If you regularly experience being the only woman in the room, spare a thought for International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde.
The photo above says it all. The woman of many firsts – first woman to chair international law firm Baker & McKenzie, become France’s finance minister and lead the IMF – frequently finds herself alone, or one of only a small handful of women, in the company of men.
No wonder she still identifies first and foremost as a woman. It’s difficult to ignore her gender when she’s photographed leading a high-powered negotiation over a crisis in the Eurozone, nor to not picture her as the easily identifiable face of the IMF. As The Independent reports, when asked by a Malawian journalist “who is Christine Lagarde?” she replied: “A woman.”
So it’s interesting to note the one thing she always does when travelling on business is to have at least one conversation with a group of women alone.
When The Independent spent a week with Lagarde in Africa, that meeting included taking 26 women to a Chinese restaurant in Malawi to share a meal and discuss the future needs of the country – with no men allowed in the room. She calls such meetings a “girls’ night out” and says she got the idea from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Lagarde’s living proof of the change women in powerful positions can inspire. Responsible for more than $1 trillion in available credit, she brings a different touch to negotiations, according to The Independent. Acting as a referee rather than a coach, she’s always the listener who’s willing to take advice from experts, and rarely allows time spent on her weakness to get in the way of what she does best. “Is the female instinct at work, or is she just clever?” asks The Independent.
But it’s her desire to better involve women in the debate that reflects what gender diversity can bring to the world’s most powerful positions. She doesn’t have to spend time with women, nor should she have to merely because she is a woman, but she’s identified the need to give women a voice and ensure they’re somehow included in the debate. Even if we’re still not, sadly, present in great numbers during cross-border negotiations.
Could large organisations be doing more to support their own version of a Lagarde-style “girls’ night out?” Plenty of women’s groups and networking opportunities exist within companies, but do these support an opportunity to discuss strategy and direction, instead of women’s issues alone?
It’d always be better to see more women appointed to key strategic decision-making roles in the first place. But in the meantime, organisations that have considerable work to do on gender diversity within their senior leadership teams could do well to support environments where their female employees are granted more opportunities to be heard.