Women as executives

We have come a long way! It was not possible to even imagine a decade ago that such a significant number of women would become high-ranking executives in so many sectors and businesses of India?s economy. As you read this book you will find shining stars in almost every key sector of India?s economy. We must thank those, men and women, who have opened doors for us, supported steps for our difficult climb, and held us when we slipped as women executives. Though not always mentioned in many words in this book, mentors?men and women?as boss or CEO or team member or brother or sister or mother or husband or friend, have guided, supported and helped in this women?s march ahead. Let us welcome this publication on both counts, as evidence of women?s progress in India?s economy as executives as well as their thanksgiving to those who made this possible.

But let us not be misled that this progress was smooth or seamless. Each woman, in a way, had to push her point of view in her team, redo schedules, ask for a seat on the agenda setting table, pursue her boss to give her a chance, neglect scorn and keep off lusty glances. There were reports to be written when a daughter had to finish her homework, a son had to be taken for a skating championship when a global investor was visiting the plant. Choices were often heart-wrenching and always crowding out rest and sleep from her day?s schedule. As a reader, we mostly read this struggle between the lines.

Let us read with care each individual?s ideas: their struggles for strategies, designs to perform higher, discoveries of their leadership and its limitations, and ability to learn while the action is on. Bright ideas are mentioned about teamwork, how to cut through complexity of institutional and market demands, when to find time to focus thinking, how to experiment without great risks, how to create value and when to play.

While reading, we may want to search for answers to the following three questions; Do women execute with more care? Do women keep an eye on both what is to be executed and why? Do women get more done with less time and money? I have derived these questions from my own work with SEWA?s economic and rural activities with one million members spread in six states of India. Among the poor, too, women are executives of their small business or trade in rural and urban areas, working eight to 10 hours a day. if not more, in addition to performing domestic duties and holding family responsibilities. These women may not have a big office of their own but they do find over achievers among them. They may not have a ?market brief? but do understand the psychology of the new product launch. They may not have an MBA degree but can come up with strategies for exceptional business growth. They may be timid but do execute without excuses. My work with them in launching their brand Hasniba for ethnic garments exporting in eight European countries; my work with Rudi, their rural marketing network of 20,000 women in up to 600 villages; and their trade facilitation centre reaching out to Sri Lanka and Afghanistan has always made me ask the above three questions. Maybe someday someone will do a book similar to this one about and of these grassroots women executives. In that book the answer to the above three questions, I think, will be yes.

What we have achieved is not enough, either as women or as executives. We need to lead ahead. One, make sure that more women join this stream of progress till the world of executives becomes, at least, 50/50. We must make sure that more women, especially at the lower end of our economy, are able to move up and ahead, day in and day out, on their own. At SEWA, we have come to our own definition of a leader. One who makes it possible for others less fortunate to leads their lives a bit more happily is a leader at SEWA. In that sense the women executives in this book are becoming leaders. But we have a long way to go!