As businesses pick up momentum and we are inching towards some normalcy, many women are bearing multiple responsibilities- at work and home and successfully too!  And while reflecting on how women are leading the change at their workplace, they are also coming up with innovative solutions to some critical business solutions.

I casually checked on the Internet to see if it could trigger my thoughts on the subject, and for sure, it did. However, not in the way I expected.  My search resulted in more than six million hits. What was revealing, and concerningly so, was that most of the pages were dedicated to discussing, acknowledging, reiterating the challenges that women face in business and nothing in the direction of how women can potentially lead the way in addressing some of the challenges that businesses are witnessing today.

Set aside for a moment, the thought that may have crossed your mind on whether I used the right keywords, the fact remains that unless we start discussing how almost half the world’s population has a fundamental bearing on how businesses, societies and economies will thrive, we are not going to see the desired acceleration on gender parity and associated business and financial gains.

A recent article by Fortune had an eye-catching headline that read, “The female CEOs on this year’s Fortune 500 just broke three all-time records”. More women are being appointed at the CXO level and this trend is rising. Clearly, organizations have realized that driving the gender agenda is no longer just a tick-in-the-box effort, but organizations are now believing that women can and are providing innovative and unique solutions to some of the pertinent and persistent business problems!

Being a woman and being an underdog who had to work hard for my place at the table, I can put forth a laundry list of how we can act as catalysts and enablers in the current business environment, however, I feel they can all fit broadly under the three key points below:

Emotional intelligence

With businesses undergoing massive transformations, it has become more critical now than ever to have leaders at the helm with high emotional intelligence to steer their workforce through significant change management. A study published by Hay Group reported that women are better at using soft skills crucial for effective leadership and superior business performance. In fact, women outperform men in 11 of 12 key emotional intelligence competencies. Women bring these essential leadership skills to the table and can be pivotal to organizations looking to navigate disruption and the evolving market trends successfully.

Diversity in innovation

Tapping into the innovative mindset of women will accelerate the diversity and creativity in solutions. The collaboration between a diverse workforce will enable more out-of-box thinking, encourage healthy debates and promote innovative ideas that will allow organizations to differentiate themselves, stay ahead of the competition and be more proactive in their solutions than reactive.

Resilient leadership

While resilience in women and men is a relative topic. In 2019, Harvard Business Review published a report that found that women scored higher than men on a range of leadership topics, such as taking initiative and acting with resilience. Picking up on the latter, women demonstrate resilient leadership, which will help companies manage disruptive changes and adapt to challenges. Additionally, a woman leader making her way through her career knows that she must fight harder to get to the top, perhaps increasing the desire to be resilient in all challenging situations.

Organizations have started to acknowledge that gender parity can no longer be discussed only as an issue to be solved or a gap to be bridged. They intuitively know that gender-diverse businesses are more likely to outperform financially above the industry median (at least 15% based on research by McKinsey).

Conclusively, women are the winning edge. There’s no denying it. It’s time to amplify this message, challenge the stereotypical gender roles, and act with intention. Please take note, take action, or step aside.

Charmaine Timothy is with EY Global Delivery Services as an Executive Director - GDS Indirect Tax VAT Leader, GDS Indirect Tax Growth Strategy & Transformation Leader, UK Indirect Tax 2.0 GDS Desk Leader, and GDS Tax Diversity & Inclusiveness Leader; EY Women. Fast forward Champion (GDS).