A Leader for Our Times: Zelensky’s Empathy, Courage, and Vulnerability

By necessity, the old rulebook for leadership has given way to an urgent new direction. The top-down, leader-knows-all template that reigned for decades no longer resonates..

Try These Actions for a Leadership Reset That Creates a New Path Forward

Over the past few weeks—as the world celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8—I’ve spoken with hundreds of women at company events, leadership forums, and fireside chats. The..

What Men Can Learn From Women

In my last post, I shared some strategies on how organizations can engage men in advancing more women into leadership positions. With that general background in mind about the important role that men can play in helping boards and executive teams achieve more gender-balanced leadership, let’s shift our attention now to considering why men and organizations should care about women’s leadership.

The primary reasons are first, men want to be part of successful organizations, and second, organizations need to be competitive to succeed. Simply put, research has proven that a balanced leadership team leads to better business outcomes. Top-performing organizations recognize the value of having women on their executive teams in addition to a wider spectrum of diverse thinking, styles, and backgrounds. This is true from a business perspective as well as a leadership advantage.

Why Women’s Advancement Is Everyone’s Issue

I recently was a keynote at a major leadership conference in New York. One of the great pleasures of my trip was meeting a male CEO of a Fortune 500 organization, who I call Henry. We were speaking about the progress of women in leadership and what still needs to happen to move the needle. I asked him what he saw as the biggest challenge within organizations to getting more women into senior management.

“Most important is that we ‘all’ need to be in—organizations, men, and women need to play an intentional role,” said Henry. “This means organizations need to have the right culture or it won’t happen. Male leaders and executives need to understand that a balanced leadership team is essential to remain competitive and achieve better business outcomes.” Lastly, Henry said: “What I think is the biggest nutshell to crack is having women leaders truly understand the importance of helping each other.”