The Utah Women and Leadership Project released a new policy brief this month titled “How women are represented in formal leadership roles in the communities they serve.”
The research and data were collected through the Utah Department of Human Resources Management and provided information on over 4,500 leadership positions, representing over 22,000 employees across 41 agencies.
Susan Madsen, founder of the project, said this research was first published in 2020 and the updated brief shows improvement.
“We have 41.2% of leadership positions in state government held by women, which I think is some good news, we're really moving in that direction. You know, if you have 40% women, 60% men, or 60% women, 40% men, or 50-50, that gets into what the benefits say is more representation of more people who live in the state of Utah,” Madsen said.
In 2020, the report found that 39.3% of state government leadership positions were held by women.
The research had four different leadership categories. These categories were the cabinet, executive leaders such as judges and deputy directors, senior leadership known as middle management, and lastly, front-line leaders such as managers, administrators, and analysts.
“And so that's why we looked at that — the research continues to support [that] when there are more equal numbers of men and women in leadership positions within state government or other settings, decisions are made differently,” Madsen said.
Recommendations were given for the policy to assist in improving the number of women in leadership. Recommendations included committing to transparency, evaluating hiring processes, and being more intentional about the leadership ecosystem.
