PwC research finds women over 55 are best suited for leadership
Businesses should be appointing more women aged over 55 to leadership roles, according to research from accounting giant PwC.
The company found that only eight per cent of business leaders currently have the best capabilities for their roles, in a survey of 6,000 European professionals’ leadership capabilities, carried out by psychometric specialists Harthill Consulting.
PwC’s research showed that strategist leaders are best able to deliver transformational change, as they are “likely to have wider experience of settings, people, and also of failure”. According to the company: “This engenders a humility of perspective and resilience, so that they know what to do when things don’t work.”
The data also shows that the largest proportion of strategist leaders are found to be women and in the over 55 group.
Mark Dawson, partner at PwC, said: “Industries as diverse as big supermarkets, banking and healthcare have wicked problems knocking on their doors right now. How successfully they deal with these will largely depend on how well they can harness and retain strategist leadership talent within their ranks.”