A guide to women's professional growth

Defining vision, creating domestic-career bliss, diffusing smokescreens and managing the pendulum swing are some of the strategies that form a robust package to address the gaping void in the women leadership scenario, says a new book.
In "Step Up", Anju Jain, founder of Chai Pe, a platform for developing professional women, explains why gender disparity is an issue both at home and work, and how that can be changed.
She presents practical techniques in a simple matrix for women to use to become successful.
According to Jain, an uncommitted leadership is the biggest reason for fewer women in organisations.
"You would agree that it is the top leaders, the ones in position of power, who can set the direction for the rest of the organisation to follow. For when the leadership wants something, it becomes a mandate and magically, all things fall in place.

"There is strong governance, people are held accountable, progress is monitored and there is avid communication and recognition for a job well done," she writes in the book, published by Penguin Random House.

She says as a developmental psychologist, and having dabbled in subjects of anthropology and sociology, and now as a business professional, she looks at women leadership contextually, within the environment they are embedded in.
"You would agree that we cannot look at women in isolation of their upbringing, their family and social circumstances.
"The book presents a holistic picture that explains how societies and role divisions have evolved, their impact on the present scenario and what can be done to enable a change going forward. I deliberate on the significant change agents and the partners to address the current scenario of 'missing women'," she says.