Taking women to the next level at business events

A PCMA EduCon session today will explore the challenges unique to women in their careers and how they can chart a path to leadership. In addition, participants will get a taste of proprietary research on this topic.

Women in or seeking leadership roles women face barriers and compromises that their male counterparts do not often experience.

How can the corporate events community celebrate the qualities that make women leaders effective? What can we do to overcome the barriers to women’s advancement to leadership positions?

Karen Calder

Discover the answers to these questions in today’s session, Elevating Women in Business Events: Removing Barriers and Creating Opportunities. This interactive session is led by Karen Calder, founder of Karen Calder Consulting & Coaching, who opened her notebook to share her thoughts behind this session. Check out her notes:

We know that leadership as a woman comes with many challenges and that there are differences between the way women lead their teams compared to their male counterparts.

Women face systemic obstacles such as gender bias, but they also feel compelled to live up to the expectation of balancing everything with a career, often being the primary caretaker for their family, while taking care of their own health and well-being. to assure. This means that women face barriers and compromises that our male counterparts don’t often experience. And yet, despite these challenges, many women excel as leaders. Unfortunately, while efforts have been made for decades to develop female leaders, women are still massively underrepresented at senior levels of leadership and that seems to be true in the corporate events industry as well.

IBM and Chief’s latest study, Women in Leadership: Why Perception Outpaces the Pipeline and What to Do About It, shows that the pipeline for top leadership positions has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, reduced to just 14 percent and 18 percent female representation at the SVP – and VP levels respectively. Promoting women’s leadership is not a formal corporate priority for the majority of organizations surveyed, according to the study of 2,500 executives, managers and professionals, equally divided between men and women, from organizations in 12 countries and across 10 industries. But, the report adds, there is a roadmap for sustainable progress.

Survey respondents estimate that their industry will see gender parity in leadership in 10 years, compared to 2019 when the industry average estimate was 54 years. But the reality is that, at the current rate of change based on survey data, gender equality is still decades away. That is because:

• Structural barriers and unconscious biases continue to hinder women’s advancement. For example, when asked if women with dependent children are as committed to their jobs as women without children, the majority of respondents said yes, this is what leaders in their organization believe, excluding male managers, only about 40 percent agreed at sometime.
• The attributes considered essential to leadership also remain gendered.Shared men are especially valued for their creativity and result orientation, while women are expected to be strategic and decisive as well as people-oriented.
• The pandemic continues to have a disproportionate impact on women at work.Respondents rank the pandemic as the most serious disruption women face in their career development.

What sets women leaders apart?

Today’s session also provides a preview of the initial findings of a global survey conducted by BESydney and PCMA. Some of the key features that the study, including think tanks, uncovered about the differences between male and female leaders are:

A strong sense of self-worth Women said in the think tanks that they have lower self-esteem than their male counterparts, which has a negative effect on advocacy for promotions. Among all the other barriers, women’s mentality and self-doubt who believe others have answers and abilities they don’t possess hold them back.

Set personal goals Successful women in our think tanks talked about having a clear vision for their career and setting goals for what they want to achieve early in their career, they didn’t wait until they had a family. They talked about aspects of their vision that changed over the years due to circumstances, but the commitment to reaching their North Star remained unwavering.

Asking for help, mentoring and being a sponge Women in the study were more likely to reach out and ask for help. Many of them talked about the importance of mentoring and networking, learning to understand the limitations of trying to do everything on your own, and feeling empowered to seek insights, feedback, and knowledge from successful leaders.

Getting on a Leadership Path

In today’s session, learn more about the qualities that can put women on a leadership path. In the meantime, here’s Calders’ tip sheet:

1. Identify what you are good at and capitalize on your strengths.
2. Set clear goals.
3. Take risks.
4. Develop an irrepressible mindset. Be your own champion.
5. Build a resilient mindset.
6. Don’t compare yourself to others.
7. Learn to be a good presenter, storyteller and promoter.
8. Get a sponsor/mentor.
9. Volunteer for growth assignments.
10. Take opportunities that come your way and treat them as learning opportunities.
11. Learn more about trailblazing women.
12. Listen to something positive for 20 minutes every day.
13. Support other women.
14. Take care of yourself.