When Kiran Mazumdar Shaw joined the board of directors at IIM, she was the first woman to be appointed on the IIM Board. Her words would set the objective of the recently celebrated Women on Board week by Biz Divas Foundation, “It’s all still an old boys’ club. It’s time women broke into this male bastion!” she said.
Biz Divas Foundation leads a mentorship program that aims to get high potential women executives on to boards.
A report around two years ago in a leading national highlighted what Arun Duggal, chairman of Shriram Capital had to say, “Too few women, too many board positions.” A report two weeks ago still iterated the same fact.
Let’s see where the challenge lies – Is it lack of women talent ready to take on board roles or lack of mindset in organizations to have more women on boards and a deeper understanding of why is it important? Well, the answer is BOTH. We can easily get into a chicken and egg situation but that leads us to nowhere. I am a coach and my default mode is to look for solutions which takes me out of a vicious cycle.
Being a woman, being someone who holds a board position and aspires to be on more boards, let me take the onus on my fraternity…. fraternity of women talent out there in the market. How many of us with best talent and potential have thought on sitting on boards of organization – For profit/ Non for Profit. I can bet my career on this one.. very few.
So what is it that we are not doing for aiming higher? The list could be long. It starts from a question to self… what am I building … a job or a career…what is the true potential I possess? Do I believe I have infinite potential and hence can achieve everything which I would want to? And if I am building a career, what does the sky look like? These questions are very essential to ask to self. I may not have all the answers, but still the questions are important. My job is to seek for answers, seek for opportunity. And this is where role of a mentor, role of a coach comes in. A Coach asks you the right question, helps you look for the answers, keeps you on the track and pushes you to go for it.
So, how many of you reading this piece have proactively signed up for a coach and mentor. How many of you think of this as an expense viz a viz investment. Think through…
We limit our own potential and only we can unleash the infinite potential we have. So dear woman, in this age of connectivity, in the age of technology – Ask those questions, seek answers, do not limit yourself. The opportunities are all around us but you need to extend yourself to leverage those opportunities, you need to work hard to leverage your strengths and reach to positions of influence. And it is important to reach positions of influence because it simply means, I have the potential and ability to be the change I want to see around me.
Probing through the other challenge which is the mindset challenge… the answer is a vanilla YES. The challenge does exist. Discrimination is galore, many.. correcting myself, most of us sitting on the edge, waiting to see where doe the buck stop. If a change has to happen, it is to happen. Full stop. If I am the CEO of the organization and if I truly believe in the Why – Why should there be more women in leadership roles, why should be there more women on board of directors, I would just make it happen. The policies, the structures, the mindset – As the head of the organization, I would Walk the Talk. Nothing works better than this.
