Feminine Leadership for the 21st Century (as reprinted from iThink Bigger)
What’s happening? Where are all the women?
Research indicates that women are absent largely because we are uncomfortable in the traditional leadership mold that has been in the workplace for centuries. Traditionally, respected leadership styles are dominated by male skill sets – aggressive “git-r-done, move out of my way while I hunt and conquer” style is how business has been done for centuries. Women only entered the workforce en masse in the last century and we are just now learning how our natural leadership skills help round out a successful work environment. We see this at Skirt Strategies when we hear about the challenging situations that women in male-dominated workplaces face just to get heard. “I mentioned an idea for an approach to solve the problem, met by a few mumblings. Then when a man mentioned the same thing five minutes later, the idea was embraced and adopted as the answer to their prayers! What’s with that?”
Let’s just make it clear up front that men are not “wrong” and we have nothing against men or their natural leadership skills. The point is that women have different leadership styles that help make a business successful, yet it appears to go unnoticed in actual practice. Including women on a leadership team improves productivity, morale and the bottom line, not to mention a diversity of opinion and approach that leads to more creative problem solving. Of nine key leadership characteristics that are identified by McKinsey research as key to improved organizational performance, women adopt five of them more readily than men. Proactively developing a gender-balanced workforce is critical to remaining relevant in the next century.
Are men and women really that different? Wouldn’t it be better if women just honed the skills we know work? Where does this difference stem from?
Although not all women have “female brains” and not all men have “male brains,” there are clear physical differences that run in trends between the genders, as described in Leadership and the Sexes by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis. Different brain architecture dictates certain advantages in certain situations, generating the reasoning behind the advantage of a gender-balanced workforce. For example, Gurian and Annis refer to a negotiating situation, where the male negotiating style is “data-driven, highly aggressive, filled with banter, even abrupt” , nicely balanced by women’s negotiating style “of insight, interpretation, relational energy, visioning and negotiating power.” Now that makes sense. If you have a team of negotiators don’t you want all of these skills in your tool kit … or should we make it a cosmetic bag?
Despite the book’s poignant message and strong research, we didn’t need to read it to prove that men and women are different, or that a balanced workforce is important. Thirty years of employment experience and intuition (a prominent female skill) has taught us that. As a business owner, it makes sense to have a healthy mix of men and women on staff. The decision to create a gender-balanced work environment ultimately made my businesses a more interesting, diverse and profitable place to be and work.
Women are great leaders when given the chance. Did you know that Genghis Khan placed has daughters on the thrones of conquered lands? He knew that his daughters were strong, loyal and had the ability to lead nations. Clearly the value of a diverse point-of-view has been at play for eons. Go Genghis Girlies.
This is not an argument for putting women in CEO positions artificially to meet a quota, but having a true understanding of natural feminine leadership abilities and true appreciation of what a woman brings to the job. Having women in leadership is critical to our nation’s success and ultimately the betterment of the world, and not just because it is the right thing to do, or the fair thing to do, but ALSO because it is a business-savvy thing to do. There is work to be done, first understanding, then…revolution.