Page 10 - Free Yourself From

Introduction

We Have Come a Long Way, But

Is It Good Enough?

This ought to be the decade of the woman leader. Look at the sta-
tistics: More than one-third of Fortune 500 managers are women.
More than half of the graduates who earn multidisciplinary master’s
degrees are women. More women hold elected office than ever
before, and 9 million more women than men voted in the last presi-
dential election. When you also consider the fact that women now
make more than 80 percent of all purchasing decisions, there’s a good
argument to be made that women already have a lot of power!
And yet, women still aren’t the top leaders. Again, just look at the
statistics: Women hold only 14.5 percent of Fortune 500 CEO posi-
tions. They represent barely 6 percent of the top earners on Fortune
500 executive teams, and fewer than one in seven women occupy
board-of-director seats. Many of these statistics sound familiar as
they relate to women abroad who hold executive and senior leader-
ship positions. You would think that with all the progress women
have made in shaping the business environment, there would be more
women holding executive positions.
The foregone conclusion about this stalled state of affairs is that
there is a glass ceiling. That is, others, usually men, are preventing
women from rising to the top with limiting stereotypes, exclusive

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