Few women in CEO roles? And they’re paid less? Little has changed

The June 22/29 cover story “Few women leading the largest not-forprofit health systems, for less pay” (p. 14) included this quote regarding equity by Ellen Zane, CEO emeritus of Tufts Medical Center and an adjunct assistant professor in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: “As our country evolves, as the demographics change, as the number of competent individuals is very clear, this should not have to be an extraneous activity. It really needs to be mainstreamed in the way the organization operates.”

I think a similar quote can be found in Modern Healthcare 20 years ago. What’s the solution? Starting salaries for male and female physicians can have no disparity. Publish your data in this regard and be accountable to the data. If it continues to show disparities, leaders and board members should leave the organization.

Create a group to support legacy white males in leadership to live up to their responsibility to replace themselves with women and minority associates who provide a more effective and relevant work-style orientation that the current leaders lack and therefore cannot recognize and reward.

Make executive base pay dependent on creating a diverse executive leadership team and board. The demographics have changed and the requirement is to meet the moment. The bias against putting women in jobs that control profits and losses is laughable.

Research consistently shows that healthcare management teams whose rosters reflect the diversity of their patients and staff perform better on virtually every measure of clinical, financial and operational performance. Not-for-profits need to be leading the way in this regard today.