Gender Differences in the Boardroom

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In fact, the board couldn't decide between two of the female candidates on that list and recruited them both.

In our study, the 100 or so male directors we sent the survey to had all been placed on boards by Heidrick & Struggles. The 300 female directors were WCD members. I think the finding illustrates that many women are expanding their efforts to find a board seat beyond the traditional vehicles, such as networking, to identify and be considered for board opportunities. Because of this, it's taking many of them an extra year. That said, I do find that many boards are going beyond the traditional [chief executive officer] or [chief financial officer] profile in recruiting directors. Many are looking for global branding specialists or supply chain expertise—and that has caused them to look at a broader candidate pool, which often includes many more women than a director search aimed solely to identify sitting or former CEOs might do.

There is also the old Catch-22 about previous board experience. Many boards will not consider candidates who haven't been on a board before; both men and women who are well-qualified but lack prior board experience are screened out on this basis. We often tell WCD members to first get onto a smaller board or a not-for-profit board as a means of getting some board experience. However, a female executive currently working in a senior role at her company is usually not going to be allowed to take on more than one board seat by her employer; same for male executives. So this is an ongoing challenge for new director candidates of both genders.

A question in your survey asked whether women bring special attributes to a board. Notably, 90 percent of female directors and 56 percent of male directors agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. You've worked with hundreds of female directors over the years, Susan. What do you think those special attributes are?

As we discussed earlier, I think women are a little more apt than men to challenge the status quo, and that translates into the questions they ask in the boardroom. Women have a little bit more humility and are often more confident about saying: "Gee, I'm new to this and don't understand what this means. Can someone explain this to me?" or "Why are we doing it this way?" This results in some excellent and probing questions that put important issues on the table and make the entire board and management team take a fresh look.

I also think many women directors are sensitive to issues of corporate culture and corporate values—perhaps more so than their male colleagues. They are concerned not only about the culture of the company they are governing [but also] about the culture of the board: Is there good debate going on? Is there a clear culture of integrity and ethics? Is there a tenor of mutual respect?

The fiduciary responsibility of a corporate board can most easily be met when the best people are chosen to serve. Board diversity is a business imperative—it is multigenerational, multinational, multicultural, and multiregional. Understanding these differences in perspective, attributes, and the different roads into the boardroom can be useful for many boards—and the men and women who serve on them.

Beverly Behan has worked with more than 85 boards of directors over the past decade on issues including CEO succession planning, board engagement in strategy, board and director evaluation and general consulting to boards and CEOs on maximizing board effectiveness. She can be reached through her website: www.boardadvisor.net.