Women In The Workplace: Balancing Leadership In Niche Fields

Key tactics for HR managers to identify an effective female leader

Many people think that your title may define your level of leadership, however, in today’s workplace, that’s not the case. In fact, the leaders of today’s organizations are not necessarily looking to land an executive title, nor are they looking for a career track until retirement. Instead, today’s leaders are looking for jobs based on how they can make the world a more secure and smarter place. Many of these leaders are women.
 

In the first five months of 2018, “women accounted for 248, or 31%, of new board directors at the country’s 3,000 biggest publicly traded companies, according to an analysis of corporate filings by ISS Analytics, the data arm of Institutional Shareholder Services. That is the highest percentage in at least a decade and puts 2018 on track to be a record year for new female board members.” This dovetails one of the most prominent HR-related trends: women leadership is on the rise, particularly within the security and data analytics sectors.

Women working in niche fields, such as security, data analytics or as entrepreneurs, are transforming our workplace culture for the better. They continue to pave the way of a new type of leadership that is highly effective by showcasing passion for their industry while providing on-the-job training. This combination of engaging employees and having a deep understanding of technology enables women to help others excel at their personal careers.

The Data Analytics Surge

An example of an individual who has mastered balancing leadership and her specific role in security is Claire McDonough. Claire is the Engineering Manager in the Security Operations team at Google. In a CSO article titled, Women leaders in security recognized, the editor reveals “throughout her 5 years at Google, [Claire] has worked in various parts of the security team as a technical program manager, focused on a broad set of projects from pre-launch security product reviews to security strategy, vulnerability management and now as an engineering manager on client platform hardening, network perimeter security and machine identity. Claire manages a team of security engineers who focus on innovation in enterprise security and developing solutions that make it easy for people to work securely.”
 
Claire stands as an example of “someone to watch” who can balance it all – even if she is being pulled in several directions. While women are gaining more leadership roles across the board and at places like Google, the security field as it relates to data analytics is where HR managers really have a solid talent pool to look out for.  

ReCode recently shared, “this new discipline, called data science, will not be exclusive to the male-dominated computer science profession, and a tidal wave of opportunity will arise for women,” while The Wall Street Journal noted, “Women directors with experience in new technologies, e-commerce and cybersecurity are in high demand, board recruiters and business leaders said.”
 
It’s clear that this opportunity won’t slow down anytime soon. Here are some key tactics for HR managers to identify an effective female leader.

Defining a Leader

Some qualities of the most successful leaders are that they motivate others to reach their max potential, they challenge them to learn more about a specific project they may be working on and they instill trust amongst their colleagues and on behalf of an organization.
 
According to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies, “Diversity [especially when trying to encourage a heterogeneous security staff] encourages a culture where divergent opinions can be brought together to develop innovative solutions to solve some of the toughest problems our nation faces today.”

Leadership Tactics

Find women with the following traits and they will help transform your organization to a place of learning and engagement.
 

• Passionate about an industry: In this case, this individual must understand what problems data analytics or security are solving today. How can this person improve and build on those methodologies?
• Educates peers: This person is willing to take the time to teach colleagues on specific technologies or practices, why it is done a particular way and the overall goal.
• Is a problem solver: They can identify a problem that you are trying to solve and can ask themselves, is there a market for this idea?
• Asks the right questions: Challenge existing mindsets, be a life long learner. For example, what enhancement skills do they need? Do they have a supportive network, mentor, advisor or programs? Do they have the creative freedom to fail-fast and learn quickly?
• Has a “can do” attitude: The individual is self-sufficient, challenges the status quo, and is a self-starter.
• Communicates effectively: Being able to communicate well to peers and up the management chain is vital. We can no longer have the attitude of putting our head down and getting the work done, this is still essential, but it is not enough, we also need to be vocal about our successes and those of our team.

Something that is not touched upon here is the “job description”. Getting it right is important to ensure we have a desired percentage of women in the hiring funnel. When targeting or including women for a particular position, the job description must be written in an unbiased way. There are subtitles and nuances portrayed in a job description that could influence who applies for that position.  We all carry biases whether conscious. There are software tools available to ensure our job descriptions are targeting the right cohort, these tools should be used and be part of the hiring process and life cycle.

These are some of the basics for defining a great female leader in industries on the rise. As more and more security challenges arise, both businesses and people have an exciting opportunity. By hiring more women leaders in niche industries, we’ll finally start to see movement in closing the gender gap, as well as, a shift in how we define the overall workplace.