Raphael John-Lall

Lead­er­ship spe­cial­ist, Max­ine At­tong be­lieves that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sound­ing vic­to­ry in Mon­day’s gen­er­al elec­tions will set a lead­er­ship ex­am­ple for women in busi­ness and oth­er spheres in life.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was elect­ed as T&T’s first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter in 2010 and on Mon­day, she de­fied the odds de­liv­er­ing a crush­ing de­feat to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the coun­try’s gen­er­al elec­tions and will not on­ly lead T&T po­lit­i­cal­ly but al­so man­age T&T’s econ­o­my for the next five years.

At­tong who is al­so a past pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT) told the Busi­ness Guardian that hav­ing a fe­male leader to steer T&T’s econ­o­my will in­spire in­no­va­tion in the econ­o­my.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar broke sig­nif­i­cant ground as the first woman to serve as Prime Min­is­ter of T&T. This 2025 elec­tion re­sult deep­ens her lega­cy and fur­ther nor­malis­es the idea of fe­male au­thor­i­ty. Her lead­er­ship will in­spire girls and young women to en­vi­sion them­selves in po­si­tions of pow­er. By elect­ing her, T&T is once again sig­nalling to busi­ness­es, in­vestors and young girls that women’s lead­er­ship is val­ued and es­sen­tial, po­ten­tial­ly un­lock­ing greater work­force par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­no­va­tion. Hope­ful­ly her lead­er­ship will align with the re­search and glob­al ex­am­ples that show that women lead­ers of­ten ex­hib­it a more in­clu­sive, em­pa­thet­ic, and col­lab­o­ra­tive lead­er­ship style, which fos­ters uni­ty and trust that is crit­i­cal for our di­verse pop­u­la­tion,” she said,

At­tong added that fe­male lead­ers al­so tend to pri­ori­tise poli­cies that ben­e­fit broad­er seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion and lead to more bal­anced na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“Ellen John­son Sir­leaf, Liberia’s first elect­ed fe­male head of state, worked to im­prove ed­u­ca­tion and health out­comes, par­tic­u­lar­ly for women and chil­dren. The new Prime Min­is­ter’s main chal­lenge re­flects what most women face. Women are less like­ly to be mem­bers of, or trust­ed by, ex­ist­ing male pa­tron­age and clien­telism.

“Pa­tron­age refers to men pro­vid­ing sup­port, fund­ing, or pro­tec­tion to an in­di­vid­ual, or­gan­i­sa­tion, or cause, and us­ing their in­flu­ence or pow­er to grant favours, jobs, or oth­er ben­e­fits in ex­change for loy­al­ty or sup­port. Clien­telism or client pol­i­tics is the ex­change of goods and ser­vices for po­lit­i­cal sup­port, of­ten in­volv­ing an im­plic­it or ex­plic­it quid-pro-quo.”

At­tong said that not many women break the prover­bial glass ceil­ing and make it to the top spots like CEOs of com­pa­nies.

“De­spite women com­pris­ing a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the work­force (44 per cent in T&T), women hold on­ly a frac­tion of se­nior lead­er­ship po­si­tions. A large per­cent­age of women oc­cu­py su­per­vi­so­ry and man­age­r­i­al po­si­tions but how many of them are CEO or board mem­bers or chair the board,” she said. She added that De­loitte Women in Board­room Re­port 2023 in­di­cates that in the Caribbean, 22 per cent of board seats were held by women and 8 per cent of women were board chairs and glob­al fig­ures re­flects the lo­cal cir­cum­stances:

Glob­al­ly, in 2023 women held:

• 8 per cent of man­age­ment po­si­tions.

• 10.4 per cent of lead­er­ship po­si­tions at For­tune 500 com­pa­nies.

• 23 per cent of board seats glob­al­ly

• 8 per cent of board chairs

• 6 per cent of CEOs roles

While progress has been made over the last few years, she be­lieves more can be done to help el­e­vate women to lead­er­ship roles.

“Glob­al­ly more women lead­ers are found in health­care and ed­u­ca­tion. In oth­er fields, as in the en­er­gy and IT sec­tors, on­ly two per cent of CEOs are women. The av­er­age share of women in par­lia­ments across the world more than dou­bled from 11 per cent to 26 per cent from 1995 to 2024. Over the same pe­ri­od, the num­ber of women serv­ing as ex­ec­u­tive heads of state in­creased from 4 to 17.”

Giv­en the chang­ing eco­nom­ic, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal com­plex­i­ties of the world, At­tong be­lieves that more fe­male lead­ers are need­ed.

“We are liv­ing in a time of com­plex­i­ty, un­cer­tain­ty and dis­rup­tion that leaves us feel­ing anx­ious and doubt­ful. At this time, we need lead­ers who are adapt­able, em­pa­thet­ic, and re­silient; all traits that women ex­cel at.”

