4 ways to strengthen female leadership in Latin America

In 2024, LinkedIn data shows that the hiring of women for leadership positions began to deteriorate, falling in early 2024 to 36.4% globally, below 2021 levels, with the most notable decline in senior leadership positions.

Faced with such inequity, organizations must question whether or not they have an organizational culture that supports and promotes the development of female leadership.

For more than a century, women have demanded rights and benefits that have not been preconceived as humanity’s development advances. The notion of this historical debt begins with the most basic fight for labour rights and civil rights and continues today with the quest for “equal pay” and opportunities for female participation in different productive sectors and hierarchical levels.

The Gender Gap Report 2024 reveals that, despite the progress, it takes 134 years to close the gap, with a direct influence on economic, educational, health and political leadership opportunities.

In Ecuador, a pioneering country for women’s suffrage in Latin America, the national reality, as shown in a local study, is that despite its progress – ranking 10th for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Global Gender Gap Report 2024 – 52% of people still believe that promoting gender equality is synonymous with discrimination against men. In the same survey, only 33% of respondents identified themselves as feminists or promoters of gender equality.

Despite the progress made in gender parity, companies maintain glass ceilings that hinder the development of female leadership and respect for an organizational culture with values aligned with diversity and inclusion.

Women who participate in sectors considered primarily male-dominated face additional challenges when placed in a competitive situation where they are forced to outperform their male counterparts. They invest more hours in professional training, innovating and directing and participate more in projects and assignments. At the same time, they endure more unpaid workloads at home.

In some cases, it seems women may reach managerial roles through unfair expectations, which could lead them to stop aiming for further higher positions. This often results in a lack of female successors in those roles.

It’s important to consider whether these isolated examples of female leadership are sustainable. Sometimes, women are chosen just to meet quotas or they’re selected because they meet unusually high standards. In other cases, they may be given roles where they’re expected to follow orders, reinforcing gender inequality and preventing the development of true female leadership.

Strengthening female leadership in the workplace requires efforts in ethics and social responsibility, which are encouraged from different sources: the company itself, civil awareness, the government, non-government organizations and international organizations that support the notion that female leadership is synonymous with competitive advantage.

The following strategies can help improve the perception and sustainability of female leadership in Latin America:

Talk about harmony rather than work-life balance for a woman in management. If organizations are more conscious of the disparate unpaid workload women possess, they should facilitate the harmony required between women’s personal life and their right to build a professional leadership career within the organization.

Small actions such as results-based evaluation for certain projects or an adaptable schedule can provide the flexibility to help women harmonize their lives.

Not having standardized internal mentoring protocols means not standardizing the treatment of a female leader or one from an underrepresented group compared to a male or traditional leader. Every leader makes mistakes and there will always be an understandable fear about how to approach difficult conversations, such as correction or formative and temporary micromanagement.

Hence, the importance of having a diversity of collaborators that reflect the sense of belonging, where there is not just one female leader, but rather a support structure that allows for several generations of female leaders, making them role models within the organization and not isolated cases.

The lack of dialogue with and feedback for female leaders creates complex situations, such as unequal corrective measures for men and women in management positions.

For example, the same scenario could lead to the dismissal of a woman but a man might receive only one corrective measure for a man in the same management position. Harmonizing the different facets of women’s lives also implies measuring men and women with the same yardstick, to applaud or to correct.

Participation quotas are not enough for organizations to level the playing field for female leadership in Latin America. They should also monitor the general perspective of all employees around women to verify that there are, for example:

Joint efforts to retain female talent.Female leadership succession.Increased interest in pursuing leadership by women.Elimination of stereotypes about women who occupy management positions.

This and many other data points can enrich continuous improvement in an organizational culture distinguished by valuing its diverse management talent.