Sunday 8^th March, the world will be celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women across the globe. 

Over the last decades, women have managed to achieve so much in the workplace and yet breaking the glass ceiling still seems to be a challenge. 

Globally, women hold just 4.4% of CEO positions and just 12.7% of CFO roles.

We believe that the strongest reason behind is the fact the we as humans do not address and acknowledge enough our individual bias. 

In a lot of cases without even realising it, we make all our decisions based on it. Often we confuse bias with our set of values. This is what creates prejudice. 

Of course, these assessments might not be the same across generations, but the world we live in entertains them (for example, how women are portrayed in TV shows, movies, cartoons, books, politics etc..)

Based on what we are exposed to, so many of us have assessments on how old a leader should be, how s/he should  look like, which school s/he should have attended, what hobbies s/he should have, what kind of clothing s/he should be wearing, what would be her/his marital status, what would be her/his sexuality or if s/he would have children …. 

Since as humans we tend to be scared of the unknown, in order to avoid making any possible mistake, we prefer to be homogenous.  

We therefore end up  hiring and promoting people like “us”, which translates into homogeneity. 

In other words, in a world today still strongly dominated by men, it means that men keep supporting other men, by hiring them and promoting them.

This is what needs to change ! We need to be aware of our own bias and defy it ! 

The ability to detach both intellectually and emotionally is a vital component of good judgment, but it is a difficult skill to master.

Let’s try together to change the world to the better by making bias testing and training an obligation within all senior leadership roles.