Women are wired to be great leaders

We associate female leadership with certain qualities and behaviors: communication, broad thinking, collaboration, partnership, listening, understanding, empowerment, intuition, inclusion, flexibility and openness.  All are qualities that give us and our employers an edge in the workplace, especially relevant in today’s world where everyone and everything is connected.  Businesses want more customers, more loyalty and more collaboration, all generated from communication and relationships.

David Gergen writes in Enlightened Power::  “Women leaders seems perfectly tailored for [the] new style [of leadership]. Think about the words we use to describe the old-style leadership: aggressive, assertive, autocratic, muscular, closed. When we describe the new leadership, we employ terms like consensual, relational, web-based, caring, inclusive, open, transparent-all qualities that we associate with the feminine style of leadership.” The new leader persuades, empowers, collaborates, and partners.”

Authoritative studies by Catalyst and Harvard Research show the direct correlation between increased gender diversity at the highest levels and improved financial performance.

Current C-level positions are held mostly by men in the baby-boomer cohort.  Many will retire within 10 years. Nearly 50 percent of women currently are in managerial positions, and from the new recruits, more than 60 percent are women. The talent pool is changing. Some companies find it difficult to attract and retain women for leadership positions. They need to understand that women have different motivations than men.  While both are motivated by financial factors, women mostly care about the impact of their work on the community.  Flexible time and day care types of programs are nice perks, but will not make a woman stay if she does not feel valued, recognized, and understood for her qualities and values.

What Women Face.

For decades in business, women have been told and trained to be like a man. Today, women need to re-connect and embrace their best qualities to be ready for the new leadership style.  They need to understand their strengths and how to exhibit them in a way that is understood and valued. They need to stand up with grace and power for what they believe is right.  Emotions may be part of our being, but being emotional is not an effectively approach to persuading men of your point of view. Remove the word “feeling” from your vocabulary (it shuts men down automatically) and instead, use the words “sense” and “notice.”

An example: 
A VP of sales is gathering everyone to talk about reducing cost to increase profit. Directors Jack and Beth attend.  After the meeting, Jack started to crunch the numbers. Beth reflects on the meeting and asks Jack if he noticed that something was off with Henry, the sale’s manager.  Jack had not noticed and did not really care to know.  He was focused on the numbers. Beth dropped the issue, looked at the numbers and agreed with Jack.

A better ending would be:
Instead of dropping the issue, Beth explained further what she noticed: ”Henry seemed upset. He is responsible for the sale’s team, and if we don’t address his state of mind, then the whole sale’s team may be in trouble, and we may have a bigger problem than cost cutting”.

While Jack focused only on the numbers, Beth understands that numbers are produced by people.

Organizations that embrace the different qualities and motivations of men and women can set the stage for outstanding results. Including more women at high levels will take organizations to higher level of success.