Lets embrace the “Mama Bear movement”

Teodara Gavrilut gives us an outlook on how the things around us are changing, for the good on the International Women’s day.  Amidst these Covid crisis and several other issues, the year 2020 bought us, there was also an advancement in the awareness of how crucial and impactful women are as the leaders. With Kamala Harris becoming the first woman to hold the office of vice-president of the United States, women now have a hold more than a third of roles in the board rooms, as said in the British’s top 350 companies. The society and the businesses are being changed for better by these women leaders in all possible sectors and firms. In spite of having this excellent progress, we are still not able to achieve the gender equality.

We can see women standing on the frontline of the Covid -19 crisis as the warriors and leading some of the most successful Government and business responses to the pandemic. Still, there is only few companies which have attained this gender parity. Only 3.5 per cent of the decision making and task forces across 87 countries have achieved this. The rest 82.5 per cent are dominated by men. Coupling with the fact that the 16 of these same top 350 British businesses have only one woman on the board and this perception still persist that men are always more entitled to lead.

The corporate case for refining this picture has been prepared. Diverse teams bring diverse value, growth and innovation. The more equal the gender balance is, the better a business achieves. And some pandemic reactions have shown that there is a lot to be learned from the leadership that values encouragement, empathy and solicitousness. It’s none other than the mama bear moment. Male leaders tend to show higher transactional and leadership qualities which is about building relationships based on punishment and rewarding and providing subordinates with freedom, all these with guidance of course. Whereas the women are better in communicating the company values and missions and they provide more rational individual support and mentoring, which is always beneficial as proved by many researches. In these times of crisis, transformational leaders are always best placed to uphold the concerns of the employees and the customers. The pandemic has given the firms a clear view of to what the customers actually expect and what was being deliver instead, establishing the notion of how people view businesses. There is increased surge in the customers’ expectations to have a transparent business that works in the way of care and purpose, a way to commit to visible and actionable values.

There has also been a toll on the employee’s wellbeing as our daily changing lives and this whiplash which has been caused by the lockdown going in and out. We are desperately in need of a leader who actually pays attention to the people’s struggles, and acts on bettering it. The pandemic had made firms increase the funding gap and run short in funding the female workers, as a result of automation in particular. They have become the majority to be decimated by the pandemic. This case of gender parity is beyond our disputes and it needs swift and comprehensive action. Making use of the data driven insights to drive the success rates and accountability to go higher is the next step. The investment in emerging roles and sectors to ensure that talent channels are diverse, and that in turn helps in up skilling. To conclude, women at the top are able to achieve and transform our lives for the better and we should towards achieving this goal.