Three Indian women managers made it to the Fortune list of 50 most influential women managers in international business, recently. It is no mean achievement in the context of male-dominated Indian corporate business environment. Does this mean the Indian women managers are finally able to break the glass ceiling?

Beaching the top of the corporate hierarchy is beset with many challenges. It becomes more complicated when the contender is a woman manger. The Indian woman is no exception to this truism. However, the situation is in for a change as corporate India wakes up to the importance of Dfactor* in HR. With globalization of the Indian businesses more companies are now realizing the virtue of gender diversity in their human capital by bringing in more women managers in the company. Senior HR managers, like Hema Ravichandar, Senior Vice-President, HR, Infosys, believe that the most important HR challenge today is how best the companies could tap a heterogeneous gene pool encompanssing genders, age groups and cultures. She says "Handling and leveraging diversity in an organization has become a critical business imperative." Taking a cue from the US companies, which boast of a high diversity, Indian businesses are now gearing up for bringing in diversity in their workforce.

A host of factors make it difficult for women managers to move up the ladder, which suggest why the top of the ladder is still a no-go area for them. The survey conducted by the Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia and Cosmode offers useful insights into the issues affecting the progression of the women. According to the survey findings, women managers today account for only 2% of the total managerial strength in the Indian corporate sector. One-third of all Indian women executives leave their organizations or drop out of the job market because they perceive a lack of intellectual stimulation and more than three-fourths of them maintain that they have to work much harder to prove themselves at the workplace. The task is made still difficult by the factors like male stereotyping and preconceptions (52% of women executives felt this), exclusion from informal networks of communication (49%) and lack of significant general management/line experience (47%).

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