Last week saw welcome news for business from the EU Commission, which has dropped its plans to impose compulsory quotas for the number of women making it into company board rooms. It's been a contentious issue over the last few weeks and months.
Yes, the under-representation of women in British boardrooms has to change, and fast, but the introduction of legally enforced quotas is not the right way to do it. Women managers and leaders should be awarded places in the boardroom because they have earned it through being excellent at their jobs - mandatory quotas take that achievement away from them.
The simple fact is that businesses who want to grow and prosper should want to make sure a good number of women are sitting in their boardroom chairs because the evidence shows that more gender-diverse boards perform better.
People in favour of quotas argue that change isn't coming about quickly enough and that making mandatory requirements is the only way to do this. I agree that companies need to step up the pace of change that we have seen since Lord Davies' report, but businesses should be the ones driving this forward through choice because they understand the benefits and don't want their company to be left behind.
The recent debates have left us very focused on boardrooms. But women will never get to boardroom level if there isn't a strong pipeline of talented female managers to make that next step up. The latest data published by CMI and XpertHR showed that women make up 69% of the junior executive workforce, but only 24% of chief executives. Too many women are leaking out of the talent pipeline, which means that companies are missing out on the full range of management potential at a time when we need to be doing everything we can to boost economic growth. Recent Government proposals for companies to report on the number of women in senior management roles generally, rather than just at management level, could well be a more effective way of driving change than quotas.
But a culture change is also badly needed. BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour took calls from dozens of women about the workplace gender equality they had experienced in a variety of different types of businesses and sector. The one thing uniting their stories was the negative attitudes that exist in UK organisations when it comes to women having children and then returning to work, and men taking their full paternity leave entitlement. So the Government's decision to move ahead with plans to reform parental leave, enabling a more even split between men and women, is very welcome.
We also need to look at the persistent gender pay gap. As well as more transparency and measurement to ensure women get into senior roles, we need to apply this logic to closing the pay gap between women and men. Until women are paid equally for doing to same job as men, why would they want to take on the responsibility of a senior role? Transparency on the gender balance in the talent pipeline should be combined with transparency on pay.
As with so many things, this all boils down to good and bad management. The organisations that thrive are the well-managed businesses that capitalise on the talents of all their people, regardless of their gender. Especially when times are tough that could be enough to give them the edge.