Inevitable observations on gender and leadership

In one of the final sections of my "Strategy, Structure, and Leadership in Public Service Organizations" course with Andy Zelleke last fall, we opened with the following dire facts:

In the United States, women hold 15% of corporate directorships and constitute about 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs. In the public sector, women comprise 17% of the Senate, 17% of the House, 12% of Governor's mansions, and 25% of state legislator seats. Women make up more than two-thirds of the nonprofit labor force, but less than half of senior staff positions.

We read The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don't, a 2007 report by Catalyst, a research and advocacy organization working to expand opportunities for women in the workplace, and spent the session discussing some of our own personal and professional experiences relevant to women's underrepresentation in leadership positions. Many comments surfaced around women's competitiveness with other women, and it was saddening to hear that women in leadership positions are not always supportive and helpful to other women.

I feel incredibly lucky to have strong women mentors all around me, from the personal mentorship of my older sister who recently became a doctor, my mother, and my grandmother to friends in many different places. When I started this blog, I emailed the link to 25 mentors from my school years and my past internships. Of the 25, twelve are women. I feel incredibly lucky to have such strong mentors of both genders and from diverse backgrounds.

My summer workplace seems to have a larger proportion of women leaders than might be expected in a government agency. I primarily work with two women leaders -- the Executive Director and a Senior Advisor, and so far they have both taken their informal mentorship roles very seriously, which I really appreciate. The Chair of the Council is also a woman, as are our primary White House contacts at the Office of Social Innovation and the Domestic Policy Council. This kind of critical mass is just what we need in government and beyond.

Over the last school year, I participated in From Harvard Square to the Oval Office, a training program for women who might consider careers in politics (or at least in public service!). There, I learned from and with dozens of smart female Harvard graduate students with incredible potential to make our world better. One of them is now working on Off the Sidelines, a new initiative by Senator Gillibrand, one of the few women senators in the US. The site will be a platform for women to lead their communities and shape our country's future. Do check it out, and get involved.