Chairman of The Future: Diversity at The Top

Published by Advanced Boardroom Excellence

Business of the future

The sustainability of companies and businesses to contribute and benefit all of their stakeholders, is increasingly at the forefront of the minds of Politicians, Regulators, Society Pressure groups and Individuals. 

The journey of Boards over the last 10 years towards greater diversity has seen a significant shift and we are starting to see the benefits of these more diverse Boards performing effectively in response to a wide range of challenges.  The fact that this has been achieved in the UK with a governance ‘Code’ which is “not a rulebook, but sets out good practice”, and is guided by the ‘Comply or Explain’ principle, is a significant achievement.  

The success of the gender targets from the Davies Report to 25% females on Boards in the FTSE100 and increasing to 33% under the auspices of the Hampton-Alexander Review has been commendable.  This has, on occasion felt like pulling teeth without an anaesthetic, but there is still much more to do in driving diversity down through the executive pipeline and deeper into the FTSE350 on a consistent basis.

However, we also need to focus more fully on the diversity drive for the Chairman role, both to reflect these recent diversity gains on our Boards and to provide Leadership and a catalyst for increased change and action from our Boards.

This should not be a struggle, the barriers to achieving these targets are well known and facile.  It is time to stop this wastage and get on with the job of facilitating women to achieve the top roles in our companies.  The conspicuous and outstanding talent to run and govern our companies is not in such great supply that we can afford to ignore 40% of the potential candidates.

The skills of chairman

The latest research from INSEAD suggests that if we do nothing there will be 20% of women as Chairman of our Boards by 2027 (INSEAD Research by Professor Stanislav Shekshnia).   

We need to accelerate this change and ‘skip’ a male generation to drive the appointment of female Chairman more quickly and beyond that 20%.

As you look at the skills and expertise required to be an effective Chairman, the peer reviewed research, the survey research evidence and the anecdotal evidence for what makes an effective Chairman is very clear.  Beyond an obvious group of qualifying skills of integrity, personal strength, courage and intelligence, the skills that emerge as critical and defining are; an ability to influence others without dominating, having an engaged vision of the future, strong emotional intelligence and coaching skills.

 “To be effective, Chairman must recognize that they are not commanders but facilitators. Their role is to create the conditions under which the Board can have productive group discussions. They should recognize that they are not first among equals. They are just the person responsible for making everyone on their board a good director.” (Professor Stanislav Shekshnia INSEAD-Leading from The Chair Programme).

The Behavioural-Emotional skills which are to the fore are, emotional awareness – an ability to read the room, emotional empathy, an ability to connect and get alongside people, interpersonal adeptness, an ability to contextualise a situation to the individual, interpersonal influencing, an ability to use a range of influencing strategies and the ability to build trust upon which people can rely.

Why do we need to accelerate the pace of change?

 Without intervention the research predicts we will get to 20% of women in the Chairman role by 2027.  This is too slow; the target should be to get to 35% by 2025 and 50% by 2027.

While the general diversity debate has moved on, advancements towards Women Chairman are pitiful, with still too many active resistors, Headhunters, Chairman, Nominations Committees, and perpetuating stereotypes that you need 10 years Board experience to be considered.

More Women in the Chairman role can help rebuild the trust in UK PLCs and build businesses that deliver business performance combined with social and environmental benefits, leading to greater sustainability in our society.

The social case for women Chairman is clear, ranging from societal benefits, to greater empowerment and inclusion of women, visible role models, as well as access to a broader talent pool and range of diverse skills.  

There is a growing and enthusiastic enclave of advocates for the acceleration of progression of Women into the Chairman role, including existing Female Directors, both Executive and Non-Executive, Women on Boards Network, IWF (International Women’s Forum), MACA (Men as Change Agents) CBI, IOD, 30% Club.

We have started the ‘Diversity at the Top’ initiative as an advocacy group to focus on this Female Chairman issue.

Blockers to progress

Women themselves will also need to bolster their resolve.  They often don’t express the ambition to be Chairman having the limiting self-belief that it is beyond their grasp.  They need to overcome this age-old mind-set which causes them to seek to ‘over-qualify’ and be ‘over-capable’ before targeting themselves at the role.

Educating Nominations Committee members (39% of whom are Women) in how to formulate gender neutral job and person specifications is key, along with conducting a detailed skills audit of the Board with Diversity as a core dimension. This is best practice, but not universally applied. The new Combined Governance Code 2018 will drive this in part, with its focus on diversity and a cap on total time served on a Board.

Also, a shift needs to be made in the Recruitment-Development processes, moving from a stereotypical view of the Chairman role profile, towards a more creative resourcing, on-boarding and mentoring support process developing more appropriate role models.

There needs to be more active sponsorship and development of women at the Board level to engage with development for the Chairman role.  This needs to go beyond the typical Big Four Information sessions typically on Audit/Risk/Cyber/Governance, into a more creative development framework of Board level development. This will require women to step beyond the Board for their development, recognising that many Boards already have limited time allocated to developing both their knowledge spectrum and the dynamics within the Boardroom.

We need to increase our ambition beyond the 20% by 2027, with targets of 30-35% by 2025 and 50% by 2027.  Discussions with influencers and colleagues focused on the diversity of Boards, has highlighted their disappointment at the pace of change towards Female Chairman. Consequently, it is time to drive practical and direct action to accelerate the acquisition of more female Chairman right across the FTSE environment.

It is time to push through this current psychological log jam and actively discuss the facilitative and revolutionary-evolution to remove this limiting mental model and stereotype of a Chairman.  There will need to be a concerted effort from Headhunters, Chairman, the media and the other wide range of interested groups to draw on available mentors and sponsors as well as to challenge thinking and make this happen.

As a practical step we gathered together a group of like-minded people from a range of backgrounds who are committed to increasing the number of Female Chairman, as an exemplar of Board performance and a beacon for the diversity of their Executive pipelines.

This group has focused on this, ‘Diversity At The Top’ Initiative – The Future of Woman Chairman, over a series of meetings and discussions, and provided a spotlight on the issues and more importantly the potential solutions to this logjam.  Below is a summary of the deliberations of this group and an Action Plan which they saw as the most important areas to highlight to ‘move the dial’.

Download the Report

Diversity At The Top: Action Plan
(PDF 252 KB)