The unsurprising truth about female leaders

On Monday, I moderated a panel of female business leaders at the 10th Annual Duke MBA Women’s Leadership Conference. I started the discussion by posing a question to the audience of roughly 100 female MBA students and professors.

“Fortune recently released its list of The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders and less than a third were women. Does that surprise anyone?”

Not a single woman rose her hand.

While it may not be surprising that women represent the minority of great leaders in business or beyond, I was shocked that this future cohort of business execs appeared unfazed by the stat. A majority of the women in the audience would be rejoining the workforce in a matter of months. Yet the lack of female role models ahead of them appears to be nothing but old news.

Rather than dwell on the reality of the present, I turned to my panel — leaders at CitiGroup, Procter & Gamble, SAP and Aetna — to weigh in on the future. How can women make that very unsurprising stat, surprising in the future? Here is what they said.

Brag about yourself because no one else will.

Women are much less likely than men to share their accomplishments at work with their managers, said Marissa Moss, a director in CitiGroup’s High Yield Research Group. While men are willing to brag about their big wins, women think that if they just do a good job, their work will eventually be noticed. Moss said that’s not the case, particularly in male-dominated fields like finance, and encouraged the MBA students to speak up at work when they succeed.

Get used to taking risks because it never gets any easier.

While women may be more risk-averse than men, risk-taking doesn’t suddenly become easier as you go through your career, said Jill Higman, an executive director at Aetna. In fact, as women progress in their career, it’s more likely that risk-taking becomes more challenging as they get married and begin families. Yet the reality is taking risks is necessary to having a successful career. Higman, who admitted that she is not a natural risk-taker, shared that she taught herself to become more tolerant. The key is taking opportunities and pushing for the right job when it makes sense for you in your career, she said.

Marry a man who wants to stay home.

Sharon Ruddock, global vice president and chief learning officer at SAP, didn’t succeed in finding a partner who was willing to stay home, but she still encouraged the audience to seek out a stay-at-home dad. The support at home can make taking big opportunities in your career all that much easier, she said. Ruddock also encouraged the audience to be overconfident in their abilities as she views a lack of confidence as the main reason why we see fewer female leaders in business.

Pull out bias from the hiring process.

For Charlene Patten, the global brand franchise leader of Gillette Venus and female shave care at Procter & Gamble, the numbers won’t change until the unconscious bias of the hiring process does. We all have read the studies that say a guy named Howard is more likely to get the job than a woman named Heidi with the identical resume. At Procter & Gamble, the company takes a candidate’s name and gender off of his or her resume to ensure bias doesn’t creep in.

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Caroline Fairchild is the New Economy Editor at LinkedIn.