Women in leadership: What needs to be done to Scale the leadership ladder for women

By Emma Mugisha, Executive Director, Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited

Globally, 44% of companies have three or more women in their C-suite, up from 29% of companies in 2015. Why?

More role models in public and private sector means creating belief in young women to aspire for leadership (Examples: Uganda’s women dominated cabinet, means the government is leading as a good example to the Private sector to create more space for women in boardrooms.

Girl Child Education has registered success, this has created a pool of many young women from which to pick the next generation of women in leadership.

Globalisation has helped promote acceptance for more Women in Leadership especially in Africa where many traditions kept them away…

What barriers are hindering Women to take up available opportunities?

Governance structures still weak in many sectors, these hinder equal opportunities between women and men in the corporate sector.

Disparities in renumeration. We still have cases where women are paid less for the same jobs and ranks as their male counterparts.

Leadership plays a critical role and when leadership doesn’t believe that women can, we lose the opportunity to have more women in power.

The underlying views about women’s style of leadership affect perceptions of their ability to lead.

What should be done to scale the ladder for women in Leadership?

In order to scale the ladder for women in leadership, we must commit to removing barriers preventing women from moving into leadership roles; doing so shall benefit both women and organisations.

We must give women the confidence to overcome individual barriers that are self-limiting of them to take on leadership roles; this calls for organisational cultures to be progressive and have well-meaning leaders.

Most women feel they are ready to move into leadership positions, according to recent surveys; what we really need to do now is to create the opportunity.

Be gentle with your feedback; women love change but they are afraid to make mistakes and feel more harshly judged than men.

(Source: JUMP and Leverage HR – May 2018)

Stanbic Bank Uganda’s perspective on Women in Leadership

At Stanbic Bank, our perspective is that gender shouldn’t be a factor in what makes a person a great leader – a person’s ability to lead should depend instead on their strengths and capability.

Therefore, we believe that women are as capable as men, so why is there disparity between the number of women in leadership compared to men?

At Stanbic Bank Uganda and Standard Bank Group, we support the call for female business leadership. Indeed, 6 in 10 Stanbic Bank employees will be women. In terms of Women in leadership, Stanbic Bank Uganda got its first Woman CEO in Anne Juuko, on March 20, 2020, this was a vote of confidence in women and evidence that we are walking our talk on this topic.

Emma Mugisha was presenting during the 26th ICPAU annual seminar