Quality of women’s leadership

Yesterday, the world observed International Women’s Day (IWD).

According to the IWD community website, it “is a global day for celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.”

To the credit of our former lawmakers, in 1990, they enacted Republic Act No. 6949 that declared March 8 as National Women’s Day and made it a working special holiday.

Fittingly, the theme of IWD 2021 is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.”

At the height of the pandemic last year, five women leaders, namely, Germany’s Angela Merkel, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen and Finland’s Sanna Marin, were hailed by the international community for their expert handling of the medical problem.

While their male counterparts in other countries were still figuring out the course of action to take on the virus, the female heads of government immediately implemented measures to minimize its spread.The bluster and macho posturing by some male government leaders on the handling of COVID-19 proved to be ineffective.

As a result of the female leaders’ quick action, some financial analysts have expressed confidence their economies would be able to reach prepandemic levels by the fourth quarter of this year.

A similar leadership mettle is being shown in middle market businesses (or businesses that are between small and giant companies in an industry) in the Philippines.

The latest survey by global consultancy firm Grant Thornton on women in business showed that the Philippines has the most number of women holding senior leadership positions in midmarket businesses among 29 other economies.

Forty-eight percent of senior corporate positions in those businesses are held by Filipino women, which is five percentage points higher than the 43 percent in 2020.

The survey also showed that more Filipino women hold operational C-suite roles, i.e., executive level positions like CEO, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

In those positions, the proportion of female CEOs has gone up 16 percentage points to 38 percent, and for female COOs four percentage points to 27 percent.

The proportion, however, of female CFOs went down three percentage points to 35 percent.

The ranking is impressive, but it should not, according to Grant Thornton, be the end goal and that “… businesses that want to reap the benefits of a better gender balance must continue to take action to enable women to realize their ambitions.”

The rise of Filipino women in high corporate positions may be attributed to the wide opportunities for education and training by women in work positions that were once considered “reserved” for male Filipinos.

In highly specialized professions, like law, medicine and business management, Filipino women have shown they can go toe-to-toe with their male counterparts and even perform better.

On account of Filipino women’s business acumen, some business tycoons have set aside the age-old tradition of passing on to their eldest son or any son, to the exclusion of daughters, regardless of their competence, the management of their business.

These days, it is not uncommon to see daughters running those business conglomerates, and with impressive results.

Although one-upmanship based on gender lines still happens in some boardrooms, it is more the exception rather than the rule.

That may be due to, first, managerial ability does not have gender qualification and the stockholders are aware of that; and second, the existing laws on sexual harassment at the workplace have put a damper on the exuberance of male executives who still harbor cave-man attitudes toward women.

There is a long way to go before the proverbial glass ceiling in businesses will be a thing of the past. But at the rate Filipino women are proving themselves equal to their male counterparts in business leadership, that day will not be long in coming. INQ

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