Championing women leaders – Interview with Lady Kitty Chisholm and Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj

Boardwalk Leadership was born when Lady Kitty Chisholm and Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj posed the question: “What can we do together that we can’t do on our own, that is going to create a real lever for advancing women’s leadership?”

In the video above Shaheena highlights that companies that are gender diverse have a 15% uplift on their financial performance partly through savings generated by keeping the talent that the organisation had worked so hard to attract. Secondly, if you are truly successful at enabling diverse teams to work, think, behave and make decisions in an inclusive way, you will see benefits in terms of innovation, taking those ideas to market and commercialising them.

However, women report that the barriers holding them back from leadership roles include lack of assertiveness or confidence and crucially not liking what they see at the top of the organisation. There is a clear need to create a workplace culture that does its absolute best to hold onto talent, including through flexible working, which benefits all employees.

BoardWalk Leadership define championing as advocating talented women throughout an organisation, or even across organisations. This means being able to identify and nurture their talent, and identify the stretch opportunities from which individuals – men and women – will benefit and bring benefit to the organisation.

Championing is more impactful than the more familiar sponsorship, which has a tendency to be transactional: ‘I’ll promote you, but then you’ve got to be loyal to me and work on my agenda.’ In contrast, champions’ motivation comes from the sheer delight in seeing somebody talented progress, a genuine belief in spotting talent and promoting it for the good of the organisation and the individual. The confidence-building nature of championing is key to its success, built through the belief of another person in the women’s capabilities and potential.
According to their research, in 2011 when people talked about gender diversity in companies, the assumption was that the problem was with the women, so if you ‘fixed’ the women everything would get solved: they would step up, they would stay in their roles and all would be fine. Of course that’s not the case and this approach failed to address the bigger issues.

The CHAMP Framework provides guidance for companies on how to harness and maximise the benefits from creating more inclusive cultures with approaches that are uniquely designed to support women.

Kitty suggests that the power of women leaders is encapsulated in these statements by Stephanie “Steve” Shirley, founder of the all-women IT company that later became F International (now part of the Steria Group): “Always remember that leadership is nothing unless the people led give of their best.” “Leadership, like love, is more about giving than taking.” She adds that if you get someone at the top of the organisation who is genuinely motivated by a bigger cause, that lifts the whole organisation.

As for the steps women can take, Shaheena recommends becoming clear about why they want those leadership roles. Women can also ensure that their brand is strong, and they have – and are exposed to – a good network, so it becomes easier for the champions to spot them. “They can’t assume they’ll be spotted. They’ve also got to put quite a bit of work into this” she warns.

Organisations need to create not just policies, but a culture that supports championing, through talking to line managers about the power they have to identify and advocate for talented individuals, men and women, give them training in how to have that conversation, and what works particularly well for women. Create a culture where championing is welcomed, supported and very open.

Finally, Kitty reminds us of the power of unconscious bias, which is a shortcut our brain takes. “The worst thing about unconscious bias is it’s not what we have about other people, the ones that aren’t like us. It’s the ones we assimilate from our environment about ourselves.” she adds. Owning your achievements, owning the responsibility for your career is hugely important, which championing genuinely helps.

Lady Kitty Chisholm brings together knowledge of the neurobiological bases of behaviour change, with expertise in talent management, leadership development and organisational and individual learning.
Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj is an expert in unlocking entrepreneurial thinking, branding, business planning and strategy. Shaheena leads on the development of programmes along with the research on diversity and inclusion for clients and policy work.

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