In the running?

When the Cultural Leadership Programme (CLP) launched its ‘Meeting the Challenge’ document in April 2008, we wanted to share some of the learning from the first two years of the Programme. The story that was picked up by the media was a comment from the then Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism, Margaret Hodge, about the lack of women leaders at the higher levels of creative and cultural organisations. Opinion was divided as to whether or not the battle for equal representation had already been won. There are lots of high profile women whose leadership roles can be cited as signs of success in the sector, but are there still critical gaps, and more work to be done?

Evidence base
CLP already knew that women in leadership was an issue that provoked strong responses. When we hosted an event with City University, London, called ‘Women at the Top’ in 2007 we had to move venues to accommodate over 200 women and men who wanted to join the debate on the challenges for women in leadership. The debates were lively, and participants stayed on at the end of the day to continue the conversation. A provocation piece commissioned by CLP and City University, written by Demos researchers John Holden and Helen McCarthy, highlighted the under-representation of women in high level management and leadership positions, but was clear that measurement was problematic due to “a lack of hard data”. CLP responded by commissioning an independent report on women in leadership in the creative and cultural sector. We wanted to understand what the landscape really looked like for women, to establish a baseline for measuring future progress and to ensure that we had the evidential base from which to test the strongly divided responses which Margaret Hodge’s comments had provoked. CLP commissioned a programme of quantitative and qualitative research, which was carried out by TBR and Right Angle Management.
Research findings
The publication that has resulted makes fascinating reading. Some of the statistics come as no surprise, but collectively they offer a real challenge to the sector to make a significant shift in thinking, and to aspire to and offer equal access to our highest level appointments. The research reveals that there are 2.5 male leaders to every female leader – 82,450 male leaders compared to 32,800 female leaders. Only 39% of the workforce in the creative and cultural sector is female compared to 46% of the total UK workforce, meaning that there are fewer women to consider for leadership roles. Just over one third of creative and cultural businesses have female senior leaders. Women and men tend not to work together to lead creative and cultural businesses: the pattern is for men to work with men and women to work with women. Female leaders tend to reflect more on the impacts – both positive and negative – of their environment on their career progression than male leaders. More female leaders than male leaders felt that their careers have been hindered by a number of workplace factors, which may reflect a lack of management or organisational support, or it may be that women are more willing than men to acknowledge factors that have blocked progression.
Female leaders place a higher value on their education and qualifications. More females than males participate in education and training in the creative and cultural sector, in all sub-sectors except music. Compared to their male counterparts, female leaders are more likely to have worked exclusively in the creative and cultural sector; to have high qualifications and to have worked on a part-time basis. They are generally younger than their male counterparts. Male and female leaders share the goal of setting the vision for the sector in their top job. Sixty-one per cent of female leaders have never had a career break and 45% have never had a major caring responsibility. Only 32% of female workers have never done any part-time work. Male leaders unanimously see their future as leaders, whereas a quarter of female leaders see themselves in less senior positions (potentially in higher profile organisations) in the future. Tellingly, only three-quarters of female leaders aspire to remain as leaders compared to 100% of men.  [[Female leaders are already more highly qualified than male senior leaders, and are more likely to hold industry-specific qualifications]]
Gender divide
So how do we address the gender deficit? Female leaders are already more highly qualified than male senior leaders, and are more likely to hold industry-specific qualifications. The only area in which men and women were unanimous was that they felt no need for gender-specific training or events. The latter seems at odds with the experience of the CLP – the Women in Museums Network has been very successful in bringing senior women together, and participants in this network have gained some high profile leadership positions. More female leaders have found interpersonal, leadership, coaching/mentoring and cross-sector opportunities useful than males, so CLP’s investment in these areas through its Work-based Learning and Intensive Learning strands would seem to be providing the kinds of learning required. The study shows that the route to equal representation in leadership across the sector is a complex one: there is no single barrier to women achieving senior leadership positions, but a combination of personal factors and workplace culture and circumstance.
What do we do with the rich information that this study has revealed? CLP sees the study as a shared resource to inform our thinking and provision, and as the baseline for a longitudinal study of women in leadership. Diversity in leadership of the creative and cultural sector is a key driver in its ongoing success, and CLP has already commissioned and published a study of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Leadership in the sector (AP187) with a study on disability to follow. Together, these will provide the anchors for defining provision and measuring the progress we make towards a dynamic and diverse leadership for the twenty-first century.