7Go Blaze a Trail of Your Own
Leadership is hard to define and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader.
They're the words of Indra Nooyi, the first woman of colour to run a Fortune 50 company. She was CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years and during that time the company increased its profitability and improved its environmental sustainability.
Mary Barra was the first woman to lead General Motors. She told the world, “If we win the hearts and minds of employees, we're going to have better business success.”
Safra Catz is the CEO of global software company Oracle, and maybe has a more sanguine perspective on being a woman in business. “The most significant barrier to female leadership is the actual lack of females in leadership. The best advice I can give to women is to go out and start something, ideally their own businesses. If you can't see a path for leadership within your company, go blaze a trail of your own.”
All powerful quotes from powerful, impressive women. But, in 2024, where do we stand when it comes to gender equality? While the dial hasn't moved anywhere near as far as it should quite yet, there has been a certain degree of movement within the sphere.
We are seeing more senior females in leadership, and we are seeing it more widely talked about, but if we look at the demographics within the FTSE and in the Fortune organisations, they are still mainly run by middle-aged White guys, and the ...
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