A female CEO encourages women in the company to both stay in their jobs longer and aspire to leadership positions themselves.

A study by Weber Shandwick with KRC Research shows that only 23% of women in global senior executive positions aspire to lead large companies, as opposed to the 32% of men with an interest in the CEO position.

However, when women executives work for a female CEO, their interest in the position grows to 29%. Gail Heimann, president of Weber Shandwick, says, “Our research indicates that when women work for female CEOs, they are more motivated to strive to be corporate leaders themselves. These results lead to the undeniable conclusion that if we really want gender equality at the top, we must promote more women into CEO positions and do it now.”

Female role models and mentoring are key strategies for getting more women into CEO positions, a mission that seven out of 10 of the 7,500 respondents surveyed by Weber Shandwick think is important (84% of women and 60% of men).

CEO reputation is critical to an organisation’s success and Weber Shandwick’s research shows that the contribution of CEO reputation to both the company’s reputation and its market value are virtually identical for both male and female CEOs. However, for women, the gender of the CEO has considerable impact on how long they will stay in their jobs, there is no such influence among men in relation to the CEO’s gender.

The Female CEO Reputation Premium? Differences & Similarities report, is a supplement to The CEO Reputation Premium: Gaining Advantage in the Engagement Era, and was released in March 2015.