How AI can open new leadership paths for women in tech

AI’s potential to transform leadership opportunities for women: Artificial intelligence holds promise in addressing gender disparities in leadership roles, offering both challenges and opportunities for advancing women’s representation in senior management positions.

Current state of gender disparity in leadership: Despite increased female participation in the global workforce, women remain underrepresented in leadership roles, particularly at the senior management level.

• In the UK, women occupy over a third of board positions in FTSE 350 companies, but gender parity in senior management remains elusive.
• McKinsey identifies a “broken rung” hampering women’s progress from entry-level positions to junior management, where crucial leadership skills are developed.
• Contributing factors include inflexible working conditions, disproportionate domestic responsibilities, microaggressions, and entrenched gender bias.

AI’s potential to reinforce bias: Research indicates that AI systems, particularly language-based generative AI, can perpetuate existing gender biases in leadership perceptions.

• A study found that AI was more likely to present women as “bad leaders” when asked to provide examples of leadership.
• Bad male leaders were portrayed as tyrannical and power-hungry, while bad female leaders were often deemed incompetent.
• This reflects the double standard where male competence is assumed, while female competence must be demonstrated.

AI as a tool for eradicating bias: Despite concerns, AI also has the potential to help eliminate bias and provide women with fair opportunities in leadership roles.

• AI-led processes in hiring and assessment could reduce discrimination for leadership aspirants.
• The onus is on Big Tech to prioritize ethics in AI development, applying diverse perspectives to maximize benefits.
• Failure to address bias in AI could lead to a crisis of legitimacy similar to that faced by patriarchal models.

Ethical considerations in AI development: The tech industry is increasingly focusing on ethics and unbiased algorithms as central concerns in AI development.

• Conferences, papers, and podcasts on AI frequently discuss the importance of unbiased algorithms trained on increased representation.
• A key question is identifying whom AI algorithms fail to represent adequately.
• Supporting women to take the lead in AI ethics and technical development could be a crucial first step in addressing representation issues.

AI’s potential to boost productivity and skills: Studies indicate that AI can increase productivity, particularly in lower-skilled roles, potentially benefiting women who predominate in administrative and clerical positions.

• AI can take over menial tasks, freeing up time for skill improvement, strategic planning, networking, and mentoring.
• This opportunity extends across the workforce, as exemplified by PepsiCo’s Digital Academy, which helps employees improve their digital skills and use AI to enhance their work.

Broader implications: AI presents a dual opportunity for women to gain greater representation in senior management by combating gender bias and developing leadership skillsets.

• Efforts enabling women to take the lead in mass-scaling AI are both an ethical imperative and a strategic advantage for businesses.
• By promoting representation and legitimacy, AI has the potential to benefit not only women in leadership but also businesses and society as a whole.