – women contribute constructively but also facilitate others’ involvement in the discussion.
- Women get things done – perhaps it’s because in women’s personal lives we’re generally responsible for making sure projects run smoothly and that everything works well to achieve outcomes. Or perhaps women have these roles in their personal lives because we’re just better at it. Either way, if you want to make sure something gets achieved it’s good to get a woman involved.
- Women understand people – generally, women engage with the world on an emotional level and understand intuitively they way others engage. This is important to know when your organisation requires people to conduct its business. Women can provide excellent insights into how to engage people and the risks posed by people’s emotional reactions to change. Don’t forget that the major cause of breakdown in projects is not budget or schedule – it’s people and their expectations.
- Every single one of the reasons why you’d want men on a board. Women of course are equally rich in their posession of skills, experience, strategic thinking, connections and business savvy as men of similar ilk.
So Why Aren’t There More Women on Boards?
The problem is there just aren’t enough boards that are able to take advantage of the additional benefits of getting good women as directors.
Part of that is that there is still somewhat of a glass ceiling – for reasons I won’t go into here. The other part is that for some reason, many women are a little reluctant to put themselves forward.
Today I spoke with someone from the Australian Institute of Company Directors who said that in her experience, women often felt that they had to prove themselves (often by doing board training) before they’d put themselves forward. Men, she said, are more inclined to just give it a go. ‘Readiness’ doesn’t seem to come into the equation.
As President of CWB – one of my goals is to get more of the business women of the ACT into positions of influence that will benefit both the community and their own businesses.
How Can Being on a Board Benefit Your Business?
It needs to be said that if you take a position on a board, your responsibility first and foremost is to that organisation and you need to act always in the best interests of the organisation. For that reason you need to have genuine personal commitment and interest in helping move the organisation forward or it just won’t work.
That said, from a purely marketing point of view, there are lots of reasons why it’s good business for women to get on boards.:
- It instantly raises your profile in certain sectors – more people will pay attention to you as a person and indirectly to your business.
- It makes you a better business planner. It should be the other way around – that being good at business will make you run an organisation better. But often, the discipline required for strategic planning and corporate governance of a community organisation can help you build skills that you can apply to your own business management.
- It gives you authority – board membership (particularly in the community sector) gives you an opportunity to build up a specialist expertise that you can speak about in public forums and again raise your profile
- It can provide media exposure. If the organisation has a good community profile it can offer good opportunity in the media. Particularly if you take on a leadership role such as chair or president of the organisation.
- You make good business connections. Being on a board can get you access to people that you would never be introduced to in the general course of your business. Politicians, business leaders, community leaders and even the odd celebrity. We all know that relationships make the business world go round.
- It provides an alternative career path. This is particularly important if your goal is to move away over time from the day to day management of your business. While you are likely to start your board career in voluntary roles, if you enjoy it and are serious – you can aim to be on boards of very prestigious and successful organisations and achieve significant salaries if that’s what you seek.
- You get to do really interesting things. Often as a director you get invited to great events, networking, fundraising, conferences and training. Of course you have a responsibility to work for the organisation at these events (not your own business) but they can make the job a lot of fun and get you some good contacts.
- I’ve saved the best till last – it just makes you feel really, really good helping out your community. Increasingly these days it’s impossible to separate out your personal life from your business life and then from your life as a citizen of your community. We all like to feel like we are valuable members of society and if you have good skills you can do much more for the community as a board member than you ever can as an individual volunteer for an organisation.
So if you are a business woman and reading this blog, if there is just an inkling inside you of interest in joining a board – my advice is just GO FOR IT.
I’d be happy to hear anyone’s comments on the benefits of women on boards or ways that we might encourage more women to do it.
Jean Mc
I do not know that women are better at communicating, understanding people or getting things done than men. I don’t think that they are worse.
Women should go onto boards together with people of different ages experience and ethnic/cultural backgrounds in order to have boards as representative of the community they serve. If it can be accepted that men and women (and people of different backgrounds) solve problems differently a board is best served by members who can collaboratively approach problems from a number of different perspectives and come up with the best solutions possible.
Suggesting that one sex is superior to another per se is unproductive. The best outcomes are achieved from using quality minds and hearts and the synergy that is potentially available.
NSW has a woman as Premier and Australia a woman as Deputy Prime Minister. This is perhaps more a testament to their talents and abilities as people rather than that they are women. Both these women are there on merit not tokenism and I trust that this continues.
Let’s hope that Boards are composed of highly talented people chosen on merit because they as a group will deliver the best decisions possible and act on them.
Dear Jean,
Parts 2 and 3 of your article are interesting and informative – Part 2 draws from NSW Business Chamber research published in late 2008 on the matter.
In Part 1, I was hoping to read a discussion of the business and leadership qualities that spring from having Board membership from outside the same silo of generic experience or from recruiting plainly excellent members – regardless of gender.
Instead, you have chosen stereotypical and emotive issues that sound more like “girl power” than business benefits.
Maybe you might give further thought to the benefits of having a balanced gender board make-up – meeting key business and stakeholder drivers, corporate governance values, family friendly values, broader inspirational input and the sundry millions of reason why right at this very minute, we do have some great girls on our Boards.
