What keeps you from moving forward with your dreams?getty
Despite an increase in 2022 of women in technology, the statistic comes on the heels of a significant decline in female representation in the industry in ‘21 after years of slight incremental growth.

While one segment of tech continues to see an increase in women year over year – specifically development – it adds little to the constant reality of women making up 50% of the workforce yet only 22% of the tech C-suite are white women and, even more dastardly, 6% are women of color.

Couple the technology C-suite reality with the fact that in 2023, one in three United Kingdom women shared their plan to leave the tech industry in reaction to lack of retention efforts and/or support of better work-life balance.

Why do our numbers as women in the technology workforce continue to plague us?

Beyond education, bias and opportunity impediments, could it be as simple of lack of clarity surrounding what leading in technology truly means?
Outdated assumptions about who you have to be, how you need to act, and how to juggle the day-to-day (and worse, night-to-night) responsibilities must be addressed. Today’s necessities for managing a technology leadership role might come as a welcome surprise.

The magician
Decades ago, the most common technology leader came across as acronym-laden, willfully perplexing, and power rich, service poor. Technology basics were delivered with such purposeful sweat, tears and far out timelines that the end results felt almost magical and other-worldly.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” boomed Oz.
The magical Oz as a puppeteer, seemed so big, yet the role was, once uncovered, far less wizard-like. Yesterday, everything felt much more complex than it does today – and rightfully so. Improvements, automations, and widely available education has led to a clearer, cleaner industry.

In a world where users know what they want and what it takes to get it, the seat at the table historically saved for the magician’s savior-like ego now is open to a more collaborative, transparent type of leader.
Zero work/life balance
Gone are the days of software, hardware, and general technology solutions keeping entire teams up all night. When everything was hand-coded and manually configured, if a system down alert came through, yes, chances are some skilled technician was going to be working on getting it back up and running if it took all night.
With more than 90% of today’s organizations embracing the cloud, solutions today tend to be either managed or, at a minimum, more easily manageable. As cloud usage and managed systems-as-services increase, time for life and wellness increases.
Technology as a career today competes with all other industries for balance. There is time to lead technology and raise a family, sleep through the night, enjoy uninterrupted time away from the office.
The complexity of technology
Given the increased accessibility to technology news and knowledge, one might think technology complexity has lessened.
From low-code to no-code options, what the general population doesn’t understand is ‘less’ means increased complexity ‘under the hood’.
Not unlike a wireless environment requiring more wires than wired to work correctly, tech that appears simpler is typically the opposite of that.
That said, today’s reality in our, “Let me Google that!” era empowers us to focus less on technical conversations and more on what matters today – service, support, and increased outcomes-based communication.
In a nutshell
Maybe technology leadership options of yesteryears would have been a terrible idea for you? But today it’s a perfect fit!
Unless you thrive in an environment where every buck stops with you and there is no room for collaboration, technology leadership is a solid career goal, choice, consideration for the foreseeable future.
Technology needs all different flavors of leaders. There is always room for your expertise and style at the table as long as your know your strengths, embrace your weaknesses, and fortify your team with colleagues strong in your areas of weakness.

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