Women@Imperial: President Gast on technology, connectivity and leadership

The College is holding a series of Women@Imperial events this week.

Women in leadership face new challenges and opportunities in today's competitive, connected and collaborative environment, writes President Gast.

In a blog for the World Economic Forum published on International Women’s Day, Professor Gast wrote: “Much will be said this International Women’s Day about the number of women in leadership positions, the percentage of women on boards and the trends in this data. Clearly there are very capable women in the world and, slowly, perhaps, they are moving into positions of leadership. They find themselves working side by side with men, some of whom are collegial and supportive and some who are competitive and aggressive.

Rising challenges

"Rather than cite statistics and data, I thought I would share some of my perceptions about women in leadership roles in today’s competitive, connected and collaborative environment.”

She highlighted the “rising challenges that we face as a society” in an age of hyper-connectivity and mass information. 

Professor Gast said: “People can surround themselves with information that they agree with and miss out on more balanced viewpoints. News is becoming more sensational and escalating discord rather than discourse. Secondly, now everyone can be a judge, critic or pundit. Anonymity makes this even worse as the ‘court of public opinion’ often becomes an argument between extremist views hidden behind the cloak of anonymity. This new world of public criticism and judgement makes being a leader and having a thick skin harder. Leadership in the time of Twitter, Facebook and anonymous comments on anything published can be lonely and demoralizing.”

“…I think that this trend may exacerbate the challenges we have in recruiting and supporting women leaders. If it is true that some women internalize issues and we are not as aggressive or competitive, then perhaps we may be more vulnerable to the sweep of critical and sometimes insulting commentary now provided through social media. In order to counter this and to fully support our leaders, we must promote more balanced viewpoints by providing leaders with gender balanced boards and councils.”

Professor Gast concludes that “When women lead on breaking down barriers to collaboration, significant progress is achieved”. 

The full article can be read on the World Economic Forum’s Agenda website.