Survey shows why progress on corporate board diversity is so slow
Many reasons have been given for why only 19% of corporate board directors are women — a number that has barely budged over the last decade.
There aren’t enough directors retiring to make room for new ones. There aren’t enough outside pressures to prompt real change. Boards can’t find enough women to take new seats.
But a new survey offers a potentially simpler explanation. Male directors, who occupy the vast majority of board seats, apparently don’t think it’s very important.
PricewaterhouseCoopers released its annual directors report Tuesday, which surveyed nearly 800 corporate board members. It reveals a sharp and unsettling divide between the way the male and female directors who were queried view the issue of diversity.
The numbers are striking. Just 35% of the male directors said diversity on the board is “very important,” compared with 63% of the women.
Eighty percent of the women surveyed said they “very much” agree that diversity leads to more effective boards, compared with just 40% of the men. The male directors were also less likely than women to view racial diversity as very important, and less likely to believe that there were enough qualified diverse candidates for board seats.
Meanwhile, 74% of female directors said they strongly agree that board diversity leads to better company performance, compared with just 31% of the male directors.
That’s despite a growing body of research that shows a link between the two. More diverse boards have been tied to higher average growth, better-priced mergers and acquisitions, and higher returns on equity, sales and invested capital.
Until more male directors view the issue as a crucial imperative, diversity will fall behind the many other pressing matters that compete for boards’ time.
It’s hard for change to happen when so many of the people actually in a position to do something about it don’t view it as very important.
Jena McGregor writes a daily column analyzing leadership in the news for the Washington Post’s On Leadership section.
