GUEST COMMENT: How women can break through the glass ceiling in Scotland

Scotland is well known for its pioneering businesses, for its strength in financial services, and for encouraging entrepreneurialism in all sectors. Against this active corporate setting, women comprise an increasing proportion of the workforce.

It's frustrating therefore to see that there are still so few women in the boardrooms of Scotland's leading companies, both at executive and non-executive level.

Over the summer, the European Commission put forward proposals to introduce gender quotas in boardrooms across Europe, if companies do not increase the number of women represented over the next year.

So, despite the leaps and bounds made over the last century in equal pay and opportunity, it is clear that the issues surrounding gender in the workplace are still live and relevant.

To test current wisdom, we raised a number of these key issues in a survey of leading Scottish business women.

The results suggest that they dislike the idea of gender quotas, with the overwhelming majority favoring a purely merit based approach. But the issue is clearly not cut and dried. 14% of our sample group, including board directors, felt that quotas had a place.

The experience of other countries, such as Norway where gender quotas were introduced in 2003, shows that female board membership has successfully risen dramatically, assisted in the Norwegian example by tough sanctioning for companies which do not comply. Some see it as the only means of achieving desired results in a relatively short time-frame.

As our survey revealed most believe a glass ceiling exists, with 57 % having personally encountered the gender barrier in the workplace, so the question was whether breaking through is a personal choice or something that needs a legislative hand.

The barriers that the women surveyed faced were a perceived need for long working hours, lack of encouragement and the stereotyping of men in senior roles.

But the survey also found that most women questioned were highly motivated and up to these challenges. The most common reaction of those who have met the glass ceiling was to find a way around it. For more than one in five the answer was to move to a new job or to start their own business, implying that many organisations are losing out on female talent.

Of those who have successfully broken through, 88% felt that they had to make some sacrifices along the way. Yet, those in the survey who chose not to break through a glass ceiling did so for positive lifestyle reasons.

The most encouraging result from our survey is that just over three quarters of women feel they are in control of their career with 40% citing personal success as most important to them. They were not looking for special treatment and demonstrate a strong desire to achieve success. Getting to the boardroom, is a matter of reaching out and trusting your own instincts.

Fiona Buchanan is a banking and finance partner at Scottish law firm Tods Murray