Women Execs Lag Behind ... apparently, all over the world

In Herald Sun (Australia)

Here's your good hearty belly-laugh for the day. This article talks about how women are lagging behind men in the executive suites. I know, I know ... you expected me to provide some great insights but what I discovered is so hysterically weird that I just had to share with you:

• "Fly business class on any given day across Australia (substitute USA?) and you can see that women are just not up there in equal numbers to men," EOWA director Anna McPhee said.

• Isn't this a weird analogy? ... "The pointy end of the plane is telling it how it really is in boardrooms and at senior management levels around the country."

• Sound all too familiar? ... "As corporate leaders face issues surrounding access to a skilled workforce, retention and sustainability, they need to look closely at culture, job design and workplace flexibility if they are going to win the global [women] talent war," she said.

• And just look at what a BIG bank chief executive has to say: 'ANZ Bank chief executive John McFarlane believed women taking time off to raise families and their preference for small business (or did he mean to say "their preference for owning a business!") over large corporations had affected the number of top female executives.'

I was going to stop here but you have to read these additional snippets:

McFarlane goes on to say, "I don't think we should torture ourselves if we don't have 50 per cent of our boards and management as women," Mr McFarlane told AAP. "That's not to say it shouldn't be a third."

"I asked the women if they were happy to go along with this, and of course they weren't," Mr McFarlane said. "They wanted to go along by their own merits. But it's not enough. It needs a push. If you want more women at the top, you have to put them there in the first place."

"Woman are far more creative than men. Less creativity means the business will create less ideas, therefore there's less opportunities," he said.

Well who has something to say to Mr. McFarlane? Gentlemen? Ladies?

To read the entire article, visit:

Women Execs Lag Behind (Australia)