11th WILL Forum Meeting

“ Intelligent, Innovative, and Inclusive”

Over 40 Senior Women Executives define Balanced Leadership for
Corporate India, led by one of the world’s most admired companies, GE
 

"Don't fear change, embrace it"-- Jeff Immelt "Essence of Balanced Leadership is to produce a quality decision within an open and diverse environment" -- John L. Flannery "Most companies buy into diversity -- but shy away from the numbers" -- WILL collective voice "Balanced Leadership is not gender specific -- but is open-thinking, imaginative, courageous, inclusive, expert and global" "Speed mentoring" needed for corporate leaders on building an equal opportunity environment for women executives in corporate India"

In sharp response to the changing world economy and the compelling need for all business leaders to define an authentic and robust leadership pipeline for future markets -- women executives from across industry set out to define "balanced leadership" for business performance at the 11th WILL Forum meeting.

With GE India as the meeting host -- and the shining GE culture of high-delivery, focus, passion, diversity, and business leadership clearly visible among the GE leaders -- the WILL Forum inspired a passionate and productive discussion with senior women from KPMG, Tata Consultancy Services, Accenture, Citigroup, Deloitte, Thomson Reuters, Zensar Technologies, JSW Steel, Avantha Group, Tata Teleservices, Genpact, Bharti Enterprises, BP India, Ernest & Young, Honeywell, ONGC, GE India, and other leading stakeholders.

Some leading thoughts on Balanced Leadership- for enlightened companies, CEOs, key executives, and HR leaders:

• Balanced leadership is not gender-specific -- but is open-thinking, imaginative, courageous, inclusive, expert and global
• Balanced leadership is globally being driven by metrics, goals, numbers -- but in India the "default setting" is too low, and benchmarks need to be changed for middle and top management
• Most companies claim to have an "Open, Fair, and Transparent" corporate culture -- but do the women employees think so, and does the organization care to ask them?
• WILL-KPMG Research Survey hypothesis states that "the current state of leadership in corporate India is an imbalance, and there is a critical need to improve gender equity"
• Leading Fortune 500 companies have KRA's linked to upward movement of women in the organization, through the concept of "sponsors" for women executives who take ownership for their success
• Balanced Leadership is about recruitement, advancement, and rentention of "all" sections of employees, and "numbers do talk" when the assessment is being done through gender-benchmarking with peer groups
• Employee Value Proposition for women employees will define future "Employers of Choice" and will work towards optimizing the full potentials and talent of all employees
• Diversity Councils can help to identify, enrich and sustain gender-equality across organizations, and cross-industry sharing and bonding with women is critical to building balanced leadership;

Thank you for your continuing commitment on the mission and mandate for women in leadership.

Poonam Barua Founder Convener Forum for Women in Leadership pamasia@vsnl.com