- “Although CCCU students are 60% female, a 2015 analysis revealed that women held fewer than 30% of leadership roles and only slightly over 20% of all senior leadership roles.” —Amy Reynolds and Janel Curry, Women in Leadership National Study, Gordon College, 2014
- “In 2012, women served as senior or solo pastoral leaders in only 11% of congregations, with these congregations containing just 6% of the people who attend religious services.” —Amy Reynolds and Janel Curry, Women in Leadership National Study, Gordon College, 2014
- A 2015 Barna study found that 85% of unchurched women are de-churched, and 27% of professional women are leaving the church.
CBE International challenges the notion that women’s leadership is unbiblical. Barring women from using their God-given talents diminishes the gospel and its impact in the world. CBE is a nonprofit organization that works to inspire and mobilize Christians with the Bible’s call for women and men to co-lead and co-serve as equals.
CBE’s website hosts thousands of resources on the biblical basis for shared leadership between women and men, and the positive impact of women leaders is supported by a growing body of secular research:
“Greater gender balance among corporate leaders is associated with higher stock values and greater profitability.”
Gender-diverse boards and executive teams with greater representation of women attain higher financial performance, expand skill diversity, and advance ethical practices. Yet in this study of 21,980 firms in 91 countries, only 11% of corporate board members are women and women represent just 14% of executives.
Employees look for leaders with “feminine” traits, according to The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future, by John Gerzema and Machael D’Antonio. Drawing on data from interviews in 18 countries and Fortune 500 boardrooms, Gerzema and D’Antonio conclude that “feminine” values can solve our world’s toughest problems.
“Gender inequality is due to bias, not differences in behavior.”
Data implies that differences in how genders advance in management may not lie in how women act, but in how people perceive their actions. “Arguments about changing women’s behavior—to “lean in,” for example—might miss the bigger picture.”
Using sociometric badges to track in-person behavior and communication patterns, including movement, proximity to other badges, and speech (volume and tone), “we found almost no perceptible differences in the behavior of men and women.”
Overall, females were rated higher than males across a majority of indexed competencies. The leadership of 7,300 executives from high-performing companies was evaluated by managers, peers, and direct reports. 64% of study participants were male and US-based. Below are sample rankings.
“A Study in Leadership: Women do it Better than Men,” Zenger Folkman
“Women . . . are well-placed to be transformative agents in community disaster planning and preparedness, should they be empowered to do so. ‘Women have an inherent capacity for risk management which has not been capitalised upon,’ says Santosh Kumar, director of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Disaster Management Centre. ‘Experience from disasters indicates that the way women handle risk is different from men. They have different qualities to bring to disaster planning that have been ignored in the name of vulnerability.’
When supported and empowered to take up a leadership role, the women ActionAid works with have shown readiness and enthusiasm to lead resilience-building efforts, and have time and again demonstrated their ability to do so.”
“Women’s Leadership in Resilience: Eight Inspiring Case Studies from Africa and Asia,” ActionAid, February 2017
