In the United States, the upcoming retirement of the baby boomers will probably mean that companies are going to lose large numbers of senior-level employees in a short period of time; nearly one-fifth of the working-age population (16 and older) of the United States will be at least 65 by 2016. Demographic trends show that women are the largest demographic for helping fill this upcoming talent pool decline and organizations will begin to experience recruiting issues if they do not start to pay attention to how to attract and retain women leaders.

There are many ways women can support themselves to improve their potential to lead within an organization. What ideas do you have?

What Can Women Do?

1. Connectedness – Women network differently than men and learning how to break into the informal power networks in order to be considered for senior level roles is critical. Men have more “weak ties” and feel more comfortable with reciprocity which makes them more open to recommending their acquaintances for senior roles.

Women must learn how to build networks of people that truly can provide the influence to help them advance rather than just building strong personal relationships with a small group of people they feel comfortable with.

2. Just Say Yes – As mentioned above, women feel that they need to have 100% of the qualifications required before they can apply or accept a role that they have not had experience with before. Men will raise their hand if only 60% of the qualifications are met. Women need to develop the confidence to know that they have the common sense and ability to ask for help in order to be successful at more challenging roles.

3. Seek Sponsors and Mentors – Those women that seek out role models of other women and men who have attained roles they aspire to often move up faster due to the support and advice they receive.

4. Manage Your Career – Seek opportunities, both inside and outside the organization, to broaden skill sets to encourage learning of more operational knowledge such as strategy, financial acumen, sales and global experience to help round out the abilities needed for more senior level roles.

On November 17th, UC Davis published the latest Census of Women Leaders in California and the statistics showed that not much progress has been made since the inception of the study 4 years ago. And, these numbers have not changed much nationwide as shown by the ION Census Data from 12 other major financial centers in the US including New York, Boston, Chicago and Detroit.

This is such a complex issue with gender differences, stereotypes and corporate culture all playing a role in why the numbers stay where they are.

Research shows that having women leaders in your organization has a direct impact on corporate performance. Companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams experience stronger financial performance when compared to companies with the lowest representation of women in senior positions–Return on Equity is 35% higher and Total Return to Shareholders is 34% higher for companies with more senior women executives. McKinsey has also published some recent data that supports this premise.

We believe that there are practical steps that can be taken by both organizations and women leaders to help change this picture. What ideas do you have regarding what can be changed within yourself or your organization?

What can organizations do about it?

1.    Support from the CEO and Measurement

Embracing Diversity is not an HR issue and creating a Diversity Team under HR with no funding is not the same as truly supporting and role modeling diversity at the top.

Companies with CEO’s who create intention and measurement for the recruitment (this is not the same as setting quotas), retention and engagement of women leaders often show a higher percentage of women leaders in their ranks.

This can be accomplished by encouraging hiring managers, and measuring them, to make sure that they are interviewing as equal a number as possible of women vs. men for any open positions.

Unconscious stereotyping still exists and people tend to hire people they are comfortable with and more often than not, this equates to people who “look like them.” Creating intention to help break through this unconscious stereotyping is one method for enhancing women’s opportunities for advancement.

2.    Support Mentoring, Sponsorship, and Networking Programs

Women apply for roles when they think they have 100% of the criteria listed in the role whereas men will apply if they meet 60% of the criteria. Women need to be encouraged more to apply for these positions and having formal mentoring programs have proven to be an effective tool.

Sponsorship is the next level up where a manager creates opportunities for high potential women leaders to move up more quickly rather than waiting for general opportunities to arise.

3.    Work/Life Flexibility

92% of women are the main caretakers at home with child care or elder care in addition to holding full time jobs. Other than basic benefits such as maternity leave, companies need to become more creative in assisting women with more flexibility to manage the challenges they face outside of work and not be penalized from the leader track if they need to take more time off during their peak earning years in order to manage their home life challenges.

Nancy Pelosi has just published a new book, already on the bestseller list, called Know Your Power:  A Message to America’s Daughters. On August 13th, she was in conversation with Sydnie Kohara about the book to an audience of approximately 400 women leaders at the Oracle Auditorium.  The conversation was an intimate fireside chat with Nancy talking about her experiences with her family, in politics, and of being a leader.

When I read her book, there were two messages that really resonated with me — building confidence and building collaborations.

I often hear stories from women who are presented opportunities that are a significant challenge or step up from what they are currently doing, and the first reaction is, “I couldn’t possibly do that, I’ve never done that before.”   A man’s reaction is typically - “YES!” and then privately they think the same thing.  Women need to learn to just say “YES” and have the confidence to know they’ll do a great job.

I learned that whatever opportunity I was presented, I would be likely to succeed as I had the confidence to know that through collaboration,  I would find someone who’s either done this before who could share their experience, or find someone I could partner with who would help me take the opportunity to a new level.

Forums like ours exist as we, as women leaders, know the true power of collaboration.  Power means influence leading to action.  What actions can we take today and who can we collaborate with today to make a real difference?

I recently had the pleasure of spending time with Mike Cassidy, Business Columnist of the San Jose Mercury News where we talked about a myriad of issues including the significance of Hillary’s recent campaign and the lack of women CEO’s in Silicon Valley.

On Monday, Mike also wrote a follow-up post, reflecting the truly ongoing nature of this conversation.

On Saturday, we watched Hillary Clinton suspend her historic campaign. Regardless of your political affiliation or your perspective on race and gender issues in America, there is no denying that this event underscored what an incredible achievement Hillary’s campaign has been for women in America, and that has hopefully smoothed the course somewhat - in one way or another - for more women who deal with a range of barriers to professional success.

Hillary mentioned the glass ceiling in her speech stating: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.”

But, turning to business, the statistics are still very unsettling and there is little progress being seen when it comes to shattering that glass ceiling at the most senior levels. Mike Cassidy alluded to this in his recent article about the lack of Women CEO’s in Tech.

David G.Thomson, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and author of Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth, and upcoming speaker at FWE&E has recently written an article in USA Today where he reports that only 43 women have climbed the traditional ladder to become CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies in the last 35 years, and fresh research from executive women’s organization Catalyst suggests that the pipeline is not exactly filling up with future candidates.

But if 43 seems like a low number, consider how many companies were founded by women, then grew into the Fortune 1000. The total is three. And all were co-founded by men. At USA Today’s request, Thomson re-examined his data and re-interviewed women entrepreneurs to make sure that the early signs of a change weren’t around the corner. He learned two things: There are no signs of change and, “This is a very emotionally charged topic,” he says.

Women who have built big companies don’t know why they remain so rare, but explanations fall largely into two camps: discrimination and nature. They say men have easier access to money from bankers and venture capitalists, the lifeblood of growth. Women also are often more devoted to family, and even those who out-earn their husbands often remain responsible for children and households.

Turning back to Silicon Valley, moving women in to leadership positions in tech lacks the momentum that other industries experience. What does the future hold for women leaders in tech and what are the challenges women face in moving higher up the leadership ladder? Mary O’Hara Devereaux, CEO of Global Foresight and an internationally recognized business forecaster and strategist will be discussing this at an event on June 17th. She has some provocative insight into what women could be doing differently to start to change this picture but also how corporations need to be more conscious of the impact on their future results in not creating intention to change the statistics.

So, why are there not more women in senior management and CEO ranks? What is the critical value to society of having women in CEO and Board positions? Why is female leadership still such an emotionally charged issue? And finally, did Hillary’s campaign help raise awareness or continue to polarize the conscious or unconscious biases and barriers that exist?