A research by Harvard Business Review in 2011 suggests that female leaders are ahead of their male counterparts by a huge margin in aspects like intuition, focus and peer support. These traits undoubtedly enable them to build better teams.

India, with just 19 per cent females in senior management positions, is far behind global figure of 24 per cent. However, the trend is changing and we have Chanda Kocchar (MD and CEO, ICICI Bank), Aruna Jayanthi (CEO, Capgemini India) & Shikha Sharma (CEO, Axis Bank) as some great instances of Indian women leaders climbing the corporate ladder.

Companies have for long hidden behind the excuse that they don’t get as many female applicants for the positions as compared to male applications. Lately, they have started to realize that it is just a matter of reaching out through better hiring programs. It’s a concern for company productivity if they cannot attract or reach out to deserving women.

The IT industry has taken a head start in this and companies like IBM, SAP Labs, Capgemini, Accenture have all successfully executed female recruitment drives. Programs like ‘Hiring women to recruit more women’ have worked well too. Specially designed outreach programs also depict the value of women in the organization and attract right female candidates. Companies have also started working on their brand image to portray itself as female friendly.

More than equality, diversity, inclusion & gender discussion, this is now a game of business sense for companies.