Is India Inc doing enough to coach and create enough women CEOs?
In a country where only one among the leading 50 companies is led by a woman, the fall from grace of women business leaders is not encouraging. Omidyar Network India head and former Crisil CEO Rupa Kudwa is the latest to join the list of women leaders like Chanda Kochhar and Chitra Ramkrishna , who faced regulatory ire for a direct or indirect lapse of conduct.Following the irregularities in the debt schemes of Franklin Templeton, Kudwa along with her husband Vivek who was head of Franklin Templeton Asia Pacific  has been restrained from accessing securities market for a year, and penalised with fine running in crores. Chanda Kochhar, CEO of ICICI Bank till 2018, is facing charges of conflict of interest and money laundering in a loan granted to a company founded by her husband. Chitra Ramkrishna, CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) from 2013 till 2016, was charged with dereliction of duty in the NSE colocation case.With so few women in mainstream Indian business leadership, any wavering or blunder by them arguably tends to attract more scrutiny and remembrance in public memory than their male counterparts. It also sets a discouraging precedent for future business women, making their ascent in corporate hierarchy apparently tougher.A 2019 American Psychological Association study (bit.ly/3giH0vf) found that female CEOs are judged more harshly than their male counterparts when their organisations exhibited ethical failures, such as a cover-up. However, they did not receive as much negative feedback as male CEOs when their companies faced a competence failure, such as a malfunctioning product. The study found that consumers trust and willingness to support an organisation after a failure is based on the gender of the CEO and nature of the incident.Women tend to incur greater penalties for ethical transgressions because of persistent gender stereotypes that tend to categorise women as having more community-oriented traits than men. This becomes one of the subtle reasons why women in business need to conduct themselves more meticulously than their male counterparts. They tend to get judged more and, at times, with higher severity. They need to be wary of the actions of their husbands too.Women leaders also tend to be more expendable in the corporate world. The well-networked male business leaders often tend to resurface and survive in their business boys clubs. But women leaders pay a heavier price for any public ignominy and are seldom seen making a comeback. There is also the phenomenon of the  glass cliff  women CEOs to be wary of.The term, a cousin of glass ceiling, was coined in a 2005 University of Exeter study, The Glass Cliff: Evidence That Women are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions, which found that women were over-represented in precarious leadership positions. Looking at the 100 companies that made up the FTSE index on the London Stock Exchange, they found that during periods of overall stock market decline, firms that brought women to their boards were likelier to have experienced a consistently bad performance in the preceding five months than those who brought on men.Essentially, when women reach the upper ranks of power, they are put into precarious positions where there is a greater risk for them to fall. The phenomenon was later found to be playing out similarly in case of Fortune 500 companies too  women were found to be more likely than men to be appointed to top jobs in poorly performing companies.The nature of governance lapses on the part of some of the female CEOs in India point to the glaring need of coaching, sensitisation and career development, especially for women CEOs, as they try and juggle their personal and professional lives. The baggage of social conditioning, cultural nuances and unconscious biases need to be unlearned in the process. Despite having no role in the company, spouses of CEOs do have an influence on the CEOs conduct and, therefore, have an impact on the companys success. Sensitisation training and a code of conduct agreement with CEO spouses is an idea that should get more takers now.India Inc celebrates when its efforts towards gender diversity at the top bear fruit. However, often the reason for celebration does not last long.Indian companies need to ask themselves if they are doing enough to coach and create a sustainable pipeline of women CEOs.