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Tags: Leadership, Careers

Survival Tactic: Recognize Your Female Talent, Part Two

By: Nancy Einhart
The founders of Fine Line Consulting know why corporate America needs more women at the top. Here, they discuss the roadblocks to retaining and rewarding female talent -- and prescribe solutions for vaulting those barriers.

Most companies recognize that corporate America needs to usher more women into its upper ranks. They just don't understand why or how female executives serve their self-interest.

Though women represent 46% of the U.S. workforce, they hold only about 6% of executive titles like CEO, chairwoman, and executive vice president. And only four women hold CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies, including Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard and Andrea Jung of Avon, both of whom were named to their positions last year. (Click here for more information from the 2000 Catalyst Census .)

So what's the problem? For most corporations, the challenge lies in justifying a financial and strategic investment in recruiting and supporting female talent, and in overcoming the hurdles associated with retaining top women. But Ellen Snee and Jan Shubert think they've found a few key methods for clearing those hurdles.

As president and vice president of Fine Line Consulting, a Newton, Massachusetts-based firm dedicated to the advancement of female corporate leaders, Snee and Shubert watch firsthand as companies struggle with issues of female leadership. Since Snee founded the company in 1996, Fine Line consultants have worked with nearly 300 senior and middle-management women in Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, such as Goodyear and Marriott International. Working individually with high-level women, Fine Line helps its clients promote their efforts, tackle work obstacles, and navigate internal politics. The consultants also organize seminars for high-potential women and advise upper-level male managers on attracting and retaining female talent.

Fast Company spoke with Snee, 50, and Shubert, 54, about the barriers to and the benefits of promoting women into top leadership roles. In Part One of this two-part story, they offer five important reasons why companies must recognize and promote female talent. In Part Two, Snee and Shubert identify several major problems faced by both women and their employers, and offer advice for solving those problems.

Part One: Five Reasons Why Your Company Should Care About Female Leaders

Part Two: How to Vault Four Common Barriers to Equality in the Upper Ranks

1. The corporation has a strategy for hiring and retaining women, but no one takes it seriously.

"Many organizations create programs for women," Snee says. "But by creating the program and writing the check, they often simply declare victory and move on."

To ensure a true commitment to female leaders, companies should make the advancement of women an integrated part of their overall career-development strategy. For instance, if a company aims to provide women with formal mentors, Fine Line recommends that internal advocates write that goal into the annual business strategy.

Leaders should also actively pursue opinions and advice from female employees regarding processes for promotions and reviews. "We advise all companies to have a minimum of three women at the decision-making table," Shubert says. "Individual women hold wildly diverse opinions and priorities, so it's a huge mistake to designate one woman to be the spokesperson for an entire gender."

2. Women lack sponsors who can speak up for them.

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From Issue | December 2000

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