Kelly Lockwood Primus calls it “The Missing 33%.” It’s the primary characteristic that keeps women from rising beyond middle management in most cases, and one that women can achieve with the direction and effort that often is not afforded to women in business.
“We’re here to fix that,” Primus, chief executive officer of Leading Now, said as opening General Session speaker at CSP’s inaugural C-Store Women event in Napa, California. “We’ll discuss what skills do we need to know and demonstrate to move into leadership positions.”
The C-Store Women conference is the culmination of years of discussion and planning to begin the process of closing a prevalent gap between the number of women leaders in the c-store industry compared to men. Leading Now statistics show women account for 10% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, while a Winsight review of CSP's Top 202 list of c-store chains shows women lead only 3% of the largest chains in the convenience industry.
“Surveys of corporate executives tell us that’s because we [women] lack business and financial acumen,” Amanda Buehner, senior vice president of retail events and media for Winsight, said to derision from those in attendance in opening the conference. “We’re here to debunk that belief.”
The CSW conference is the start of a long-term effort to begin a shift toward leadership parity in the convenience-store industry.
“Attendees tell us they want to invest their time, energy and emotion into making this shift,” Buehner said. Primus’ presentation was the first small step in that effort.
Revealing that women account for just more than one-quarter (26.5%) of middle management leadership in the U.S. workplace, Primus said most women in middle management have successfully achieved competency in two characteristics of leadership but fall short in a third. Those defining qualities:
- Use the greatness in you
- Engage the greatness in others
- Achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes
It’s in this third quality that women often fall short, according to Primus. The requisites of this characteristic are as outlined below.
It was with this listing of missing elements—in laymen’s terms, business “smarts,” strategic thinking, financial understanding, vision, understanding the big picture and decision effectiveness—that Primus laid the groundwork for the rest of two-day conference with an outline of goals to gain “The Missing 33%,” helping both yourself and other women around you:
- Set goals.
- Own your personal brand.
- Bring others with you.
- Get a mentor.
- Build internal and external networks.
- Speak up and hone your interpersonal skills.
Each of these steps is intended to allow the women at the conference to “build a track record of proven business, strategic and financial acumen.”
“We need to identify and take action to close our personal 33%,” Primus said. “Know your career stage. Build on your core capabilities. Begin to demonstrate what’s needed for advancement.
“No matter your position, embrace your identity. And reach out and down to others. If she wins, we all win.”
More to Come
While the C-Store Women conference wraps up Friday, it serves as a kickoff of a longer-term effort by Winsight to help more women reach the c-suite in the convenience industry. During the event, attendees were broken up into “power teams,” each charged with a specific, yearlong mission to study, discuss and act to improve the circumstances women face in the c-store workspace.
CSP will track these teams throughout the year through interviews and articles to spread the conclusions they reach beyond the list of attendees.
Each team will then regroup at the 2024 C-Store Women conference to share conclusions and welcome additional industry brainpower to the task of improving that 3% statistic. Watch CSP Daily News and the CSW e-newsletter for regular updates.