She re­ferred to KP­MG’s 2023 “Ad­vanc­ing the Fu­ture of Women in Busi­ness” re­port, which re­vealed that 79 per cent of ex­ec­u­tive women pri­ori­tise well­ness.

“We are more at­tuned to and will sup­port is­sues as work-life bal­ance, self-care, and men­tal well-be­ing. Af­ter the 2020 pan­dem­ic, we can no longer de­ny that these are key to main­tain­ing a pro­duc­tive work­force. Most women lead­ers, be­cause of per­son­al health­care or for fa­mil­ial rea­sons, un­der­stand the pow­er of flex­i­bil­i­ty. At some point in their ca­reer, they need­ed it or were de­nied it or ben­e­fit­ted from re­ceiv­ing it. Women are more like­ly to pro­mote flex­i­ble work­ing con­di­tions that ben­e­fit the per­son­al lives of staff.”

She al­so said that stud­ies have shown that women are twice as like­ly to dri­ve ini­tia­tives that cre­ate a sense of be­long­ing, in­vite in­clu­sion and pro­mote the im­por­tance of psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe en­vi­ron­ments with­in which peo­ple can tru­ly thrive. When em­ploy­ees feel safe, they are more cre­ative and take more ini­tia­tive.

“Re­search by Lead­er­ship Cir­cle un­der­scores that women are ex­cep­tion­al at build­ing re­la­tion­ships and fos­ter­ing col­lec­tive in­tel­li­gence. This is re­flect­ed in less ego dri­ven de­ci­sions, and more col­lab­o­ra­tive prob­lem solv­ing, which are more aligned to the pref­er­ences of the mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional work­force.”

She said this is all re­flect­ed in a com­pa­ny’s bot­tom line. The Glob­al Lead­er­ship Fore­cast states:

• Com­pa­nies in the top 10 per cent for fi­nan­cial per­for­mance have 29 per cent women in lead­er­ship, com­pared to just 23 per cent in un­der­per­form­ing ones.

• Com­pa­nies with women ex­ec­u­tives are 30 per­cent more like­ly to out­per­form those with­out. This shows us that hav­ing women as lead­ers will shift the tra­jec­to­ry of the or­gan­i­sa­tion

At­tong spoke about bi­as­es and “bar­ri­ers” that have pre­vent­ed women from ris­ing to the top of the po­lit­i­cal and cor­po­rate world in the past.

“Women en­tered the work­force in T&T in the 1960’s, and there are still cul­tur­al, so­ci­etal and tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers that lim­it women’s abil­i­ty to set and achieve their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al am­bi­tions. Un­con­scious bias in both men and women pro­motes the idea that women are ‘emo­tion­al’ and not as ef­fec­tive at mak­ing de­ci­sions or at lead­er­ship as men. The fact that women may take time off for preg­nan­cies and are deeply in­volved in rais­ing chil­dren may al­so con­tribute to be­liefs that an or­gan­i­sa­tion may be ‘los­ing’ with women on board.”

She said women are im­pact­ed by two main psy­cho­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tions that erode their abil­i­ty to put them­selves for­ward for these po­si­tions.

These in­clude:

• Sec­ond shift which ex­plains that women work a dou­ble day or sec­ond shift as they per­form most of the house­hold and child care re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Women view this as an in­di­vid­ual prob­lem and not a so­ci­etal one and feel over­bur­dened by the need to suc­ceed in this are­na. As a re­sult, women of­ten re­port feel­ings of guilt, in­ad­e­qua­cy and re­la­tion­ship ten­sion, as they progress in their pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer.

• Im­poster syn­drome. Which says that de­spite ex­ter­nal ev­i­dence of their com­pe­tence, high-achiev­ing women of­ten doubt their ac­com­plish­ments and have a per­sis­tent in­ter­nalised fear of be­ing ex­posed as a “fraud”. They be­lieve that they do not de­serve all they have achieved or at­tribute their suc­cess to luck, or as a re­sult of de­ceiv­ing oth­ers in­to think­ing they are more in­tel­li­gent than they per­ceive them­selves to be.

At­tong gave de­tails of her mas­ter­class she will hold in May and said this pro­gramme is for women who are in lead­er­ship po­si­tions or as­pir­ing to be in those po­si­tions, re­gard­less of sec­tor.

Women who want to:

• In­crease their con­fi­dence and as­sertive­ness to ef­fec­tive­ly lead.

• En­hance their tech­ni­cal lead­er­ship skills,

• In­crease self-aware­ness and emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence,

• Lever­age and cre­ate new net­works to bol­ster suc­cess.

“All these fac­tors will re­dound to seek­ing and cre­at­ing more lead­er­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties. We have worked with over 200 fe­male pro­fes­sion­als over the last 8 years from var­i­ous back­grounds – en­tre­pre­neurs, state and pri­vate in­dus­tries. With on­line we have al­so worked with women from var­i­ous coun­tries.”