The more I read about the thriving market for female entrepreneurship in Australia the more I think many of us would be sensible to giveaway the corporate job and apply our skills elsewhere.
However, this wouldn’t be such great news for the corporate sector where women still barely account for 10% of senior leadership positions and board roles at our 500 largest listed organisations, and the ‘pipeline’ is still considered one of the key solutions for change in the future.
And as research by Korn Ferry recently found, if you want to secure some of those lucrative and powerful board positions later on, you’re better off staying in the game, particularly the corporate game where you can get large-scale P&l and c-suite experience.
Still, when the corporate sector doesn’t fit — and let’s face it, it doesn’t fit for a lot of women – it pays to consider the successful examples of female entrepreneurs in Australia and just what potential lies in our local market. Naomi Simson, Janine Allis and Therese Rein are some of the big success stories that come to mind. But there are numerous other women under the surface who may not have the media profile but are still disrupting industries and reshaping the economy. They’re part of the cohort of women who are starting businesses at twice the rate of men, according to BankWest analysis in 2013.
As Dell has found this week, Australia is now ranked the second best country in the world to be a female entrepreneur, behind the US but in front of Germany, France and the UK. That doesn’t mean the conditions are perfect, far from it. Entrepreneurial women are not matching the entrepreneurial earnings of men as a quick look at the BRW Rich List will show, while access to capital is still a significant challenge for women. But Dell’s international analysis shows there’s much potential for women with great ideas here in Australia.
This week I attended a number of events discussing women in leadership – particularly, the fact that after decades of graduating from university in at least equal numbers to men, we’re still far from parity when it comes to leadership in corporate Australia.
As usual the structural and cultural issues facing women were analysed at these events: everything from an inflexible and inaccessible childcare system, to systemic discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers, a lack of true flexible working conditions and careers, too few visible female role models, and social pressures regarding who does what at home and work.
Meanwhile, our buildings are plagued with ‘gender asbestos‘ – as Liz Broderick put it at a Telstra event on Tuesday. The subtle discrimination we can’t see and is therefore all the more difficult to remove and deal with.
We hear that these are the challenges, over and over again.
It feels like banging your head against a brick wall — or at least a glass one, with no chance of shattering it no matter how much pressure you apply.
Changing one or more of the above impediments for women in leadership requires a complete overhaul or our existing structures – our perception of leadership, assumptions about domestic duties and ways of working all need changing.
Often it’s simply easier to start again, rather than attempting complex renovations. As Shoes of Prey founder Jodie Fox said during the panel discussion at Telstra this week, ensuring her business set-up works for her female employees is simplified by the fact she’s building it from scratch, with no legacy structural or cultural requirements in need of an overhaul.
Short of large organisations making significant changes — which they should — what can women personally do?
Well, we can think about the opportunities that lie not above the glass ceiling but outside of it.
At the Women’s Leadership Australia Symposium on Wednesday, Tracey Spicer offered a three-step plan for women navigating their careers involving deconstruction, reconstruction and ‘sheconstruction’.
He first step urged women to deconstruct the issues they’re encountering at work and in their careers and to consider what’s really holding them back.
The second step then suggested ‘reconstructing’ using every available tool you can find — mentoring, networking and sponsorship included.
And, finally, the third step is ‘sheconstruction’, a process Spicer said should involve creating a new vision in your mind of where you want to go and actually going for it. And if your current workplace or other workplaces don’t align with your values and philosophy, then have a think about creating something new instead.
If you can’t create the environment that works for you within your own organisation, go to another. And if no organisation meets your requirements, then start something that will.