Continued from The Growth Faculty’s article “How female leadership qualities can impact organisational performance” (Read Article 1 here)
How Do Female Leadership Styles Differ From Men?
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” – Marianne Williamson.
It’s hard to provide a cookie-cutter generalisation between men and women leadership styles. But, the research shows some tendencies.
As we know, women naturally gravitate towards leadership qualities that are more people-orientated: collaboration, fostering growth and the ability to share power and information. They also have acute interpersonal skills – it’s all about working together to meet the goal.
Men, on the other hand, traditionally are known to exercise more assertive traits. They generally favour self-reliance and are seen as more goal-orientated. Studies have shown they’re more likely to express dominant behaviour, initiate negotiations and self-select in competitive environments.
Where women tend to be more transformational, men tend to be more transactional.
Instead of leading from the top, women prefer a flat organisational structure that dismantles traditional corporate hierarchy. Women see cooperation, participation, collaboration and empathy as the keys to success rather than men’s stereotypical ‘command and control’ approach.
Some argue that this is one of the barriers that women face: trying to work their way up the corporate ladder in male-built and male-orientated organisational structures.
What Leadership Qualities Do Employees Prefer?
The past two decades have shown an upward trend of females striving for and earning leadership roles. Women now have better access to education (and are even graduating at higher levels than men), and there is more demand for people-centric leadership qualities. Especially when we explore areas such as psychological safety and workplace wellbeing after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Post pandemic employees want more say in the kind of work they do, what their workplace offers, and the kind of managers they want to lead them. And as the research says, female CEOs express greater empathy, adaptability and diversity.
Takako Hirata has an interesting take on the subject: In her book ‘The Virtual Leader’ , she says employees want recognition, a sense of community, flexibility and positive work relationships. In other words, they seek the qualities of both men and women leaders.
In fact, a recent study of 800 employees found that 38% would prefer to work for a female boss, 26% prefer and male and 35% had no preference. There’s a growing indifference of what gender leads the team. As long as employees are treated with fairness, respect and their professional and personal needs are met, they don’t care what gender leads.
As Gloria Steinem perfectly outlines:
“A gender equal society would be one where the word gender does not exist: where everyone can be themselves.”
(To be continued)
The Growth Faculty
