Anyone who has spent even the briefest time working with me knows how I feel about this topic. When I was appointed to take over leadership of The Colony Beach & Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, of the 300 or so employees and dozens of department heads and supervisors, women managers could easily have been counted on one hand. While at first it didn’t register as an issue needing attention, a swift but unforced transition took place.

Without planning, suddenly our ranking staff changed. As male staff accustomed to the prior general manager’s style of “fear and intimidation” were marginalized, since I felt it was inappropriate and ineffectual in a hospitality environment, and his followers vacated their positions, new hires became more and more female. It wasn’t that we were trying to create diversity, it simply happened that my desired design for a team was based in care, comaraderie, comfort, charm and courteous behaviors and, when the team began to embrace these characteristics, which I felt were far more favorable to providing a warm and memorable visit for our guests and more pleasant workplace, the old guard was naturally forced to shift.

As our employee complexion evolved, so did our guest satisfaction, staff morale ratings, business improved, financial success recovered, and a sense of balance developed.

The attached posting offers great insight into actual research on why working toward encouraging more women to fill leadership positions will improve performance of almost any company.  As the research cited shows and the article states, “Change isn’t hard when you understand what you have to lose and what you have to gain. After all, what would your financials look like with an 84% increase in return on sales or a 46% increase in return on equity?”

Let’s work together to make sure that our brightest, boldest, imaginative, and productive women are a part of every company’s culture!