Gender diversity needs a mixed team playing on a united front

Gender diversity has become a hot topic during the past few of years.

Gender diversity has become a hot topic during the past few of years, particularly since the release of the Catalyst report that showed Fortune 500 companies with the greatest representation of female board directors had significantly better financial performances, on average, than those with the lowest representation.

Things are slowly changing but not fast enough. Women are still under-represented in leadership and executive roles in Australia.

Perhaps the problem is that gender diversity has been seen as a women’s issue rather than a business one. Women have been talking about it and pushing for change for quite some time but it has been a lonely job.

Rather than trying to push our way into the men’s football team, we need men to come and create a team with us. But how can we get men more involved in building gender diversity?

Fortunately, we have a headstart. The Australian Human Rights Commission has brought together some of Australia’s most influential male chief executives and chairmen to form Male Champions of Change. This group has seen gender balance become a key issue in the leadership of some of Australia’s major companies.

These men have committed to actively improving gender balance within their companies.

The global campaign He For She is pushing attention to the broader issues of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls around the world.

It’s a start but it isn’t enough, and the Male Champions of Change agrees. So what else can we do to encourage men to support gender diversity?

Let’s personalise it. I’ve brought my football. Want to join my team?

Catalyst research shows the more men know about gender inequalities, the likelier they are to lead efforts to close the gender gap. And we need men to lead change alongside women.

We have men already in senior leadership positions who wield influence. They are the people who others will listen to and they are the leaders other men will follow.

But it’s not personal enough to talk about the needs of only one team. What about the other? What needs does the male sex have when it comes to diversity?

The workplace is not like it was 10 years ago. More and more men are taking their turn as chief caregiver at home and giving up their position in the workplace. They are entering what traditionally has been the female space and now they will be confronted with their own brand of discrimination, particularly from the old guard of traditional male leaders.

Catalyst says the more men know about gender inequalities, the more they’ll try to do something about it, but I doubt it was talking about living the experience. Yet this will work to our advantage. It is becoming personal for all of us.

From the top and the bottom. How many footballs do we have?

We can talk all we like about statistics but gender diversity is a human issue, not purely a matter of numbers.

While we have the support of Male Champions of Change changing the system from the top down, perhaps we can recruit the men who are experiencing the same kinds of limitations women are. Perhaps we can drive change from the bottom up.

Gender diversity is an issue that affects us all. If we can stop fighting over the football, perhaps we can join together and field a team — a league — and start striving for change as a united front.

Sonia McDonald is director of Leadership HQ.