The other half of the equation
The commitment to female talent progression has been real and so has the investment – development programmes, mentoring, networks, accreditation. Yet many organisations that want to go further and faster are finding progress stalling, in some cases going backwards.
The answer isn’t that it was the wrong investment. It was only half of one.
Developing, preparing and supporting women – the half organisations have invested in.
The everyday behaviours that decide who gets heard, stretched and promoted.
More women progress – without lowering the bar and without reliance on quotas. Overall business performance improves.
Almost everything commissioned to date acts on one half of the equation – the individual. It develops her, prepares her, supports her and changes what she brings into the room.
The other half of the equation is the leadership behaviour and judgement that she experiences. Very little has ever been aimed there.
Leadership behaviour is where we work – realising the talent you are already paying for.
Our leadership development programme helps organisations that have invested in female talent progression make more progress, faster, by creating measurable behaviour change in leaders. Most initiatives focus on women themselves, or on creating awareness. Working on leadership behaviour creates lasting change, and addresses the half of the equation most organisations have missed.
“This has been by far and away the most impactful thing we have ever done, without exception.”
We work on the everyday leadership behaviours that decide whether talent is heard, stretched and promoted.
Rigorous
A structured methodology and programme, built on published research and your own organisation’s data.
Measurable
Behaviour change you can see and track – in meetings, in opportunities and in promotion decisions.
Lasting
Insights, techniques and a shared language that embed new behaviours, so the change keeps building long after the programme ends.
What it takes
Our programme takes leaders beyond awareness, to changed behaviour and organisational outcomes.
Ten hours of contact time over four to six months: three group workshops and three rounds of one-to-one coaching, concluding in accreditation. We bring decision-makers, men and women, together in the room because the leadership judgement being examined is a shared responsibility.
We start with gender, because that is where the evidence and the published targets are. Within weeks, participants report noticing the same dynamic elsewhere – the quiet expert, the person who came up through operations, the colleague whose first language isn’t English.
“The programme has enabled me to do my job better. Team performance has increased and my job has become easier.”
What your leaders will do differently
Notice a moment they would have missed before.
Credit attribution, interruptions, share of airtime, how meetings are run.
Question a judgement before it becomes a decision.
Promotion and moderation conversations reach different conclusions, because leaders have recalibrated their .
Distribute the stretch opportunities more widely.
The team’s capacity and capability increase, and leaders report their own jobs get easier.
Confer authority based on expertise.
The best contribution in the room is more likely to be heard than the loudest.
Do it. It’s transformative.
In their own words: what changed, and why it was different from everything that came before.
Read →The research, combined with36 years of business performance improvement
The combination of Mary Ann and Steve’s experience is unique and powerful.
Mary Ann Sieghart
Author of The Authority Gap. Senior Independent Director and Non-Executive Director on public company boards, TED speaker and Visiting Professor at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School.
Mary Ann is author of the bestselling book The Authority Gap: Why We Still Take Women Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It. She is a Visiting Professor at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London Business School, as well as Senior Independent Director at Pantheon International and Non-Executive Director and RemCo Chair at Guardian Media Group. She is a former Lex Columnist at the FT and Assistant Editor and political columnist at The Times. Mary Ann researched The Authority Gap as a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She has chaired the Social Market Foundation think tank and was Chair of the Judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.
Steve Crook
Management Consultant, business leader and former PwC Partner. 36 years delivering performance improvement. Did not notice the other half of the equation until two chance events showed him. Now he helps other leaders see and act on what he nearly missed.
Steve is a business leader with over 35 years of experience driving performance improvement across the private and public sectors. He has founded three successful consultancies – one acquired by a US tech business – and spent twelve years as a partner at PwC. In senior roles from Big Four firms to large US and European corporations, his work has focused on transforming businesses through process optimisation, technology implementation and, above all, behaviour change. Known for building high-performing, diverse teams and as a coach and mentor to senior leaders, he co-founded the Authority Gap Consultancy with Mary Ann to help businesses realise more of the talent they already have.
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Talk it through
Start with an initial conversation – about where your organisation is, what you’ve tried and where we could help. There’s no commitment.
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