Why Are There So Few Women Leaders? Companies are not Trying

It's a truism in business that what gets measured, gets done. That has been a rallying cry among women's advocacy groups, especially Catalyst, the grand dame of the category, which pushes for companies to increase the number of women in the executive ranks. You'd think that after, oh, three decades, American companies would have finally gotten the message and instituted some programs and charted the metrics of women's advancement in their organizations.

I must live in some kind of optimistic haze, because I was actually shocked at the results of a recent survey completed by human resource giant Mercer. It surveyed human resource, talent management and diversity leaders at more than 540 companies of all kinds throughout the United States and found that organizations aren't getting with the program of advancing women because there is no program.

• 43% of the surveyed employers have no activities or programs aimed at developing women leaders
• Less than one out of four said they had a program
• 19% said their program is just to track the progress of women
• 5% say their current programs are "robust"
• 4% are going to get to it really, really soon, they promise

No. According to the Mercer study, a whopping two-thirds of the companies said that their cultures support the advancement of women a little to a moderate amount.

Allrighty. Maybe the programs that are offered are so well designed that they target precisely the problems that inhibit the advancement of women?

Wrong again. The most prevalent programs are flexwork (important but hardly innovative anymore), diversity sourcing; and coaching and mentoring. A good start but not a good place to end.

So, let me get this straight. The companies don't invest in programs to develop women. The few programs that do exist are same-old, same-old. And they don't even bother to see what works?

It comes as no surprise, then, that only a fifth of the respondents were "very concerned" about a trio of key factors known to retain women to top leadership positions:

• Ensuring that women have the qualifying skills and experiences
• Retaining top women
• Having enough women in the pipeline to retain

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor hotblack.