According to an article in Chief Executive, making parity a priority, getting personally engaged and intentionally celebrating successes will ensure you don't lose your most talented female leaders.
“We often talk about the glass ceiling that prevents women from reaching senior leadership positions,” the article says. “But the reality is that women are thwarted much earlier in their attempt to climb the ladder to the top — there’s a broken rung far down the ladder that’s keeping them from taking that first step up to manager. Fixing this broken rung is the key to achieving parity. This broken-rung inequality surfaces early in women’s careers and compounds at each subsequent level.”

According to the article, there’s good news though. “Organizations have begun to recognize that gender parity in leadership roles is a competitive advantage and delivers better business outcomes. And yet, despite some hard-fought gains, women’s representation is not keeping pace. At the highest levels, less than 22% of leaders are women and, for women of color, the number is less than 6%.”

The article suggests three critical ways for top leadership in any organization to become part of the change that creates gender parity in leadership roles:
1. Make gender parity in leadership roles a strategic priority at every level in your organization starting at the CEO and board levels. You can do this by gathering data on your current state of representation at every rung of the ladder, starting from recruitment, all the way to the most senior levels.

“Create a cadence to measure and report progress of the entire pipeline every quarter from your current state to your desired state– with the same rigor as you measure other business outcomes such as your revenues and profits. If the pipeline is not making the progress for you to achieve your desired outcome, you must understand the root causes and allocate resources to fix them.”

Tie meaningful financial rewards for leaders to make meaningful progress and to find innovative ways to increase representation. “Remuneration drives behavior (both conscious and unconscious) and plays a critical role in where they allocate their limited time and attention, especially in our fast-paced and constantly disruptive workplaces where there are multiple and sometimes competing priorities.”

2. Get personally engaged. Participate in women’s events to demonstrate that they are a priority for you and deserve your precious time. The author delivers many keynotes at women’s conferences and only once has she had a large tech CEO on a panel with two women of color talking about the importance of and his commitment to having women in leadership roles.

It is a well-known fact that women will not apply for or accept a role until they feel 100% qualified for a role, says the article. “In today’s business climate, many leaders will accept their first answer as their final answer because they believe that is what the women truly want.” Oftentimes women underestimate their worth and their potential especially when they don’t see senior leaders who look like them, so they need you to see their potential and encourage them to take a chance on themselves and seek higher level roles
You should also become a visible sponsor by advocating for women in rooms where they are not present to set an example and encourage other leaders to do the same. “Show your trust and confidence in them by putting your credibility on the line and recommending them for leadership roles or growth assignments that will enable them to learn meaningful and relevant competencies, which will prepare them for future leadership roles.”

3. Intentionally celebrate success. Publicly recognize the leaders at your company who are making meaningful progress in advancing gender parity in leadership roles. Recognize both the individual who is promoting women as well as the women themselves. Intentionally seek women leaders who are performing well and stand them up as role models.

The article concludes that, “when you help achieve gender parity in leadership roles, women will finally be present in every room where decisions are being made — diminishing negative stereotypes and biases in the workplace once and for all. Your promotion of your female employees into leadership roles is not just for them, but also for all the other women who will come after you. You are helping blaze a trail for them and changing the world of business forever.”