The document discusses women's participation in the global labor force and barriers to their advancement into leadership roles. While women make up over 40% of the global workforce, they remain underrepresented in professional and managerial positions. Several structural and social obstacles contribute to this, including a lack of access to informal networks, lack of female role models, and embedded mindsets that women are less suitable for executive jobs. The document recommends actions like promoting diversity, examining organizational culture, and developing trust between women employees and managers to help address these issues and aid economic growth by empowering more women with leadership opportunities.

2. • The employment situation has not evolved
significantly since 2001
The ILO’s Global Employment Trends (2003)
•Women continue to have lower labour market
participation rates
•Higher unemployment rates can be seen
•Significant pay differences to men than women
•Women represent over 40 percent of the global
labour force, so why is their share in professional
jobs still so low?
- Sourced from International Labour Force (2004)

3. Structural Obstacle – lack of access to informal
networks and lack of female role models
 Lifestyle issues – motherhood may hinder ability to
work „around-the-clock‟
 Imbedded institutional mindsets – managers
believe that women can not execute the job
properly
 Imbedded individual mindsets - women‟s desire to
become more powerful in the workplace fades
with time

- Sourced from Barsh, J. (2011)

4. 
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Role Models
Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen Fund McKinsey Quarterly (2009), worked with women in
Rwanda to start the first microfinance firm in the
country
Evidence of Path Goal Theory.
To Aid Economic Growth
According to Novogratz, if there are more women
in leadership, the effect would lead to a healthier
society with a stable economy (McKinsey
Quarterly, 2009).
Evidence of Trait Theory

5. 
Action 1. Identify Current situation: Measure, Analyse,
Monitor (Chief Executive Women, 2009)

Action 2. Commitment from Top Management (Nesbit and
Seeger 2007; Chesterman, Ross, Smith, and Peters 2004)

Action 3. Diversity and equity (Chief Executive Women 2009;
Sealy, Vinnicombe, and Singh 2008).

Action 4. Exempt masculine culture: Organisational Culture
Affects Women‟s Leadership

Action 5. Government promote women in decision-making
(Linnainmaa, 2010)

6. 
Access trust between managers and women
employees

Encourage women to “seat at the table” (TED, 2010)

Empowerment development

Develop open communication among them

Incremental gains
(Giscombe, 2011)