Hilary Clinton in her latest released book says – “All of us face hard choices in lives. Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become”. She couldn’t have put it more aptly as we all make ‘hard choices’ in our life – education, marriage, career, kids, sabbatical – they are all choices – It’s up to us to make it ‘hard or easy’. Unfortunately most of us take an indicative view of the future. But the people who succeed are the ones who take a definitive view of the future. So what does that mean?
Is it about the women’s choice to drop out or should we blame it on her ambition quotient? The most debated topic in organizations and diversity circles today, is about women dropping out of careers. For the majority of working women in the country her professional life and personal life interject between 1-5 years of working experience. NASSCOM study reveals that there is a 48% drop of women from the workforce with a reason cited as ‘personal’ for leaving the organizations. So this mass exodus mostly keeping all societal and organizational factors together get interpreted by various women as a trend which most of us take in the name of personal choices.
So a definitive view would be something where women take their jobs as a career and not treat it as ‘just a job’. Definitive would also mean where the women plans a vision and dream which encompasses her self first and then the others.
But does it really happen and what do Women want?
- At the individual level, women have reported that their career ambitions are just as high as those of their male peers. A 2014 McKinsey global gender diversity survey states that 79% of all midlevel or senior-level women say they have the desire to reach a top-management position over the course of their careers, compared with 81% of midlevel or senior men. Looking at the responses from the senior seroquel without prescription executives who are one step away from the C-suite, women are more likely than men to strongly agree that they have top-management ambitions and want to advance in their organizations
- The talent market is characterized by both oversupply of qualified women and failure to meet the demand for key roles. Some of the key facts (Source India LinkedIn Talent Pool Report)
- Women are in 1/6th as many leadership positions as men.
- Women with 5-15 years’ work experience hold 15% of leadership positions, while those with 25-30 years’ experience just hold 8%
If these are the statistics on women and their wants – It clearly suggests that women are ambitious and want to be leaders in their own right. But figuratively they are dropping at every step of the career journey. Then how do we get back the women who have dropped out, have an inclination to come back but don’t know how to?
From an organizational perspective, companies need to create an ecosystem of measures and sustain it over time. The ecosystem includes top management commitment, individual development programs, networking opportunities, and collective enablers such as key performance indicators and human resource processes.
But even if all things put together in a ‘utopian world’- women will succeed only if they live life on their own terms. Women tend to be more comfortable putting themselves in the center of things rather than positioning themselves at the top. Women more than ever, need to look within and make their lives fulfilling and authentic. The woman who invests time in herself and is clear on what makes her happy will be the person who will make a difference to her life as well to the society.
As said by Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor 121-70 AD) – People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills…there is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.
