Women in Supply Chain Leadership

The fifth volume of REALITY CHECK was released recently and discusses how women can continue to push progress in leadership in the supply chain industry. REALITY CHECK consists of five reports on the “dynamics of supply chain leadership” compiled from AWESOME events, programs, and symposiums.

AWESOME (achieving women’s excellence in supply chain operations, management, and education) works to advance women’s supply chain leadership. Through discussions with senior executives in supply chain, they develop programming to aid this goal and the REALITY CHECK publication is a direct result of that.

Volume Five focuses on the driving factors AWESOME feels have resulted in only 5% of top leadership positions (C- and VP-level roles) being occupied by women. They believe that progress “will only happen through the combined efforts of the companies, the champions of women’s leadership within those companies, and the women themselves.”

Some suggestions for women to create opportunities for advancement were to be a ‘doer’, get the job done, seek out feedback, and embrace your ambition. However, companies also need to focus on addressing unconscious bias, making sure candidate pools are diverse, and recognizing the results of female staff, among other things.

Read Volume Five, How We Make Things Happen – Reaching New Levels of Leadership, here.

To read Volumes 1-4, visit awesomeleaders.org or go to http://awesomeleaders.org/collective-wisdom/reality-check.

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