We mourn and discuss a lot about all the obstacles for more female leaders in Germany…
By: Elisabeth Tafelmeyer
Tags: Changemaker, Diversity, Leadership, Female Empowerment, Inclusion

But we seem to try rarely what is already possible

I think this is the right time to talk about what works. What you can achieve when you stop to worry and tear down the walls in our heads. Still, I read news about “there are not enough women who can climb up the ladder”.

So is the conclusion, we still have to train them, HR has to find solutions for parents and better working models, politics has to give state subsidies…?

Ok guys, how long will this take? We are having a quota now. That’s great. But the next step ISN’T to find more explanations for why it doesn’t work yet and work around establishing female leaders. It is time to act. And it is so much easier than all the discussion can make you think it is. Here are a few very easy examples, nearly every company can establish from tomorrow:

Shared leadership model

Research is clear about, that true leadership isn’t about one person in the room or just the CEO has to be amazing. Today we know: Leadership is an ecosystem. A true team rocking not only around the christmas tree. Enhancing and enabling others to grow bigger than themselves. I will propose again what I proposed already several years ago and got a smile from my boss saying “No my dear, this is a nice idea, but actually it is just a nice phantasy”.

Set two people in a driver’s seat and let them share responsibility for a team.

Eg. to come back to female leadership: Set in two women, two mothers, or two fathers, who can represent each other as teamleads, directors, … what is the problem? They even can work part-time. It works, it distributes and equals power, it ensures a consulting among each others, a 4-eye-principle.

Remote and semi-remote working for a fair business world

A reason, I heard a lot when I was proposing female leaders for position in my past was: “Oh dear, they can’t be in the office as long as others, they have children.” Ok, the pandemic gave the last proof, that power and information gets more distributed and documentation becomes more disciplined in a remote setup. If you want to see you business succeed, you had to learn to lead people remotely this year. The pandemic brought a lot of problems, tragedy and loss into our lives. But it also brought a proof for the fact, that being present in the office or being the last person on a christmas party doesn’t mean to be an effective leader.

So if we finally rewire this story from the past now, that physical presence is a good reason to not hire mothers or fathers into a leadership position, we are already going into the right direction and make the business world a fairer and better place already.

Understanding life-long-learning: learning sabbatical

Yes, it is understandable that parents’ want to see their children growing up and there might be times where other things than the next business training have priority. But you know, it can happen to everyone in the world, that you get sick as a leader, or that life calls you into another project. Our parents get older. Our sisters, brothers and friends might need our help. That is called simply life. Our work connects us to a community, it gives us the feeling of accomplishment and growth. You know, also other communities and personal projects do this with and for us. Doesn’t matter if we are a woman, a man, transgender, black, white, … This is about human beings. So, we finally in times of disruption we have to understand one thing from a business point of view. We don’t come out of university and that just climb up the ladder with no obstacles. We will learn and reinvent ourselves and our careers a life long. So if learning and development has to be part of the working time, no matter if we are parents or not. Science shows, that we have every single day the chance to learn and rewire our brains. There is no rat-race. There is no end-date in our mid-40ies where things are decided. Why not setting up programs, where parents get even more time after a babybreak to reskill or upskill?

Why not introducing a learning sabbatical, that can be taken by every member of the organization to upskill and reskill the career? We anyways need to keep people and the knowledge within a company up to date!

It took maybe 10 min to write down some short ideas. It isn’t a major issue to introduce at least one of them from tomorrow. I know, there might be many buts and what ifs out there. But you know, if you never try, nothing will change. Just run through the fear and to it. This is where the magic happens. I didn’t take the time to re-read, or to optimize this text. Why? Because things don’t have to be perfect when you want change. When you want to do something for a better business world. You just have to get started and will learn and improve along the way.