Jayne Dowle: Girl power - why more women at the top would make for a better world

No less a business leader than Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, suggests that one in four bosses should be female. She points out that
fewer than 10 per cent of executive directors in FTSE 100 firms are women. “We don’t have enough women running things and it is not getting better anything like fast enough,” she says.

Since 2010, just nine more female executive directors have been appointed to the boards of our top companies. Meanwhile the number of women chief executives has barely altered. Ms Fairbairn’s concern, which she explained in a speech last week, is that the best women in business are choosing to step down when they reach senior positions and start being offered top jobs.

What makes them shy away at the final fence? Why do they choose to leave? I have a lot of friends and acquaintances, particularly in the public sector, who have chosen to do that very thing. One lady I know was in charge of a difficult and demanding part of a local authority until she had enough. She now makes jewellery in Wales.

Personally, I’m not a fan of quotas and targets. In an ideal world, we would have no need
of them, and change would happen as a natural process of evolution. However, as Ms Fairbairn points out, this approach clearly isn’t working. For too long now, the lack of women at the top has been somebody else’s problem.

I’d like to see attitudes start to change from the bottom up. How many young women enter banking or personal finance, for example, and never even consider that they might one
day be capable of running the show? We should do all we can to raise aspirations, right from school. If we have daughters, we should show them what they could do, not tell them what they can’t.

It is time also for a bold step of visualisation. Instead of focusing on how many women are (not) doing the top jobs, we should try and imagine what it would be like if they were.

Don’t fall into the trap here of thinking that a world in which women had a greater say would necessarily be a more harmonious one. It would more likely to be one in which the status quo is likely to be challenged. A lot. I know I am generalising, but men usually like to set up a system and run to it. Women, on the other hand, will always be looking for ways to improve it, to make it more effective and to save costs and time.

Also, if my experience of female bosses is anything to go by, they won’t automatically make allowances for the women coming up behind them. In fact, they might well make it even harder for them.

I’ll be honest. I’ve met some proper ‘queen bitches’ in my time who didn’t want anyone else sharing the glory. I’ve also met some extremely tough women who knew exactly how hard it was to run the show. They were demanding because they didn’t want those who aspired to the same position to be under any illusions.

They were demanding also because their time was precious. I could write a book on the responsibilities of men and women with regard to home and family. I’d bet though that 99.9 per cent of men who hold down directorships and so on have a wife or partner at home who ensures that the fridge is always full and the children are clean and tidy.

However high she flies, a woman with a family will still be required to oversee at least part of her domestic realm – even if this chiefly involves managing a small army of staff to run her household for her. Because she has responsibilities at home, she understands that the hours spent in the office must be used to their very best advantage. Every woman I have ever worked for has not suffered fools who waste time at work gladly.

It’s a myth too that nothing would get done for gossiping if women ran the world. From my friend who runs a dance school to my friend who runs a regional arm of the NHS, I attribute the shared qualities of discretion
and confidentiality. The things these women know, but never tell. A good woman boss will inspire loyalty and devotion in her staff – of both sexes – because she can be trusted with people’s secrets.

And how many men who run big companies get into trouble when their mouths run away with them? Remember Gerald Ratner’s gaffe over the “c**p” in his jewellery shop? Recall Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary calling his thousands of passengers “idiots”? Can you think of a woman in charge of a big company who has brought both similar embarrassment upon herself and the share price crashing in one fell swoop? I can’t.

That is why the world would be a better place with more women running it.