Leadership equity for women
This article is authored by Anu Prasad.
The return of Donald Trump to the White House has reignited global concerns about persistent challenges to women’s rights and leadership around the world. However, while it has undeniably added greater urgency to the ongoing debate about the lack of gender diversity in leadership, counteracting these concerns has been the rising visibility of women leaders globally and growing conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Central to this discourse is the concept of leadership equity—a paradigm shift that goes beyond token representation to ensure women are empowered to access and sustain leadership roles across all sectors.
Despite ample empirical evidence of their transformative impact, women remain underrepresented in leadership roles worldwide, including in India. For a country of over 1.4 billion in a hurry to transform itself socially and economically, leadership equity for women in essential.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat—a post-Covid-19 roadmap for economic self-reliance—relies on inclusive leadership. Women leaders are often able to amplify the impact of the programs they lead much better, helping build sustainable development frameworks that ensure balanced and just progress.
Leadership equity is particularly relevant for India’s ambitious nation-building efforts. Women leaders are the scaffolding for sustainable development, essential for building resilient economic and social systems. Women must not only have a seat at the table but also occupy the high table, making decisions through positions that drive innovation and growth. Achieving this requires dismantling structural barriers and creating an environment where women in leadership roles can thrive.
As the country embarks on ambitious initiatives such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, women must be empowered to lead at every level. This is not merely an issue of fairness or gender equity, but a strategic imperative for national transformation.
Research underscores the benefits of gender-diverse leadership. An article, “Women leaders make work better. Here’s the science behind how to promote them”, published by the American Psychological Association, says women leaders enhance productivity, collaboration, and fairness in organizations. Yet, only 10% of Fortune 500 companies are led by women. To address this disparity, businesses and other organisations must identify leadership potential early, foster allyship through training, and establish mentorship and sponsorship programmes.
In India, the representation of women in leadership roles remains limited even today although the evidence is quite clear: Companies with a stronger gender-diverse leadership performs better financially and spurs the creation of workplace culture of performance, better collaboration, and innovation.
This skew in the gender metric extends beyond the corporate sector into the social sector, which otherwise exemplifies the deep impact of women in leadership roles. Women in leadership have a long-term beneficial impact on education, health care, and livelihood programmes, while the gender-sensitive approach of organisations led by women demonstrate better accessibility and community relevance for communities they serve.
Yet, there are still only a few women in leadership roles although they account for the vast majority of the social sector’s workforce. Such stark asymmetry is ironic, for it points to systemic deterrents to the influence of women leaders on strategy at a macro level, thereby negating the impact of women who often lead and execute grassroots programmes.
Our research to understand the complexity surrounding women’s leadership in the social sector—wherein we examined the gaps and challenges, captured best practices, explored the scope of positive interventions, and identified possible support structures to build leadership capacities—reveals that nearly 73% of emerging women leaders in the social sector believe that continued mentorship and networking support would boost their leadership ambitions.
There is an urgent need to rework the mantra for success, level the playing field even while women in the social sector continue to face unique challenges such as limited funds, restricted networks, and cultural biases at questioning their authority.
These challenges can be overcome by spotting leadership potential early, providing mentorship, and building skills to prepare women with enough time to take on higher responsibilities. Targeted leadership development programs for mid-career women in the social sector can enhance workforce productivity and foster innovation, both acting as multipliers of change to address deep-seated biases.
India stands at the crossroads. By embracing leadership equity, the nation has an opportunity to redefine the mantra for success, not just on economic growth but also as a society where everyone, irrespective of gender, has the ability to lead and succeed. This would mean ushering systemic change, collective commitment, and even immediate action that ensure women become catalysts for an even more inclusive and resilient future.
This article is authored by Anu Prasad, founder & CEO, India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS), a Delhi-based non-profit that works to strengthen the leadership talent pool in the social sector.
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