Diversity is a Competitive Advantage

Creating real diversity is more than just giving women more options on work / life balance. Achieving a work / life balance is a universal goal we should all strive for no matter your gender. No, creating real diversity goes deeper. It’s the encouragement of new ideas and accepting that the old way of doing things can be improved upon.

Accepting that diversity of thought can be a competitive advantage will transform who you approach building teams. Diversity will naturally occur once you realize how much more creative and productive a team can be when the inclusion of ideas from many different perspectives occurs.

However, many times a company’s culture will only begin to accept this inclusivity of thought when a diverse management team is installed to kick start the process. Therefore, seeking out women leaders should be a priority for any company who seeks to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Influential women are not new in technology. Here’s a great informational video which showcases some of the founding women in technology who including legendary Navy programmer Grace Hopper who helped invent COBOL.

So women technology leaders have been around since the beginning. The NASA women known as the “computers” were the foundation of the space program and featured in the movie Hidden Figures (2016) – IMDb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340/). The misnomer is that technology is better suited for male minds. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Throughout 1980-1990, most women turned away from the technology sector leaving it to be male dominated. Now women are slowly moving back into the technology sector to take advantage of well paying positions.

However, women in security still lags the overall technology sector in diversity. We hope organizations like Cybersecurity DIvas can help change this.