Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Lessons for leading ladies

There are still too few women heading listed companies, but MBAs are helping more and more get to the top, says Sarah Morris

Arti Buxi, a 33-year-old Indian woman who worked in the media industry in Bombay, and Ekaterina Lobanova, a 30-year-old Russian who worked in insurance in Moscow, grew up more than 5,000km from each other, but shared a similar goal and a common destination. Both aspired to top management roles and chose an MBA at Berlin’s European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) to prepare them for leadership.

“[In Russia] women succeed, but when it comes to industries such as oil and gas, and everything related to them, men still dominate,” says Lobanova. “You have to be well-educated and well-prepared to compete with them.” She was attracted to ESMT because it was founded in 2002 by 25 leading companies, including the insurance company Allianz, and the programme puts particular emphasis on corporate social responsibility. “In my country, there’s a lack of skilled managers, a lack of responsible managers,” she says.

Breaking barriers

Buxi and Lobanova are part of a generation of career-minded women determined to push through to higher levels of management in a world where men still dominate boardrooms. While Buxi’s mother gave up a teaching career to care for her family, her peers are taking a different route. “All my friends from university are pursuing careers,” she says. “The cost of living is so high, you need to have two salaries.” Buxi’s MBA helped her not only to switch continents and industries, but also to land a management role – she is now stream leader for innovation at Nestlé.

Women are getting jobs as managers, but the number heading the top listed companies in most countries remains low, to such an extent that countries such as Norway and Spain have set quotas for female board members. But recruitment is challenging – business schools have traditionally struggled to attract women, particularly for executive programmes.

Many schools now target women with special recruitment drives and scholarships. “The more women you have as students, the more you are giving women the opportunity to become leaders afterwards,” says Michel Ferrary, a researcher and professor of management at Ceram Business School in France. He says the country’s top business schools have increased their numbers in the past two decades from about 20% women to equal numbers of male and female students, which has resulted in many women becoming managers for top French companies. Moreover, he says preliminary research he is working on shows French companies with more women on their management teams have performed better during the credit crisis than male-dominated ones.

Buxi received a women’s leadership scholarship to study at ESMT, while Lobanova’s fees were paid through a fellowship that included an internship with Allianz. Such initiatives have boosted the proportion of women on the full-time MBA at ESMT from 14% in 2006 to 31% this year. “There is a fear of how long it will take to pay back the cost of an MBA, and that may especially be the case with women who might not know how long they will be on the career path and when they might need to take a break,” says Buxi.

Work/life balance

Many schools find it easier to attract younger women because older women shoulder more family commitments, even if they work. “The men on the MBA tell us they have made an agreement with their wives for her to take care of the children during the programme, but a woman doesn’t do that,” says Belén Vicente, executive director of the Lisbon MBA. “They manage to have time for both things.”

Vicente says Lisbon’s full-time MBA has nevertheless attracted women with children because it is a one-year, rather than two-year, programme, and they have found ways to combine the demands of family with those of their team projects. With the taught courses in the mornings, female students meet their MBA team-mates at their houses and share babysitting arrangements with other women on the course who aren’t on the same teams. “The women impose timetables for meetings and the men don’t mind because they’re free any time,” says Vicente.

She says the full-time course is better suited to women with families than the part-time course, where students fit the MBA around their job. “Women with families on the part-time MBA are very tired because they’re dealing with three variables at one time,” she says.

The full-year course at Lisbon comprises 44% women. Vicente says women weren’t specifically targeted and neither was the course adapted to suit female students. However, she has been struck by the way the female students have performed during the leadership activities. “On creativity, resilience and persuasion, the women get better results,” she says. “That isn’t to say there are no men like that, but the general rule has been that in terms of human skills – caring for others, team building, motivating others – women present results sooner and better.”

Some teachers believe women naturally have the ‘soft skills’, such as people motivation and negotiation, prized on an MBA. But not everyone agrees that women and men work or learn differently. “I don’t think courses should be tailored to women, as this only reinforces a message that we’re different or need special help to get ahead,” says Shari Carlson, an American who took an MBA at IE in Madrid.

Whether they’re natural leaders or just different types of leaders from men – or not – most companies accept that diverse management teams are more effective and are working with business schools to produce them. With more countries also considering imposing quotas on boards, smart businesses want a choice of well-trained women.

“Companies need to start from the ground up,” says Buxi. “It’s better to groom your own employees, then when you get eight women at board level everyone sees it’s on merit. The process is a long journey.”

