Margaret Manning champions women's leadership at exclusive Princes Trust event

19/11/2009 - London

This week, Reading Room CEO and Female Entrepreneur of the Year Margaret Manning will discuss her views on women's leadership during the financial downturn as part of an exclusive event. Manning will deliver her thoughts to an inspirational panel, hosted by The Princes Trust and the Bank of New York's women's network.

The panel discussion will cover a wide range of interesting and controversial issues surrounding women's leadership in the financial crisis, including how women's leadership styles differ from their male counterparts, and are female managers better?

As founder of Reading Room, Manning enjoys her position as a highly successful female entrepreneur in a typically male-dominated digital industry - meaning she's perfectly placed to speak up on the subject.

Manning believes when women are successful, they are successful in their own right. There is a subtle stereotype that harks back to Simone de Beauvoir's famous quote which should be stamped out: "Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female. Whenever she behaves as a human being, she is siad to imitate the male."

Manning discusses the fact that women should not be judged against the 'benchmark' that is a man - it's this kind of thinking we should be moving away from. People should be viewed as individuals in the workplace, regardless of gender. Manning cites the word 'equality' as the main problem, stating it should refer to equal pay and equal opportunities, but it has in fact come to mean that men and women are equal in every respect. But can it be denied that there are natural differences between men and women; that they may approach things differently and are stronger in some roles than others? Manning isn't denying gender differences, she simply believes they shouldn't be exploited in the workplace, especially to deny women with equal ability and experience the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

Positive discrimination on the other hand, which forms part of the current equality bill (and is seen by many as part of the solution to improved gender balance), Manning believes sends out the wrong message: "There needs to be an equal playing field and people need to focus on the individual. Indeed, many senior-level women are not in favour of positive discrimination, including myself. 50 per cent of my board and 70 per cent of senior positions at Reading Room are held by women. This has absolutely nothing to do with positive discrimination, but reflects our commitment to talent and the training and development of that talent."

Manning goes on to mention how a glass ceiling still exists, and is thicker in some places than others. What companies need to realise is that if they persist in discriminating against women, they are missing out on 50 per cent of the talent. In any situation, especially during the financial crisis, can companies really afford to be doing this?

A quick glance at women's achievements in higher education underlines this point. The number of women at university first exceeded the number of men 16 years ago, and while women account for 55 per cent of all European university graduates, they represent just 11 per cent of governing bodies of listed companies. A fact that seems perplexing when you think women are much more likley to get a good degree pass (a 2:1 or first), and are less likely to drop out.

Manning is adamant that entrepreneurship should be more widely encouraged. After all, if a woman is running their own business,  the 'glass ceiling' is completely irrelevant. Manning argues that female role models, mentors and networks are important to help develop and support women's talents in business.

"As the owner and CEO of one of the UKs fastest-growing companies, I feel strongly that if women professionals are to grow their own companies, they need female role models to encourage and inspire them. When I founded Reading Room women were doing amazing things, but female chief executives were hard to come by. Even now, male entrepreneurs tend to be much better known than females ones."

Manning, having just recently returned from New York from the Stevies Women in Business Awards - where she picked up the award  for Best Entrepreneur in EMEA - was given the opportunity to mingle with some of the worlds most successful and inspirational business women. It was common opinion among these women that now, more than ever before, its crucial to recognise and celebrate business women's achievements to inspire other women.

Manning comments, "The financial crisis is naturally going to create a lot more entrepreneurs as people lose their jobs - 50 per cent of those will be women. Research shows that when a woman loses her job, she doesn't lose her sense of self-identity as much as a man does. She goes out there and creates her own business, and there needs to be support networks and female role models out there for these women to help them on their road to success."