Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Rhea Yaw Ching, District Manager of Coca-Cola Carib-bean, graduated from the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine and is pursuing her MBA. She is a fast rising manager in a global company and President of an all female business organisation, the  Association of Fe-male Executives of Trinidad and Tobago. When you meet her, she is serious and focused. As a young woman — just thirty-years-old — she is thoroughly enjoying life and seems to have it all: career, husband, new home. Yaw Ching forms part of the growing breed of management-educated women executives, who don’t just reach the top, but actually thrive as they bring a new perspective to their organisation. Twenty years ago women like Yaw Ching could only stare bleakly at the glass ceiling. There were once bustier tight reasons for this. Boards of Directors were composed predominantly of men  (estimated at 90%) and Chief Executive Officers as well as Managing Directors often recruited in their own image and likeness.

Two things changed. Women began storming the halls of education (there is an 80:20 female/ male ratio at the University of the West Indies) and the pool of resources that the male board of directors had to draw from became feminised.  Over the last five years, the gender changes in both the managerial and administrative levels have been obvious, particularly in the service industry,  (law, medicine, nursing and teaching), the media and finance. And women like Yaw Ching could see the cracks in the glass ceiling. It was only a matter of time before the crumbling began. “Breaking through that ceiling is quite exhausting, yet extremely fulfilling. We as women are told that we can’t do certain things but I’ve never had time to bother with people who tell me that. The fact is that I have to work smarter to get ahead, and I’m not afraid.”   But there are other reasons that allow for the success that follows Rhea. Global push factors have made it possible for a different kind of leadership — female — to emerge. Rewind twenty years or so. The other generation. Remember how passively loyal they were, how retirement nirvana meant proudly recalling the years of service one gave a company.   Historically, loyalty was a bought commodity. An employer offered a slow, albeit steady climb up the corporate ladder and in return employees gave their unwavering commitment.

Fast forward. Take a look at the new corporation. Blind loyalty is dead. Today’s employees are questioning and demanding. They are confident enough to air their concerns, grievances and aspirations. How does female leadership fit into all this? There is a chorus of experts who says that the new organisation demands a more collaborative, and less competitive, more inclusive and less elitist culture.The old notion of corporate leadership; of power concentrated in the hands of an all male managerial team; where employees snap to attention and intimidation and threats are used is no longer a relevant model. The new leader of the New Inc does not command and control. She motivates and inspires.  Call it spiritual management. Put any of the latest noveau terms to it.  The bottom line is that employees whether in large or small organisations cry out for leaders who can provide meaning in their professional lives that is not incongruent with their personal lives. They want leaders who lead by concensus, leaders who understand the importance of communications and who can create an innovative and diverse workplace where mistakes are not punished. Research supports the view that women are the leaders of the future. That future — by the sheer force of globalisation, digitisation and boundary-less competition — is here.

The statistics paint the way of change. Today in the United States women account for one out of 13 clout positions — executive vice president or higher  — in the 500 largest US companies. Eight years ago that number was 1 in 40. In Europe, the situation is bleaker but still evolving.  According to the European Commission for Equal Opportunities, women acc-ount for 35 % of middle management and administrative roles. In Trinidad and Tobago, according to Director of Personnel Management Service Diana Mahabir Wyatt, despite the fact that men still dominate the boardrooms the corridors of power and the overall earning power of males to females is in the range of 67:33, the number of women in management positions have reached critical mass and boards desperate to recruit male executives,  “have started poaching from each other, recycling the same people over and over.” Their actions point scrooge like fingers to the fact that firms who remain bogged down in issues of gender, of recruiting those who look, act and lead like the crowd of old, will slip deeper into the quagmire. They will encounter serious problems when the competition races ahead. Intelligence. Leadership.  Both are normally distributed. Yaw Ching and the presence of several women in management positions and in the Boardroom, who continuously keep chipping away at the glass ceiling, are here to remind us just that.

Judette Coward is a former Board Member of the Association of Female Executives of Trinidad and Tobago. She is a communications consultant.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Guardian Life. You are invited to send your comments to guardianlife@ghl.co.tt