What is the meaning of leadership today? How are society’s perceptions and prejudices shaping the concept and the future of leadership?
Every year, Women Political Leaders hosts gatherings during Davos Week to shed light on society’s perceptions of and prejudices towards women in leadership and more broadly to discuss the meaning of leadership today. The basis for these discussions is the Reykjavík Index for Leadership, the study carried out by WPL and Kantar, which measures how people feel about women in leadership.
The Reykjavik Index for Leadership was presented first by WPL and Kantar during the Women Leaders Global Forum 2018. Data updates, and increase of countries surveyed are done annually. The first edition of the Reykjavik Index for Leadership 2018, which was named #BestOfDavos in 2019.
The Index 2019 evaluates perceptions of who is suitable to lead across 22 different industries and public professions, researching the attitudes of more than 22,000 working-age people. Building on the success of the Index in 2018, during the Davos Week 2020, WPL is to present the Reykjavik Index for 2019.
Women Political Leaders (WPL) and CBSN co-host the breakfast, in partnership with EY and Ketchum: “The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2019: Measuring perceptions to speed up the journey to equality“. The breakfast takes place on Thursday morning, January 23rd at the Hilton Garden Inn in Davos, Switzerland.
The meeting – by invitation only – aims to take the conversation on the surprising results of the Index further, look at what can be done with the evidence compiled, and what is the role of media and Leaders to challenge social norms.
The expert panel discussion followed by a Q&A session brings together outstanding leaders, such as:
The Index began from an understanding for the need to document the social norms that operate within societies – the everyday beliefs and behaviours of men and women and the barriers to change – to support the movement for fairness and equality. There are many valuable, powerful indices that measure progress in economic and participatory equality for men and women. However, there were no measures of how people feel about men and women in leadership roles. The new findings of the research 2019 show results not only in the G7 nations of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA – already covered in the Index 2018, but also in Brazil, China, India, and Russia are on the agenda for discussions with key leaders.
The Index 2019 initial results were presented at the Reykjavík Global Forum – Women Leaders held in Reykjavik, Iceland, in November 2019.
