In The Spotlight

Can women lead this industry ?

Data Quest Article, 09/2009, Ganesh Natarajan

Looking at my schedule for the next three months, I am amused to find that there are at least two sessions every month either internal or external that I am committed to do to encourage and motivate themselves to rise above their own self imposed limitations and break through the glass ceiling to reach the top of their organizations. Having been part of four organizations in the last twenty-five years where women were expected to and did play as much of a role as any man in the success of the firms and their own success, here are a few thoughts on why women can and must succeed in playing more significant leadership roles in IT and Business Services even as the industry aims to achieve revenues in excess of three hundred billion dollars by 2020.
Let us define leadership in the most commonly understood format to set the base for this argument. It is essentially all about developing and articulating a clear vision, developing a strategy and direction, setting performance standards for the team and then assuming responsibility and taking charge to achieve the agreed goals, in the process becoming an inspirational role model for many in the team who look for such inspiration. Successful IT industry women leaders who have built and led companies with distinction – Revathi Kasturi, Uma Ganesh, Neelam Dhawan are three who spring to mind, have demonstrated all these qualities in abundant measure and most women managers in line roles in IT organizations typically demonstrate these traits at a very young age.
Many women also bring to the table some distinctive capabilities that make them more suited than men to tackle sensitive leadership tasks – a willingness to collaborate and consult before arriving at a decision, the ability to empathise with weaker performers and attempt to develop them towards better goal achievement and the willingness to nurture and coach young members of a team. Years of dealing diplomatically with domestic situations caused by stereotyping in the role they play vis a vis spouse, children and other members of extended families give Indian women the patience to deal with complex situations with balance and equanimity at all times.
Why is there then such an alarming drop off rate as an industry which typically has over thirty percent of associates at the entry level of the female gender struggles to demonstrate even a third of that percentage in senior management and if one leaves the Human Resource Community out of the calculation, the percentage could drop to even five or less? It is fashionable to attribute this malaise to the proverbial glass ceiling and I was bemused in a recent interaction with a very vocal consultant on this issue to find her laying the blame squarely on “heartless and insensitive men who do not want women in the board room!” At the risk of losing many of my wonderful women friends, let me offer an argument that very often it is the very sensitivity and emotional quotient that enables young women managers to be so successful that proves to be their undoing as they work longer hours in the middle years of their career.
Our own analysis in Zensar of the reasons for attrition in the second ten years of any woman’s career has shown that domestic compulsions – a drop in performance of a child, a casual barb thrown by a family member and sometimes the perceived risk of shining more than a spouse are very often reasons for voluntary movement to a staff role or even into a lower intensity career. It could be argued that the next generation of women who are today entering IT firms from technology and business schools will demand and practice complete gender equality in all roles performed in and out of home but all of us – IT leaders, husbands, fathers, bosses and indeed women bosses in particular, need to demonstrate an understanding of real and perceived conflicts to succeed in their aspiration to reach the top. There are many examples that all major IT companies are setting today that could be written about and emulated to ensure that concerted efforts are made to ensure that more women make it to the top!
And to conclude, one parameter of success would really be when the women’s conferences scheduled in the next few months are attended by as many men as women to ensure gender is finally buried as a reason for lack of success of any professional in this proud industry in the years to come!