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.

Today, Monday November 17th, 2008, UC Davis Graduate School of Management, in partnership with FWE&E, is publishing the 4th Annual UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders to report on the latest numbers of women leaders for the top 400 public companies in the State of California.

In addition to UC Davis, we are proud to partner with The InterOrganization Network (ION), an organization consisting of 12 member organizations like ours in the major business centers of the U.S. including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, etc. We combine our energies by all providing census data with our partners for our local areas and our programs are based on advocating the advancement of women to positions of power in the business world, especially to boards of directors and executive suites. Download ION’s 2008 Report (pdf).

The fourth annual UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders found that only 13 of California’s 400 largest public companies have a woman CEO. Overall, women hold just 10.9 percent of board seats and executive positions — insignificant progress from 2007, when the figure was 10.4 percent, and from 2006 and 2005, when it was 10.2 percent. Download the complete report (pdf)

What can we do about changing this picture? On November 18, 2008 FWE&E will host “Women in Corporate Leadership: Action Plan for Change” from 8 to 10 a.m. at Microsoft, 1065 La Avenida, Building I, in Mountain View. Register today to attend the event.

Find additional highlights from the study.

Last week, the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives was proud to honor Heidi Roizen as our 2008 Achievement Award Winner. The Award was created in 1995 and Heidi was chosen as this year’s honoree as she exemplifies the spirit of entrepreneurship and represents women who have made a significant, positive and sustainable impact on their profession, their community and world.

There was such great energy in the room and it was almost impossible to get people seated and quiet in order to begin the program which is a great problem to have. Several attendees commented on the quality of people who attended along with the depth of conversations that were being held. A tribute to our transformation as we continue to grow by adding more accomplished women leaders from the Bay area into our community to add their thought leadership and influence into our mix. The San Francisco Chronicle covered the event.

Heidi herself was the crowning moment of the evening. She speaks with such open-ness, truth and with a great sense of humor leaving you feeling inspired and empowered by her story. Suzanne Shaw, Emmy award winning journalist, was our Master of Ceremonies for the evening and she did a “masterful” job of managing the conversation with Heidi.

Some of the highlights of their conversation included the value of building relationships vs “networking” - approaching a contact with genuine interest in who they are vs. what they can offer you is the best way of developing those deep relationships that lead to business and personal opportunities in many future years. Heidi has personal relationships with people such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet that were developed before “they were famous.”

Bill took the time to participate in a wonderful video celebration of Heidi’s life and career that began the evening (directed by JuneBug Films because of her long time personal relationship with him.

Heidi has also embarked on a new venture ,”Skinny Songs“, based on a passion she has for helping women feel positively motivated to want to lose weight. She is now a lyricist (which her daughter thinks is more cool than being a venture capitalist) and developed her new entrepreneurial venture by knowing her own strengths and reaching out to other professionals who complemented her skill set in order to create something truly unique in the marketplace.

Her fearlessness comes from her ability to create her own definition of success and not worry so much about society’s definition or about what other people think. She mentioned that her first role was CEO of T/Maker and since then her titles have actually diminished in stature. Her definition of success revolves around following her passion and having balance in her life which makes some of those moments of “should I have said that” seem much less important.

Her closing remarks brought a cheer from the audience as we all felt the relevance to ourselves. She mentions that Shirley Maclaine (and feel what you will about Shirley - the message is what’s so great) has a quote on her website that states that in our twenties, we worry about what people are saying about us; in our forties we don’t care what people are saying about us and in our sixties, we realize that no one was saying anything about us.

FWE&E is thrilled to have honored Heidi as this year’s Achievement Award Winner and we look forward to continuing our relationship with her and seeing her continue on her path forward with Skinny Songs and beyond!

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?

I’ve been absolutely amazed at the number of articles I’ve seen recently about sexism in America that segue into the alarming statistics on the stagnation and slippage of women’s advancement in corporate America. What’s driving the numbers and why is there such emotion around the topic - from both men and women? For example, check out the recent article in Conde Nast’s Porfolio entitled Sexism in the Workplace. Some really “interesting” statistics include: (and there are many more):

• American Bar Association shows female attorney weekly wages amounted to 70.5% of male lawyer’s in 2006 compared with 77.5% in 2005.
• Number of women holding Fortune 500 board seats increased steadily between 1995 and 2005 but has been essentially flat for the past 3 years.
• Number of female corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies has dropped in each of the past three years.

What’s even more interesting is reading the blog comments of the readers. The venom represented by both men and women shows mass stereotyping, fear, anger and a general sense of powerlessness on the part of women. The Wall Street Journal had a front page article on Saturday March 29th titled At the Barricades in the Gender Wars talking about Hilary Clinton’s campaign and the fear her supporters have about a sexist backlash. A lot of questions about whether America is ready for a woman leader. My colleague Paige Wesley mentioned that she’s talked to a number of women from various generations who are actually concerned about this – feeling that a woman won’t get Congressional or public support to be effective in the White House.

How is it that other nations have been able to cross this barrier and the U.S., where we pride ourselves on civil rights and women’s lib, still quakes at the idea of women in power? Why is gender even a point of debate when there are so many other more serious issues to discuss? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one! What’s the next step? How are we as women owning – and investing in - our power and authority? What needs to happen to drive the change we want to see? Is it about networking skills - developing our own “old girls club”? Having intention? Being mentors? I think we could all benefit from hearing about how your gender may have affected your rise to leadership - both positively and negatively. What did you learn from the experience, how would you change your response to it now? Looking forward to continuing the discussion!

Welcome to the inaugural post of the new Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives blog. As an organization that connects experienced women with unique points of view, what better way of creating a forum for dialogue than through the vehicle of social media.

Our organization is all about connecting experienced women leaders to peers, mentors and resources to deliver a deeper understanding of business in the context of a larger perspective. So, why are we not using technology as a means of supporting this powerful network?

I’ve found many CEOs and execs I know had a similar first impression of the concept of Social Networking: Who’s got time to post a profile and pictures up on Facebook, and get “poked” by close friends? Not me! Frankly, I prefer a more traditional type of relationship with people I’m close to. So how exactly would Social Networking apply to my professional career?

Yet through personal experience, I’ve recently discovered the term “Social Networking” to be something of a misnomer. It’s not strictly about entertainment or socializing with family and friends, but is about building a community, which has infinite application to building business networks. Social Networking is actually a mechanism by which professionals can better communicate, better share, and better collaborate. In fact, in this day and age, Social Networking is becoming as fundamental to how we do business as the internet itself. It is about how we use the technology at our disposal to strengthen business relationships, share ideas, and interface with potential sponsors, clients, members and customers.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve become a believer that there is something worthwhile going on here. In organizing our first-ever conference on Social Networking “Business Applications of Social Networking” on March 25, an enlightened member of my Advisory Board connected us to the keynote speaker via Facebook. In addition, I’ve been seeking a new Director of Marketing and Communications, and some of the best resumes I’ve received came in after I posted the job on LinkedIn. Definitely not a waste of my time!

Through exposure to Gina Bianchini at Ning, we’ve decided as an organization that creating a Social Networking site for our members is a crucial and exciting new avenue for our “forum.” Hopefully we can use these activities as another way of forging and sustaining deep and meaningful connections, and as a means of self-educating on the business benefits of Social Networking. Please join us March 25 to hear from the experts (that includes you) how Social Networking can benefit your business.

I look forward to your comments about your business experiences with Social Networking. Also, let us know what specific questions you’d like to have answered at the conference?