FR Lécole des femmes cadres

Les MBA contribuent de plus en plus à l’accession des femmes aux postes de dirigeantes d’entreprises, explique Sarah Morris

Dans la plupart des grandes entreprises du monde, le nombre de femmes qui accèdent aux postes clés reste faible, à tel point que certains États ont fixé des quotas de représentation des femmes dans les conseils d’administration. On comprend donc pourquoi de nombreuses écoles ciblent aujourd’hui les femmes afin de les attirer dans des formations de haut niveau. Au plus vous avez une importante population féminine parmi les étudiants, au plus vous donnez aux femmes l’opportunité d’occuper des postes de direction, confie Michel Ferrary, professeur de management à la Ceram Business School, France.

De nombreuses grandes écoles trouvent qu’il est souvent plus simple de recruter des femmes plus jeunes car leurs consoeurs plus âgées ont plus d’engagements familiaux. Belén Vicente, directrice exécutive du MBA de Lisbonne, confirme que le MBA à plein temps draine des femmes avec enfants car il ne dure qu’une année au lieu du programme habituel de deux ans. Les participantes parviennent à combiner les exigences familiales avec des projets d’équipe.

Vicente a été frappée par le niveau de performance des élèves féminines. “Dans les domaines de la créativité, de la résistance et de la persuasion, les femmes obtiennent de meilleurs résultats, poursuit-elle. “En termes de qualités humaines – se soucier des autres, construire un esprit d’équipe, motiver ses collègues – les femmes obtiennent des résultats plus rapides et plus probants.

Certains étudiants et professeurs pensent que les femmes disposent naturellement des soft skills” valorisés dans un MBA, mais tout le monde ne partage pas le même avis sur le fait que les hommes et les femmes travaillent différemment. Je ne pense pas que les formations devraient être formatées pour les femmes. Cela ne fait que renforcer le message : nous sommes différentes ou nous avons besoin d’une aide spécifique, explique Shari Carlson, qui a suivi un MBA à l’IE, Madrid.

Que les femmes soient des leaders nées ou non, la plupart des entreprises ne s’y trompent pas. Elles considèrent que des équipes de management diversifiées sont plus efficaces et elles souhaitent intégrer des femmes qui ont un bon niveau d’éducation. “Il vaut mieux former ses propres employés, car ensuite lorsque vous avez huit femmes dans le comité de direction, tout le monde reconnaît qu’elles y sont parvenues au mérite, confie Arti Buxi, qui a suivi un MBA à la Berlin’s European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). C’est un long cheminement.

NL Lessen voor leading ladies

MBA’s helpen steeds meer vrouwen aan de top in bedrijven, aldus Sarah Morris Het aantal vrouwen dat aan het hoofd staat van topbedrijven blijft in de meeste landen laag, zo laag zelfs dat sommige landen al quota invoeren voor vrouwelijke leden in raden van bestuur. Gevolg daarvan is dat heel wat scholen nu met wervingscampagnes vrouwen proberen aan te trekken. “Hoe meer vrouwelijke studenten je hebt, hoe meer je vrouwen ook de kans geeft om leidinggevenden te worden,” aldus Michel Ferrary, professor management aan de Ceram Business School in Frankrijk.

Heel wat scholen vinden het makkelijker om jongere vrouwen aan te spreken omdat oudere seksegenoten al meer familiale verplichtingen hebben. Belén Vicente, directeur van de managementschool Lisbon MBA, zegt dat de voltijdse MBA-opleiding van de school vrouwen met kinderen aantrekt omdat het een opleiding van één jaar betreft, in plaats van de gebruikelijke twee jaar, en de vrouwen manieren hebben gevonden om gezin en teamprojecten met elkaar te verzoenen.

Vicente was onder de indruk van de manier waarop vrouwelijke studenten presteren. “Wat creativiteit, veerkracht en doorzettingsvermogen betreft, scoren vrouwen beter, zo zegt ze. Op het vlak van menselijke vaardigheden – oog hebben voor anderen, team building, het motiveren van anderen – boeken vrouwen sneller en beter resultaat”

Sommige studenten en professoren denken dat vrouwen van nature uit talent hebben voor “zachte vaardigheden” die worden gewaardeerd in een MBA, maar niet iedereen is het ermee eens dat vrouwen en mannen anders werken. “Ik vind niet dat cursussen specifiek moeten worden afgestemd op vrouwen, want dat versterkt alleen maar de boodschap dat we anders zijn of speciale aandacht nodig hebben, aldus Shari Carlson, die een MBA volgde in de IE-business-school in Madrid.

Los van het feit of vrouwen nu al dan niet natuurlijke leiders zijn, geven de meeste bedrijven toe dat gemengde managementteams doeltreffender zijn en opteren ze voor goed opgeleide vrouwen. “Het is wel best om de eigen medewerkers voor te bereiden op een managementfunctie.Als er dan acht vrouwen in de raad van bestuur zitten, weet iedereen dat het dank zij hun verdiensten is, zo zegt Arti Buxi, die een MBA heeft gevolgd in de European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlijn. “Er is een lange weg af te leggen.

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