The Woman Leader
Here’s a thought
“It’s now 20_5 and half of our managers and leaders are women. What’s it like round here?”
Working with a leader recently he said “the thing I like about Jayne is she’s the only one who challenges me on my behaviour and approach ….. she’s the only woman in my team”.
This got me thinking back over my 39 years in construction. Most of the people I have worked with have been men. It was thirteen years before I coached a woman on a one to one basis and there are rarely any women in the leadership teams I now work with. In fact there have been only a few times in the thousand or so construction industry workshops that my organisation has handled where there has been more than one woman present – virtually all participants are men.
The first time I became concerned about the absence of women, apart that is from cleaners and typists, was in 1996 when I was a participant in the Birse “Intensive Programme”. One of the specified books was “The War Against Women” by Marilyn French. This is the hardest book I have ever read. As the title suggests it’s all about the appalling treatment of women, by men, throughout the World and in the UK!
After struggling through the book my eyes were open – so moved, I organised a conference in Newcastle called “Women in Construction”. It was quite well attended though I have to say mostly by men. I remember asking if they were afraid or just curious.
Also about that time Birse created a programme called “Woman on the Board”. I thought this was fantastic and still do. The objective was to identify a woman from within the Company that would join the eight man Board without involving men in the process. Any woman could apply to join the programme irrespective of age or job. Cleaner, typist, engineer – all were eligible. At the start all applicants got together and decided amongst themselves who went forward onto the programme. Then over time the participants agreed how their number was to be reduced, who left and who continued to the next stage all the way through to the selection of the winner – a 29 year old site engineer. Louise joined the Board in an operational capacity. The men had no say.
How many other times has something like that happened in the construction industry with all its talk of innovation? I would guess never and not since.
So, to Helen (not her real name) the first woman I coached individually. She leads a team of seventy people in a client organisation that is procuring seven billion pounds of construction and associated work in the next five years. Helen’s boss is a woman, her boss is also a woman and she reports to the chief executive, a woman.
It’s been about a year since I worked with Helen; she has just returned from maternity leave. When we exchanged e mails the other day she said she was inspired and believes that if she works hard she can get to wherever she wants. I think that is brilliant though I suspect hers is still a minority company.
Right, here’s the thing – how is your male dominated company going to win your share of that seven billion. I know the agenda is going to be different and inviting these women to your annual company golf day or to your Premier League corporate box is not going to cut it here. And what if you win some of this work are these women going to put up with all the macho games we men play – I suspect not. They will want to work with both your men and women. Perhaps it’s time to look at where the women are in your organisation, maybe even get them to create a “Woman on the Board” programme?
I’m optimistic – what would it be like if half of all managers and Board members in UK construction were women? How do you think that would affect culture, performance and reputation? As always I’d love to hear your view.