To coincide with International Women's Day, Legal Week has asked a number of high profile female law firm leaders and partners for their advice for other women hoping for the same success. In this article, Stephenson Harwood chief executive Sharon White discusses the reasons behind the lack of female leaders in law.

According to research published by the journal Science earlier this year, children as young as six can be influenced by stereotypes that discourage women's pursuit of many prestigious careers. While I've never thought of my career as a crusade to redress the gender balance at the top of law firm management, I do recognise – and value – my role as a role model for future women leaders.

Fundamentally, there are so few women leaders in law because there are too few women partners. It might be tempting to put this down solely to the challenge of balancing work and having a family, but I think that's too simplistic. It's important that as an industry we invest efforts into finding out what barriers get in the way and how we can address and remove them.

A well-cited piece of research by Hewlett Packard concludes women only apply for roles when they meet 100% of the criteria, while men only need to meet 60% in order to be confident of their ability to do the job. I've seen it myself; women are often quite critical of themselves and their abilities and less likely to gloss over any perceived gaps in competencies.

At Stephenson Harwood, we're working to address this issue through a couple of programmes: a women's network that invites participants to become part of a network of like-minded dedicated women, and a Female Career Progression Programme that provides mentoring and other support to our women to help them achieve their career ambitions. We've also improved the ways in which we communicate with women before, during and after their maternity leave, to better support them through the transition.

But it's not just about formal firm programmes; we need a more holistic approach. I've been fortunate with the incredible support – from both men and women – that I've had throughout my career. More than once, I have been encouraged to step up, and take on roles that I didn't automatically think I was ready to accept. Sometimes it was others' confidence in my abilities that enabled me to develop as a lawyer and as a business leader.

If I could give women in law just one piece of advice, it would be not to be too quick to turn down opportunities: push yourself.

We also need to change the way we speak about women in leadership. As Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously said: "I'll keep saying I'm a feminist until there's no reaction." We need to keep pushing for more women leaders in business until there's no disparity to talk about.