Why we need women to run our school system

In the 21st century, we should not be held back by gender discrimination or any outdated notion of what is men's work and what is women's work. In a world that is highly diverse, complex and increasingly precarious; we need forward-thinking head-teachers regardless of their gender who can educate tomorrow's generation to lead us into a better future.

There is now much academic literature that shows women have developed leadership styles that are more emotionally intelligent and transformative. They have done so not because it is a woman's 'natural' leadership style, but because women have traditionally had to negotiate a tougher terrain to be able to get on and move up. Therefore, women have developed a wider repertoire of skills from which they have been able to deploy, depending on the context they find themselves in.

A report by McKinsey & Co, The Business of Empowering Women, in 2010 found that "the presence of gender-diverse leadership teams correlates with stronger financial and organisational performance." It said that there was a strong positive correlation between the number of women leaders in a company and the return on assets and equity.

The lack of women in senior school leadership positions means that we are missing the perspective, insights and talents of half the population. In the world of business, this means you are potentially losing out on half of the consumer market. An education system without gender balance will lack spark and innovation. We need diversity to grow.

To make progress, there is a need to focus on raising the aspirations of women teachers to inspire them to grow into school leaders of tomorrow. Using the media and campaigns that publicise significant achievements of many women is a good way to start. We need to feed the talent pipeline by ensuring greater transparency in how people are being selected for top education posts in the country. Tough questions need to be asked about why there are not many female leaders or managers in education. Focusing on the 'talent pipeline' is critical to achieving a sustainable solution to the issue of women's under-representation in school leadership positions.

While much of the focus till now has been on the woman in terms of building her capacities and confidence, it is time to shift our gaze firmly onto the institutional and workplace culture. Unless we confront everyday sexism and gender discrimination in the society, at our workplace and in institutional practices, we will continue to have sticky floors and glass ceilings.

Amartya Sen, India's Nobel-prize winning economist reminds us that discriminatory institutions and discriminatory social norms will reflect and reproduce underlying gendered power relations that make transformation difficult. An example of a social norm, sadly still prevalent, is that we often still ascribe greater social value to sons over daughters and therefore invest more in men than women.

Women's lack of access to decision-making power and spheres of influence is currently limiting the tackling and reduction of gender inequality. Therefore the responsibility lies with the enlightened men within political and policy circles to dismantle practices and barriers that prevent women from progressing.

Having policies and action plans in place to promote gender equality is a good step forward. Having robust statistics to analyse trends and identify areas for future action is also important.We should, however, not become complacent in assuming having policies and statistics will automatically result in progress. There is a need to be more sophisticated in how we understand why women are not moving into leadership. There will be subtle forms of discrimination as well as practices and rules that appear gender neutral, but in fact limit women from progressing. For example, transport policies that do not consider issues of women's safety will limit women's mobility and access to public spaces, and potentially access to employment.

The issue of life-work balance is the single-most important issue to tackle if we wish women to consider school leadership positions. It is the one issue that discourages many women from stepping up. There is a need to embrace flexible working at all levels and to educate managers to manage based on results, not hours at a desk. There is a need to harness technology to enable people to work remotely and away from their desks- through the use of shared drives, Google Hangout and Other tools.

Here are ten ways to persuade more women to consider leadership positions:

1. Those in senior positions in education need to provide a clear and strong message that you want to see more women in leadership roles. Repeat this message until the message becomes routine.

2. Talent spot - do not just go for the usual suspects or who is 'next in line'. Instead look at who has the potential, appears keen, needs support and guidance and is an emergent leader.

3. Start up networks where women can have access to a mentor who can show them the ropes - provide that vertical capital that is often lacking.

4. Get women who have made it into leadership positions to share their story and their strategies. This can be inspiring for others.

5. Provide opportunities to shadow someone another woman who is already in a leadership position. 

6. Offer a range of staff development opportunities in order to meet different needs and to build capacity.

7. Create a work culture that allows people to make mistakes and take risks. This will encourage women and also men who might be more hesitant to take the leap.

8. Explore how workplaces can provide greater lifework balance. Without this, many women will opt to either stay in depute roles or just not seek leadership positions.

9. Encourage a workplace culture which values collegiate and creative leadership - macho and aggressive style leadership is such a turn off for many women.

10. Most of all, identify and address personal, cultural and institutional barriers that prevent women from moving into leadership. Tackling everyday sexism is a tough thing to do but doing it will assist women into leadership positions.