by Dan Oswald
March is Women’s History Month. Let’s face it, the business world has been dominated by men for too long. Episodes of Mad Men come to mind, where just 50 years ago the majority of women served as assistants or secretaries. Sure, we’ve made progress, but has it been fast enough?
There are no more excuses for leaving women out of the inner circles of power. Qualified women are everywhere. Women are ready for leadership; they just need to be identified and asked.
Madeleine M. Kunin
Did you know that 51 of the CEOs on Fortune’s most recent list of the top 1,000 companies are women? At just over five percent, that number seems incredibly low, and it is. But progress is being made. Consider for a moment that in 1998, just 17 years ago, there were only two female CEOs who headed up a company on the list.
Today, some of America’s best-known companies and brands are led by female CEOs, including PepsiCo, Xerox, Campbell Soup, Williams Sonoma, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Cracker Barrel, and Avon. Another female-led company on the Fortune 1,000 list is General Motors, the seventh largest company in the world. It’s noteworthy that a woman has climbed to the top of the auto industry, which for so long has been a particularly male-dominated business.
Many women have taken a different path. Instead of trying to claw their way to the top, they start their own businesses. Think of Debbi Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies or Oprah Winfrey and the media conglomerate she has built. And the woman as entrepreneur isn’t a new phenomenon.
In 1963, Mary Kay Ash, according to her company’s website, “decided to write a book to help women survive in the male-dominated business world.” While making her lists of what she’d seen done both right and wrong during her time in business, she stumbled upon a plan for a company that would provide women an opportunity to achieve success in the business world. Today more than 3 million women are part of the Mary Kay organization.
The definition of a successful person is simply an ordinary person with extraordinary determination. You cannot keep a determined person from success. If you place stumbling blocks in her way, she will take them for stepping-stones and will use them to climb to new heights. The one who succeeds has a goal, a dream, and makes her plans and follows them.
Mary Kay Ash
Women have proven that they can lead and succeed when given the opportunity. They just haven’t been provided with enough opportunities. And while we are seeing more women in top jobs across the country, it just hasn’t happened as fast as it should have.
March is Women’s History Month, and looking back, there are countless contributions women have made in business. When there weren’t opportunities, they went out and made their own. And when they have been given opportunities, they have proven they can be successful. Let’s just hope the trend of more women in leadership positions in business continues. It’s good for everyone.
I enjoy your news letter and your leadership insights. Thank you for the effort. I agree that women need to have more opportunity. I come from a family of seven children where our mother was widowed at 36 and raised us all with determination and an i will do this attitude. We all attended college and had her encouragement and love to push us. She worked two and three jobs and worked herself to a position of branch manager for the employment service of the State of Michigan. She served as an appellate judge for her tribe the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in Northern Michigan for several years. She pushed all young people from our tribe and local community to continue on to higher education as much as she could. At her death when the preacher asked by show of hands how many people were influenced by or helped by her in their education endeavors over 3/4 of the 450 people raised their hands. She did not complete her own education until she was 56 years old as the State of Michigan would not allow someone the title of manager without the degree. Our tribe has a philosophy that loosely translated means that your nation is only as strong as your women; if your women are weak then your nation is weak. You see this is true when observing several nations across the globe. Thank you for putting forth this subject.