Executive Interviews: Interview with Sally Helgesen on 21st Century Organization
December 2007 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Sally Helgesen
Internationally acclaimed Author, Speaker, and Leadership Development Consultant.

• How good are women as entrepreneurs and managers?Women seem to be doing fairly OK as managers. But definitely not as entrepreneurs. We hardly get to see very successful women entrepreneurs at the global stage. Why do you think women are good as managers (although this population itself isn't that encouraging) and not as entrepreneurs?
  Women are terrific entrepreneurs. In the US, they are starting new businesses at a higher rate than men. They are managing organizations in which people love to work. See Margaret Heffernans wonderful book on the subject, How She Does It.

  The primary reason that we donot see women entrepreneurs represented that frequently on the global stage is that their businesses tend to be greatly undercapitalized when compared to businesses that men start. Women have a harder time raising big amounts of money, especially in open capital markets, venture funds, etc. But although this is obviously true, I think that many women who start companies do so because they want to work in a place they really enjoy on a day to day basis and provide a place for others who want to enjoy their work, having full lives, etc. This is hard to do if your focus is on constantly growing your company, bringing in investors who will have greater and greater control. So I think that this may be a factor. I know thats controversial, but anecdotal evidence suggests it is sometimes or often certainly not always! true.

• What inspired you to write The Female Advantage first published in 1990? Do you now think that women are better prepared to be leaders?
  I wrote The Female Advantage because I was working in the corporate world at the time and I saw that women had many skills to offer that were appropriate but that organizations didnot know how to recognize or leverage them. In addition, most of the books being written at that time for women in organizations emphasized womens handicaps, not their strengths. I wanted to turn that conversation around, and so I focused on identifying and writing about some of the best women leaders around. The book did change the conversation, and I believe it is one of the reasons that women today are much better prepared to be leaders.

• And ILO report on Women Entrepreneurs observed, "women have a proportionately greater presence in the informal economy and inmicro enterprises; and they are less represented in formal, registered SMEs."Why is it so?
  I believe that this study referred especially to women entrepreneurs in developing countries. I believe there are a number of reasons for this. The old boy network, tribal structures, and strictures on women activities in an integrated sphere all hamper womens efforts to build businesses. On the other hand, womens micro enterprises often have amore positive long range impact on the community or country than mens enterprises: they are more sustainable, and their profits tend to be reinvested in the education of children rather than going for trophies, cars, etc. This is why so many micro lenders in the developing world have focused on womens enterprises. So I think its a positive thing in many ways.

• The DiversityIncs Top 10 Companies for Diversity (out of 50) have been more or less consistently doing well on diversity front. Few of the Fortune 500 Companies are headed by top class career women. However, according to Catalyst, itwill take women 47 years to achieve parity as corporate officers of Fortune 500 companies. According to a research report released by Accenture (onMay 8, 2007), women say their gender still plays a key role in limiting their achievement in the workplace. Why should it be this way? When do you expect better reports on diversity and gender discrimination?
  I think changes are underway andwill happen fairly rapidly in some organizations. But the biggest problem is usually leaks in the pipeline of talented women women leaving organizations because they feel Interview 5 frustrated, undervalued, or donot see themselves making a difference. That said, women who do leave usually start or join enterprises where they can make a significant and positive difference. So there are both positive and negative results. In addition, the leaky pipeline keeps the pressure on organizations that arent doing well with women to try to adopt better practices. The inclusion of one half of the human race in the public world of work and organizations is a big thing. It is difficult, and it is taking a while. No surprise.

• Empirical evidence suggests that women contribute significantly to the running of family businesses, mostly in the form of unpaid effort and skills. The value of this effort is underestimated both by the families that take it for granted and in academic studies too. On the other hand,many enterprises said to be run by women (that is, enterprises in which women hold the controlling share) are in fact done in their name by men who control operations and decision making. Why do women take the back seat? Or is it that they are forced to do so? Do you think women are not getting their share of well deserved success?
  Family business is not an areawhere I have enough expertise to offer an opinion.

1. Human Resource and Organization Behavior Case Studies
2. ICMR Case Collection
3. Case Study Volumes