The 30% Rule of Women's Leadership

Yesterday I had the privilege of hearing Linda Tarr-Whelan, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, speak at about her new book, Women Lead the Way.

One of the things that Tarr-Whelan stressed in her speech (it's also in her book) is the idea of a 30% solution: if we can get to at least 30% women as partners at the power tables, we have a chance to change the world.

In the book, she describes how 30% provides critical mass in any group of decision makers and creates a "tipping point" at which women's voices can be heard and their ideas implemented. The concept of the 30% solution has already been adopted in 23 countries, which already meet or exceed the goal. In 101 other countries, there have been changes to the constitutions, laws and/or political party practices to try and aim for 30% (or more) women in the decision making bodies.  The eleven countries with the greatest representation of women at the highest levels of government are: Rwanda, Sweden, Cuba, Finland, Argentina, the Netherlands, Denmark, Angola, Costa Rica, Spain, and Norway.

However, the United States currently ranks 69th in the world in terms of women's legislative representation. That is behind the country we spent so much money and time to interfere with - Iraq - which is 38th on the list published by the Inter Parliamentary Union. It is clear that the United States does a lot of talking, but very little action when it comes to making women present in the larger decision making process.

In an interview today with Tarr-Whelan, I asked her about The Shriver Report and the book, Half the Sky. She said that the topics in both have discussed many times before and while the Shriver Report offers a very positive message, that message alone isn't enough.

"These problems have been identified in the past. We've been talking about the family-work problem for 30 or 40 years without any progress. And yet, both of these books did not mention where the leadership is coming from to make the changes in the world that are needed. And unless we change who makes the decisions we won't change the reality of the situation," she said.

Clearly, Tarr-Whelan is a big advocate of women's leadership and she offers many practical tips in her book for those who are looking to make a difference. I asked her for tips for those who are the only female among a group of men in an organization. She offered two things you can do to gain support and become influential in that atmosphere:

1. Be sure to build some bridges with women in other organizations so that you have a support network. If something is coming up and need to be particularly influential you can ask these other women if they've faced a similar work situation and get their advice.
2. It's important to build male allies. When you're the only woman decision maker, sometimes you think you are the only one who shares your goals or insight, but there are men out there who will take your side and support you. Make sure to research their opinions first, however, before asking for them to support your ideas.

She also says that "unless you have both insiders and outsiders, you just actually can't make the progress happen. We have to make sure that younger women realize that we have to change the leadership dynamic - and if they don't get ahead themselves, the system will be weighed against them as they try to move up."

I tend to see many young women (even myself at a certain point) who went through school, graduated college and thought the world was an even playing field. Then they hit the workforce and things aren't as easy. It's important that we don't send mixed messages of "equality achieved" when there is still a lot of footwork to do in order to change the system and make sure balanced leadership exists in government, media and business.

This book gives very practical advice for women on how to break through the glass ceiling and truly become leaders. I would definitely recommend reading it, or at least taking some of its lessons to heart.