Is your pool of potential leaders as big as it could be? If not — if you are only looking at a slice of the possible leadership talent — you may not end up with the best leaders you could have.

An article a few years ago looked at various reports addressing the role of women in the workforce, with an emphasis on East Asia. They came across a number of interesting situations, including

– societies where women are shuttled into agriculture or low-skill work while jobs requiring vocational skills cannot be filled

– countries where female graduates in science are double the number of men, yet women comprise less than 25% of the career field (looking at you, Malaysia)

– regions where there is a 30-40% gap between male and female participation rates in the workplace

In these societies, women represent a horribly underutilized pool of talent. In some cases, they are not afforded the education that would enable them to enter the workforce. In others, cultural traditions limit them despite their education or demonstrated abilities.

Societies that are having trouble getting their economy going or that are in the grip of poor governance, who then exclude half the population from meaningful work and leadership, have only themselves to blame for their problems. Adding women to the pool of potential talent, and encouraging them to enter the workforce in meaningful ways and move into leadership positions with the same opportunities as men, allows businesses and governments to select the best from the entire population, not merely from a part of it. When you make your talent pool artificially smaller, but you still have the same number of leadership positions to fill, you are going to have to fill some of them with less talented people because that is simply all you have available.

While countries in the region have made great strides in the last 40 years when it comes to women entering the workplace, there still seem to be limitations when it comes to developing them as leaders. Many people can come up with excuses for this — pregnancy and maternity leave are the favorites — but rather than find workarounds that would still make women available as potential leaders, many firms continue to take the easy way out and exclude a lot of high potential talent from the leadership track.

Take a look at your policies and see if you are helping women have the same possibilities as men in your organization. Gender diversity is not just a matter of doing the right thing (too many people would disagree on what that is for it to be the only viable reason), it is a matter of what is best for your firm. Having the broadest pool of potential talent is in YOUR best interests, too.