A survey by DDI India shows that only 40 percent of women at the individual contributor level pursue first-time leadership jobs. This indicates that gender gaps in the country begin early, with a further 34% decrease at the frontline leader level, and a sharp fall to only 12 percent at the C-suite candidates level.
Titled ‘India’s First-Time Leader Report’, the survey evaluated data from as many as 2,063 respondents from various sectors, all over the country. While the prevailing sentiment is that millennials favour digital learning platforms over classrooms, the report shows that 66 percent of Indian millennial leaders actually prefer formal learning in a classroom setting.
The survey showed that Indian leaders have been unable to receive the kind of learning and development that can help them achieve success in their businesses. It also showed that half of the frontline leaders surveyed want to receive more guidance and training from their current managers, while 67 percent stated that they require more external coaching than what they were receiving at the moment. 27 percent of first-level managers, on the other hand, felt that their developmental requirements were not being met by their leaders.
Furthermore, 56 percent of respondents stated that they have also never had a mentor and severely lacked guidance, even besides lacking formal training. The study also shed light on the roots of this gender gap, as women make up less than one-fifth of all frontline leadership roles,during the first four years of their career at their organisations.
In addition, the results also showed that women frontline leadershave a median of five direct reports, while male frontline leaders have seven. When it comes to growth in leadership, women earlier accounted for 40 percent of all individual contributor candidates seeking first-time leader jobs, which has now reduced to only 12 percent of women holding C-suite positions.
In fact, this shows that women are increasingly losing out on opportunities to grow in their careers, resulting in the early birth of gender gaps, even before a woman takes up her first frontline managerial role.
Content Team
Himanshu
Shree Lahiri
