By Renata Chuck-A-Sang
Women’s ability to multitask and adapt to unfavourable circumstances help them to climb the business ladder with confidence. Commitment to work and an instinct for making the right decisions also invariably work in their favour.
As business persons, however, women must compete with men and in that regard they face additional challenges.
New business ventures pose further challenges still. Entrepreneurialism involves more risks and requires more work and enhanced skills.
The major challenges women entrepreneurs face fall into three categories:
1. Gender discrimination and stereotyping: Gender lines are clearly drawn during childhood and often extend into adulthood. The constant message is that women do not belong in business.
2. Dual career-family pressures: Many women start their own businesses so that they can spend more time with their families only to find that the opposite becomes the reality. For some, maintaining a work/family life balance once their business takes off creates even greater pressure.
3. Lack of equal opportunity: Despite the fact that women are moving into traditionally male-dominated sectors they still face challenges in areas like securing financing and achieving business success.
Other hurdles that women usually have to cross include:
1. Lack of funds for investment
Investors seem to be more comfortable lending to startups headed by males. Even banks at times appear to share this tendency. Accordingly, there is the challenge of raising funds by alternative means.
2. Over-analysis:
Women often over-think and over-
analyze, resulting in undue delay in
execution. Often, women are stuck at a point, unable to go forward.
3. Feelings of guilt
Feelings of guilt can stem from being unable to spend as much time with family, not being there to help children with homework or being unable to attend school events or family functions. These feelings can distract from focusing on running a business.
4. ‘The power factor’
With power comes responsibility. There is still the perception in some quarters the women lack what it takes to take over at the very top. This perception negatively affects the image of women seeking (for example) to access funding from potential investors who may not be inclined to take them seriously.
5. Balancing both ends
For women entrepreneurs who are serious about success it is difficult to balance both ends of their lives. They often retain both domestic and business responsibilities. Finding the time and energy to do both can be strenuous.
Women-led businesses face challenges more frequently. This does not mean that women business owners cannot be successful; statistics show that the success rate for women entrepreneurs is growing rapidly. What this means is that they have become more adept at overcoming challenges. It simply means that they’ve learned to overcome major challenges.
These days, businesses face huge moral challenges associated with the competitiveness of the global economy. There is the temptation to cut corners, omit information and generally to do whatever it takes to succeed. Some businesses succumb to this temptation. This option appears to have become highly infectious. There is, in some quarters, the view that lying a little, or stealing a little, or deceiving others, is just ‘a part of doing business’. These practices however only serve to erode the trust that needs to exist between employers and employees, between and among business partners, between businesses and customers.
Renata chuck-A-Sang is the co-owner of the Dutch Bottle Café
The second and final part of this article will be published next week.
