Still Boyish After All These Years

I was very happy to read that PepsiCo has named Indra Nooyi its Chairwoman, after having named her CEO last fall. By all accounts, she’s not only a good leader, but an excellent strategist as well, and seems to have her finger on the pulse of what consumers want.

That’s all good news. The not-so-good news is that Ms. Nooyi is one of only 10 female CEOs now running companies in the Fortune 500. Quick math: 2%.

Research done over the past few years seems to show that women CEOs may be more effective, as a group, than their male counterparts, and that companies with the highest respresentation of women in top management achieved better financial results than those with fewer women.

I suspect that when leaders focus more objectively on their employees’ performance, instead of over-relying on limiting assumptions or a friendship-based path of least resistance, we’ll see a greater proportion of women being promoted into senior management jobs.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk more about limiting assumptions and how to change them.