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Booz Allen Hamilton Senior Vice President Joan Dempsey participated on a panel titled “Women Can Lead. Will We Let Them?” on July 7, 2010, at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival. Dempsey, who is a special advisor to the U.S. Strategic Command on intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, and information operations, appeared alongside Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former president of the University of Pennsylvania; Laura Liswood, co-founder and secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders; Ann Veneman, former executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund and former Secretary of Agriculture; Nancy Aossey, president and CEO of the International Medical Corps; and Patricia Sellers, the panel moderator and editor at large for Fortune magazine. Dempsey provided these additional insights following the panel.
Let’s begin with the question at hand: Will we let women lead?
Dempsey: Women are leading today in record numbers. And because women are the majority of the workforce in this country today, it’s inevitable that women will take even greater leadership roles in the future. I think the challenge for us is whether women will be forced to lead using a model from the male-dominated workforce of the past, or be allowed to bring what they can into leadership positions and expand the idea of leadership. If we combine the male and female notions of leadership, we come out with a stronger leadership model for the future.
The panel spent time discussing the workplace and whether it is a level playing field for women. Do you think that’s the proper framework for discussion?
Dempsey: I don’t see the issue of women achieving leadership roles as being a zero-sum game. I believe that women in leadership positions don’t take leadership roles away from men. I think that there is the potential for this to be a game changer and a positive for both men and women, and I hope that is what we are working towards.
What can employers do to entice women who are trying to balance family and work life to assume leadership roles?
Dempsey: I definitely believe women self select out because it becomes too hard to stay on a career track that would get them into the top-tier positions and also make a choice to have and raise a family. It’s a big issue for the young women I work with. So we really need to put into place more policies and an operating model that allows flexibility of hours and workplace. Flexibility is the biggest issue for women at the journeyman level, and it’s where corporations could most easily accommodate the demands of not just young women who have families, but young men as well.
How has Booz Allen’s culture of collaboration helped you succeed?
Dempsey: It was a real revelation for me. I came out of the government and had been in a very hierarchical command structure for 25 years. I had succeeded and was very comfortable in that leadership style. When I got to Booz Allen it was almost the antithesis of a hierarchical structure: The leadership seeks consensus on every issue. It has been extremely empowering for me to know that I can accept risk, that I can take risk and that I’m not on my own. Risk is shared by all of my partners. I get their guidance and input on everything. It’s a very liberating structure.
You said at outset of the discussion that you hoped to gain insight about what it meant to be a woman in a leadership position. What did you learn?
Dempsey: Well, I think one of the interesting things about the discussion among the panel members was that there seemed to be an assumption of the inevitability that all women would want to lead. I’m not sure I agree with that. I don’t believe that all men want to be leaders, and I don’t believe that all women want to be leaders. I think the issue is that all people—men or women—who want to seek powerful positions, leadership positions, should by all means have the opportunity to achieve that.
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