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A recent study concluded that gender inequality is costing the global economy $12 trillion annually, with North America accounting for 25 percent of that total followed by China’s 20-plus percent.

If diversity and gender equality have so much potential for improving business, why don’t we see more of it faster? What will be necessary to make it happen?

There are several kinds of responses to this question. The first is the “do it yourself” response, characterized by Sheryl Sandberg’s now-famous argument in her book, Lean In. Among other things, she challenges women to change their behaviors, to bolster their self-confidence and ambition, and become better job and wage negotiators while choosing a partner who can help share the load of a career.

Research by Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Larissa Tiedens suggests that women can exert control by engaging in more subtle or “implicit” methods of dominance.

A shift in facial expression, an expansive posture, or a different negotiating strategy can be just as effective as a direct command, a wagging finger, or other aggressive behavior, she says. When women use these methods, the backlash is weakened or even disappears, according to the research by Tiedens and Melissa Williams of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Based on a review of hundreds of earlier studies, their work suggests a winning strategy for women in business: “While the obstacles to women’s achievement in leadership roles are real, there also is reason to hope that women may be able to work around them by relying more heavily on implicit methods of interpersonal influence,” write the researchers.

You’ve probably heard the following statistic: Men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them.

The finding comes from a Hewlett Packard internal report, and has been quoted in Lean In, The Confidence Code and dozens of articles. It’s usually invoked as evidence that women need more confidence. As one Forbes article put it, “Men are confident about their ability at 60%, but women don’t feel confident until they’ve checked off each item on the list.” The advice: women need to have more faith in themselves.

Gender equality in leadership is a topic appearing with increasing frequency among the research reports, books, and opinion pieces crossing my desk. Perhaps one reason is the candidacy of women for the Presidency of the United States in both parties.

Whatever the reason, research is shedding interesting insights on the issue. Findings of a recent McKinsey Global Institute study include: (1) lack of gender diversity is associated with a greater likelihood of below par performance in a sample of 366 companies in Canada, Latin America, United Kingdom, and the US, and (2) when companies commit themselves to diverse leadership, they are more successful.

One response to the research is to disagree with the premise and methodology. Studies like these can be easy targets. Three hundred sixty-six companies spread across a number of countries is a small sample. Although gender and financial data are straightforward, they are not always easy to obtain with complete accuracy. And, like many studies, these correlate gender diversity with financial performance. That is, they are found together. But that doesn’t mean that gender diversity necessarily accounts for much if any of the performance.

The challenges are well known: women in business continue to face a formidable gender gap for senior-leadership positions.1 Moreover, there are fewer and fewer women at each step along the path to the C-suite, although they represent a majority of entry-level employees at Fortune 500 companies and outnumber men in college-graduation rates.2 Increasingly, the barriers too are well known: a mix of cultural factors, ingrained mind-sets, and stubborn forms of behavior, including a tendency to tap a much narrower band of women leaders than is possible given the available talent pool.

The business case for this is compelling. Companies with more women in leadership posts simply perform better. Fortune 500 firms with the most female board members outperform those with the least by 26% on return on invested capital and 16% on return on sales, according to a 2011 Catalyst study. Yet the number of women at the top is barely budging: some 5% of Fortune 500 chief executive officers and 17% of board members. Numbers in law and finance are dismal too.

This spring, an aspiring professor—W, as she’s chosen to call herself in a blog post about the experience—attempted to negotiate her tenure-track job offer with the Nazareth College philosophy department. She wanted a slightly higher salary than the starting offer, paid maternity leave for one semester, a pre-tenure sabbatical, a cap on the number of new classes that she would teach each semester, and a deferred starting date. “I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others,” she acknowledged in her e-mail. “Let me know what you think.”