Future leadership opportunities with gender equality with Patricia Sim
Table of contents
- How do you view the importance of gender balance and diversity, especially within leadership positions?
- What unique challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the next generation of leaders?
- In your opinion, how has technological progress affected women’s leadership positions? Did it make a difference?
- How have you built and sustained your confidence in a leadership role within the business?
- Considering your recent experiences, what is one significant insight you’ve gained recently that you might not have believed before?
- What advice would you give to business leaders or owners who want to follow this principle in their companies?
- What about location, female leadership, or opportunities? How would you describe it in your country, Singapore?
Meet Patricia Sim, HR Lead for Asia region, talent management & acquisition, leadership development in asset management. In this interview, we delve into the key topics of gender balance, diversity, and the evolution of leadership. Patricia highlighted the importance of a diverse, multi-generational workforce, stressing the value of bringing leaders into crucial roles. We also looked at the challenges and opportunities facing the next generation of leaders amid global disruptions, such as climate change and societal change. Through real-world experiences and advice, this interview aims to inspire and guide business leaders to embrace diversity and develop an inclusive culture in their organizations.
Q: How do you view the importance of gender balance and diversity, especially within leadership positions?
Gender balance and diversity are very important, especially when the workforce consists of multiple generations. It’s not just one generation, but three or even four generations working under the umbrella of one organization.
Having a perspective of a very diverse workforce and recognizing that there is diversity not only in terms of generations but also in terms of gender creates a more vibrant workforce. This diversity helps everyone to get together, making the organization more productive and successful.
It’s good to have more diversity, including female leaders in leadership positions within an organization. When we talk about gender balance, we mean including female leaders.
Q: What unique challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the next generation of leaders?
I think the next generation of leaders will face what we call disruption: the disruption of globalization, climate change, and the evolution of societal norms.
The next generation of leaders will face some challenges. They will indeed need a skill set to navigate such complex societal, environmental, and regulatory changes as quickly as possible. This is a global setting. This scheme will unite everyone.
Thanks to technological investments, people can virtually meet in the same room to discuss global issues, affairs, and more. It is no longer just about one country, geographic location, or region.
Again, opportunity would mean that the world is a playing field. There will probably be a few other borders because there are differences. This is where future leaders, armed with the right skills and mindset, can navigate these unique challenges and gain a cultural understanding of different cultures and regions. It’s a chance to make a real difference, to learn, communicate, and solve problems in real time.
Q: In your opinion, how has technological progress affected women’s leadership positions? Did it make a difference? For example, has it improved the situation or opportunities for women? You talked about unlimited opportunities and the labor market for people. Was it also one step that helped women worldwide get a job regardless of where they were?
Yes, certainly. I think so, too. I think that will create opportunities for women who aspire to become leaders or who are curious and want to gain more knowledge, both from a cultural standpoint and from a geographical standpoint. For example, interviews can be conducted virtually. They don’t have to be face-to-face.
If a woman is given the same opportunity to interview men and can be successful, she should be fiscally present in that location. Then, that leads to mobility and the ability to be mobile, too, which also opens more opportunities.
Q: How have you built and sustained your confidence in a leadership role within the business?
I think the sustainability part is really around building very strong relationships with the business and making sure that they’re very curved into the changes in the business and how to work alongside them as their partners, especially when it comes to the acquisition of talents, management of talents, retention of talents.
It should be sustainable in terms of the plans and the business is direction. We must work together as partners with the business to help them grow their business and their workforce.
Q: Considering your recent experiences, what is one significant insight you’ve gained recently that you might not have believed before?
I think the societal change that I mentioned, as well as a woman in leadership, brings about different skills, not just hard skills but soft skills. Empathy, for example, is a soft skill that some women leaders can bring to a management meeting discussion, for example, and display. I think this is something that maybe 10 or 15 years ago, there wasn’t too much of that displayed.
However, the balance of genders also brings about new skills, ways of dealing with people, and ways of functioning as a business.
Q: You mentioned that a diverse or inclusive workforce brings more value to the business. What advice would you give to business leaders or owners who want to follow this principle in their companies?
I think the advice will be to have a very open mindset to grow the business and to hire based on meritocracy, regardless of not just gender but also having a diverse workforce, regardless of which region or in terms of which country of origin the person comes from, as long as the person can bring over the knowledge, the skill set, the experience. That will advise business leaders to have a very open mindset and consider all candidates, for example. I’m coming from the angle of talent acquisition, so I consider all candidates.
Q: What about location, female leadership, or opportunities? How would you describe it in your country, Singapore?
I believe that the country I live in has a good mix of most organizations, especially private ones. The private sector means that organizations more tied to the public type may still have insufficient gender balance.
However, in the private sector, especially in multinational companies, there’s a very good mix of women in senior management and middle management. I think there’s also a program to promote women into board leadership positions by taking on board memberships and also being directors in the organizations they work for or participate in because they are likely to be able to express a collective opinion, point of view, or perspective that can challenge the business to move it forward.
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