More female leaders, please

Research from the global talent management consultancy DDI suggests that companies with a higher percentage of women in leadership positions demonstrate better financial performance.

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast for 2014/2015 questioned 13,124 leaders and 1,528 HR executives about the leadership in organisations across 48 countries. The results of the forecast suggest that gender diversity is key to companies’ success.

While men considered themselves more effective as leaders, companies with a greater proportion of female leaders ranked higher in terms of financial performance. Women held over a third of leadership positions in the top 20 per cent of financial performers, compared to the bottom 20 per cent, where just under a fifth were women.

Of the leaders questioned, 92 per cent claimed to be engaged within their current role, while 40 per cent of business leaders would rate their organisation’s leadership quality as ‘high’.

Author

Barney Ely

Director at Hays

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Barney is Director at Hays Human Resources, the leading UK HR recruiting experts, leading a team of 80 HR recruitment consultants in 40 locations across the UK.

Barney also has operational responsibility for Hays offices across the South of England, with responsibility for teams placing professionals in over 20 industry sectors, from accountancy and finance to construction, IT, marketing and education. Across many of these sectors, Hays also has further teams dedicated to public services, not-for-profit, executive and international recruitment

Barney is an active partner to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), sitting on the CIPD People Management Awards panel.

Barney joined Hays in 1993 as a business graduate and has spent much of his career recruiting for blue-chip organisations and SMEs.