Brian Groom reported the launch of OUTstanding in Business in today's FT, a senior network for CEO level corporate leaders aiming to encourage positive attitudes towards gay professionals. While there are plenty of gay network groups in almost every profession, such a senior level platform as this is a new and welcome initiative. The hope is that this will encourage more senior gay men and women in some of the more traditional sectors of the corporate world to come out and in turn, become role models for other young gay professionals.
Women are treading the same path and have done so for a long time. Today, there are women networks aplenty but there are still relatively few networks for senior women at the top of their tree, who can use their public image as role models for young women. I have long argued that increasingly, young women look more to public role models than their mothers and women closer to home, as has traditionally been the case.
Three years ago, I and a handful of senior women in Scotland put together a day-long event at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow for senior women in Scotland. About 70 of us gathered in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow to talk about different perspectives on the challenges women face in Scotland. This was followed by two other events - one at the Scottish Parliament to provide a women's perspective on the Scotland Scenario 2030 which had been put together at the time (without contribution from women leaders I hasten to add, something the event rectified satisfactorily), and another at the beautiful Dovecote tapestry studios in Edinburgh to talk about commitments to role-modelling.
In the US, Arianna Huffington initiated The Third Metric, bringing together senior women to try and find a more sustainable model of success beyond the one based on the current male-dominated model which equates success with burnout, sleep deprivation and driving ourselves into the ground. The debate in the US is being played out with great fanfare - Sheryl Sandberg's widely debated Lean In being one of the most recent.
Time, commitment and keeping the cause alive are key ingredients for advocacy campaigns. The biggest challenge for networks of CEOs, whose time is at a premium and often outside their own control, is keeping the cause alive.
CEOs are a great draw for the fanfare of new initiatives and not surprisingly, their involvement helps the cause enormously. But they have a bigger job to do. They are the most powerful advocates within their own organisations and sectors. Their buy-in ensures things actually get done. Setting up a real and effective campaign within their own organisations to shift mindset and change behaviour is arguably the best approach and one that will deliver real dividends. Making diversity programmes come to life, and making sure the old guard gives way to new ways of working can only happen if the CEO not only sponsors it, but is also seen to sponsor it publicly and actively.
RBS's commitment at Board level to encourage women leaders has given birth to a number of exciting opportunities including The Two Percent Club which asks its members to pledge personal action such as helping other women connect, sponsoring other women, advocating business issues to companies and individuals who may need support. Goldman Sachs' 85 Broads has been so successful it has now spun off as a separate entity.
I love watching big spenders at a charity auction. They compete to spend more than the next big spender at the next table, helping push auction figures and philanthropic pride up and of course, the charity benefits as more money pours in. In a similar vein, CEOs can become bigger heroes in their own companies by championing the cause for diversity leadership. They can, and will, use this as bragging rights among their peers and in the process, we all benefit.
Fanfare is needed when new campaigns and networks are set up, but for real action that really makes a difference, work has to happen at home.
Women are treading the same path and have done so for a long time. Today, there are women networks aplenty but there are still relatively few networks for senior women at the top of their tree, who can use their public image as role models for young women. I have long argued that increasingly, young women look more to public role models than their mothers and women closer to home, as has traditionally been the case.
Three years ago, I and a handful of senior women in Scotland put together a day-long event at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow for senior women in Scotland. About 70 of us gathered in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow to talk about different perspectives on the challenges women face in Scotland. This was followed by two other events - one at the Scottish Parliament to provide a women's perspective on the Scotland Scenario 2030 which had been put together at the time (without contribution from women leaders I hasten to add, something the event rectified satisfactorily), and another at the beautiful Dovecote tapestry studios in Edinburgh to talk about commitments to role-modelling.
In the US, Arianna Huffington initiated The Third Metric, bringing together senior women to try and find a more sustainable model of success beyond the one based on the current male-dominated model which equates success with burnout, sleep deprivation and driving ourselves into the ground. The debate in the US is being played out with great fanfare - Sheryl Sandberg's widely debated Lean In being one of the most recent.
Time, commitment and keeping the cause alive are key ingredients for advocacy campaigns. The biggest challenge for networks of CEOs, whose time is at a premium and often outside their own control, is keeping the cause alive.
CEOs are a great draw for the fanfare of new initiatives and not surprisingly, their involvement helps the cause enormously. But they have a bigger job to do. They are the most powerful advocates within their own organisations and sectors. Their buy-in ensures things actually get done. Setting up a real and effective campaign within their own organisations to shift mindset and change behaviour is arguably the best approach and one that will deliver real dividends. Making diversity programmes come to life, and making sure the old guard gives way to new ways of working can only happen if the CEO not only sponsors it, but is also seen to sponsor it publicly and actively.
RBS's commitment at Board level to encourage women leaders has given birth to a number of exciting opportunities including The Two Percent Club which asks its members to pledge personal action such as helping other women connect, sponsoring other women, advocating business issues to companies and individuals who may need support. Goldman Sachs' 85 Broads has been so successful it has now spun off as a separate entity.
I love watching big spenders at a charity auction. They compete to spend more than the next big spender at the next table, helping push auction figures and philanthropic pride up and of course, the charity benefits as more money pours in. In a similar vein, CEOs can become bigger heroes in their own companies by championing the cause for diversity leadership. They can, and will, use this as bragging rights among their peers and in the process, we all benefit.
Fanfare is needed when new campaigns and networks are set up, but for real action that really makes a difference, work has to happen at home.
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