Taylor Swift, Powerful Women and IWD

Is Taylor Swift the most powerful woman in the world? 

My partner innocently asked during dinner recently during the weekend she was playing her sell out concerts in Melbourne.

As a long term fan, I went into an extensive narrative - not only of her diverse talents as an entertainer, but also I shared with him why I really respect Taylor is for the actions she takes to stand up for herself, her kindness, her self-belief, and that she is an incredibly astute business woman. You might have your own views about this; but at a minimum, her current impact on the Australian economy as a result of her Eras tour, and the kindness and connection culture she has manifested at her concerts, organisations could take lessons from.

Anyway, back to our conversation about powerful women… my partner and I then traversed to naming female world leaders, mostly who were no longer around or in office and have since been succeeded by men, and then we got onto the topic of women in business. 

Where we landed was despite progress being made in recent times, we still find in business the ratio of men and women in senior roles disproportionate.

There are many reasons for the imbalance, and while there are initiatives to break the barriers and glass ceilings, of which we discussed, they still exist and there is still work to do; which is why we continue to roll out International Women’s Day (IWD) events every year.

I really want organisations to think beyond these IWD events throughout the year about how they can implement people strategies that really effect change for women to break barriers, create equality and better work experiences.

I’ve seen some organisations implement policies and practices to slowly move the needle in recent times (it’s not all doom and gloom and glass ceilings everywhere), and I think where there is real opportunity is in job design and expectations of senior leaders so we can create roles that enable genuine flexibility as this is one of the main currencies people are looking for in roles these days - we know this. 

We also know that this generation of leaders (and people in their 40s and beyond) are classified as the “sandwich generation” - still caring for children while also having added caring responsibilities for their ageing parents which brings an added need for flexibility.

So this IWD day while you are hosting events, also think about the other actions you can do beyond this to support women and especially how they can become leaders after the event cupcakes have been eaten.

As for Taylor… keep being kind, real, and savvy. Keep role modelling for us that it is cool to be assertive and create our own paths.