There are several reasons why girls seem to shy away from Board membership and it could be for some of those reasons that those same girls do not make good Board members – without proper mentoring.
I would love to be able to refer this blog article to others to read; however I do not feel that it adds value to the gender equity debate.
Happy to chat further at any time…
Hi Jean,
Thank you for the article. I donate time and money at the moment and have thought about joining a board, but haven’t, due to the reasons in your first paragraph. I think your points are relevant and true for either gender (meaning I can see all points of view). I just thought a female comment was required – no offence guys 🙂
So thanks again. Hope all have a great weekend.
‘Girls’, Paul?
How patronising!
This is always an interesting subject and obviously has two points of view (his and hers). I am of the ‘hers’ variety and have worked in a ‘his’ area for at least 3 decades. In my view it really doesn’t matter which gender you are as long as you are effective.
There are different ways to approach any problem, none of which are right or wrong, they are simply different. I have served on several boards over time, industry, local government, community and charity. All have in common the need to address the issues facing the organisation, this needs to be done in an effective manner which provides solutions and promotes the organisation in a postive manner to the wider community. An attitude which concentrates on the issues at hand is more beneficial than concern about one’s ego, gender, contribution or social status.
One final comment someone please stop teaching potential board members to always ask questions whether they understand the issues or not. It is simply annoying and time wasting.
Cheers
in response to Paul, I agree, ‘girls’ definately don’t belong on boards specially when it’s a ‘boy’s’ club.
As a woman, I have sat on a number of smaller boards such as school board, company directors and have been promising myself to join the “Chamber of women in business” and should my own family, business commitments and community commitments allow I will do just that in 2010.
Women have as a rule a more nurturing role in society and spend the majority of their time in nurturing their family and then branching into volunteer community groups. Its the age old thing about women undervalueing themselves and then just running out of energy and confidence to take on higher profile board roles which require more time and energy input.
Regardless of where the blog information came from the article is valid and touches on many truths and observations.
Keep up the good work Jean!
Thanks so much everyone for your comments.
The purpose of the post was to get women thinking about reasons why they should think about getting on boards.
I always find it astounding that simply pointing out women’s strengths seems to draw criticism from men. I didn’t suggest at any time in the post that women are somehow ‘superior to men’. ‘It wasn’t about ‘girl power’, nor did it suggest that men didn’t have anything to offer a board yet it seems to have been taken that way.
One of the mistakes of the feminist movement was to shy away from those attributes that make women different. I want to be able to acknowledge them and celebrate them and raise them up to be considered of equal importance to the traditionally accepted ‘strengths’ that the business world celebrates. I’m sure there are more strengths to be highlighted that I didn’t think of when writing the post.
It’s not about gender balance at all (that would be a different post). It would be very sad indeed if the NSW and ACT government and organisations like AICD put in place programs to get more women on boards – simply because the numbers don’t stack up.
PS: The article doesn’t draw from any research published by any organisation. It’s my personal and professional opinion although it doesn’t surprise me that what I’ve observed personally in my board experience is backed up by research on other arenas.
PPS: For those who are unconvinced though about the benefits of women in senior positions here is an article by McKinsey Quarterly (you’ll need to register to read it all). https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/ghost.aspx?ID=/A_business_case_for_women_2192
I believe a board is best comprised of people from a range of personal and professional backgrounds, so long as they possess the requisite skills (which can be leaned) to properly participate in their role as a director. I don’t think gender is all that relevant except to say that ideally a board would not be stacked too heavily either way, but more importantly, people are there based on their merits, not just tokenism.
The danger with this discussion is that such efforts to identify the characteristics that many women possess can be interpreted as saying that men don’t have that particular attribute. Taking communication skills as an example, women’s communication style is often different to men’s, but it is just that, different. That doesn’t make it better or worse.
A really effective board requires members with all the characteristics you have identified, including the ability to anticipate the impact of change, communicate effectively, think strategically and understand the solemnity of the position of company director. To my mind, gender isn’t really as relevant as a balance of skills, beliefs and values built on varying life experiences.
To put my thoughts on the matter any Board need to focus on the priorities, All tasks no matter what they may be relate to just that what is the best outcomes possible. Gender is an issue that is used often in debate and the numbers I would have no doubt show at this point in time the “boys” are ahead with regards to numbers not necessarily actions.
So I guess we just need to continue to forge ahead and ensure women increase their numbers in regards to positions in the Board Room. Its the actions that matter.
Hi Jean,
Thanks for your article. I think the key issue is one of truly recognising and valuing diversity ie organisations walking the talk via genuine lateral thinking around suitable board appointments.
However for me, as a relatively new company director with a keen interest to serve on more boards in the future, and combining responsibilities for growing several fledgling businesses whilst raising young children solo, my reason for not stepping forward at present is simply one of time and logisitics. I would love to serve but methinks I may need a “wife” in order to free up any more time in which to do such things.
Cheers,
Leanne
PS I wonder how many under-18’s Paul knows that serve on boards? I’d thought the opportunities were all for adults?
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