Data from the DEI Champions Club report show that in Poland women head only 5% of companies and account for 14% of people sitting on the management boards of listed companies, while only 12% of supervisory boards have women as chairs. At the same time, the experience of organisations that have been investing in talent development and diversity initiatives for years shows that the situation can look very different. Among the companies included in the Club’s report, women accounted for 45.2% of management board members, and over the course of a year 298 women were promoted to higher positions, including 52 to roles of strategic importance. The difference is so significant that it is difficult to explain it solely by the availability of female candidates. It is much more likely that the decisive role is played by talent development, succession and promotion processes operating within organisations.
Today, the Council of Ministers is expected to work on a draft law aimed at improving gender balance on the boards of listed companies. The European Women on Boards Directive, whose objective is to increase the share of women in corporate bodies, has sparked lively debate from the outset. For some, it is a necessary impulse to accelerate change; for others, it is an example of excessive regulation and interference in business decisions. In fact, however, the dispute concerns more than quotas alone. It raises the question of whether the insufficient representation of women in the highest positions is a natural result of market processes or the consequence of barriers that remained invisible for years.
The Women on Boards Directive is being implemented in Poland through a draft act amending the Act on Public Offering, Conditions Governing the Introduction of Financial Instruments to Organised Trading and Public Companies, as well as the Act on the Implementation of Certain European Union Provisions on Equal Treatment. Work on the legislation has been underway since December 2024, but only today will the Council of Ministers consider it. The European Commission has already launched proceedings against Poland due to the partial failure to implement the directive.
More than a debate about quotas
The most frequently repeated argument against quotas is the concern that, when selecting members of management or supervisory boards, gender will start to matter more than competence. However, this way of framing the issue is based on the mistaken assumption that promotions and appointments today are determined solely by qualifications. If that were the case, it would be difficult to explain why women — who make up half of society, are increasingly better educated than men and achieve comparable business results — remain so poorly represented at the highest levels of management.
The debate about Women on Boards is therefore not about choosing between competence and gender. It is about asking why women’s competencies have for years failed to translate into proportional representation where the most important decisions are made. Quotas are not intended to replace quality with diversity. They are meant to help break down barriers that cause some talent to remain invisible or insufficiently used.
Transparency instead of quotas
Women on Boards is not only about increasing the representation of women in corporate bodies. An equally important aspect of this regulation is the professionalisation of nomination processes. According to the European Commission’s guidelines, the directive does not require women to be appointed regardless of their competencies. On the contrary, it requires the process of selecting members of corporate bodies to be more transparent, based on clearly defined criteria and capable of being justified.
Where a company does not achieve the required levels of representation, it must demonstrate that it applies transparent, gender-neutral procedures for selecting candidates, while the final criterion remains qualifications and experience. In practice, this means moving away from informal recommendations and closed decision-making circles towards a more structured approach to succession and leadership selection. From this perspective, Women on Boards may become an impulse not only for greater diversity, but also for raising corporate governance standards in companies.
More than meeting indicators
The discussion about Women on Boards does not concern a solution that has not been tested before. Data from the European Institute for Gender Equality show that over the past decade the share of women in the governing bodies of the largest companies in the European Union has increased from around 20% to nearly one third. At the same time, countries that have chosen to introduce mandatory regulations on women’s representation are achieving clearly better results than those relying solely on voluntary declarations. This shows that change does not happen automatically, but well-designed regulations can effectively accelerate processes that would otherwise take much longer.
The real issue is changing the culture of leadership
The greatest value of the directive may turn out to be not the increase in women’s representation itself, but a change in the way leadership is understood. At a time of talent shortages and growing competition, business cannot afford to overlook part of the available potential. The success of Women on Boards will not be determined by the number of new appointments, but by whether the regulation encourages companies to build more transparent promotion paths, improve talent management and consciously plan succession.
Its aim is not to replace competence with gender as a criterion, but to create more transparent and competence-based processes for selecting leaders. This is what will determine whether it becomes an impulse for lasting change or remains merely another regulatory obligation.
Expert commentary by Olga Kozierowska, founder of the Sukces Pisany Szminką competition and the We Did It In Poland campaign, as well as initiator of the DEI Champions Club, which works with companies operating on the Polish market to support the creation of workplaces based on equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion.
Source: ceo.com.pl
