OCTOBER 25, 2014 BY TUNDE AJAJA
The age long business tune, ‘think leader, think male’, which simply means that men are more suitable for leadership positions than women, may be finding its way into extinction if the findings of some studies are anything to go by.
Remarkably, there have always been some speculations and arguments about leadership style as it varies between men and women. Even though females and males have unique brain characteristics, for example, male brains are about 10 per cent larger than female brains, but bigger does not necessarily mean smarter.
Beyond the traditional leader traits that are more in line with masculinity, employees and other stakeholders are gradually beginning to value those leadership skills that focus on relationships for better results such as confidence, positive attitude, fairness, honesty, good example and good communication, which underlie other behaviours.
A research carried out by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, CEO and president, respectively, of Zenger/Folkman, a leadership development consultancy firm, has revealed that women in executive positions are perceived as better leaders than men, even though there are more men in leadership positions than women.
In the study titled, ‘Are women better leaders than men?’ which looked at leaders in a variety of positions, from very senior management to individual contributor, the data for the research came from 360 evaluations of 7,280 leaders. They asked the respondents to rate each leader’s effectiveness overall and to judge how strong he or she is on the 16 leadership competencies that the researchers see as most important to overall leadership effectiveness.
The leaders were from some of the most successful and progressive organisations in the world, both public and private, government and commercial, domestic and international and the evaluations took into account the opinions of those who work for these leaders, those who work with them and those who are the bosses of these leaders.
The study found that, at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts. It added that women were seen as more effective in getting things done, being role models and delivering results, which are skills that describe leaders who take on difficult challenges, ensure that people act with integrity, and who simply achieve challenging results, and the higher the women move up the ladder in an organisation, the more positively they are perceived, even though seen as not very nice.
The leadership competencies used to rate the leaders include, how good the leader is at taking initiative, pursuing self development, developing others, display of high integrity and honesty, inspiring and motivating, among others.
Accordingly, the researchers found that women out-scored men in all but two of the 16 competencies. And in the 12 of 16 parameters that go into outstanding leadership, the women were better than men by a significant margin. In the words of Zenger and Folkman, “Two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree were taking initiative and driving for results, which have long been thought of as particularly male strengths.”
Furthermore, the study confirms that men scored higher on two competencies; developing strategic perspective and technical or professional expertise. In explaining the large difference in initiative competence parameter that is more in women, the researchers said the double duty – work and family – which many women live with, necessitates them to get things done in order to survive.
“One of the clues for us came from talking with women about this research. When we asked them to explain why women were perceived as more effective, what we frequently heard was, “In order to get the same recognition and rewards, we need to do twice as much, never make a mistake and constantly demonstrate our competence. We must perform twice as well to be thought half as good,” according to Bob Sherwin, the chief operating officer of Zenger/Folkman.
The researchers added that, “Women are among the most talented and respected leaders in the organisations with which we work. We often find that the women at the second or third level from the top in an organisation, especially, are more impressive than their male peers. They build better teams; they are more liked and respected as managers, they tend to be able to combine intuitive and logical thinking more seamlessly, they are more aware of the implications of their own and others’ actions and they think more accurately about the resources needed to accomplish a given outcome.”
Beyond the fact that women are seen as better leaders than men by those around them, other studies have indicated that companies that have a higher representation of women in management ranks are more profitable and have higher employee productivity.
One then begins to wonder that if women are so much better leaders than men are, why are they still woefully under-represented, especially at the most senior levels?
Another study, conducted by Chris Bart, a professor of strategic management and Gregory McQueen, a senior executive associate, published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, found that women’s abilities to make fair decisions when competing interests are at stake make them better corporate leaders.
“A survey of more than 600 board directors showed that women are more likely to consider the rights of others and to take a cooperative approach to decision-making that is moral and fair. This approach translates into better performance for their companies.
“We’ve known for some time that companies that have more women on their boards have better results. Our findings showed that having women on the board is no longer just the right thing but also the smart thing to do. Companies with few female directors may actually be short-changing their investors,” the researchers said.
“Globally, women make up approximately nine per cent of corporate board memberships amidst arguments for gender equality,” McQueen said.
Dr. Bernard Bass, who developed the current theory of transformational leadership, in his view, said women are more transformational than men, which makes them better suited for 21st century leadership/management than men.
“They prefer leading their organisations from the centre rather than the top, and one of the issues that could be raised against this theory is women’s competing priorities between their work and family, which could as well vary with individuals,” he added.
Reacting to the study, a consultant psychologist, Prof. Toba Elegbeleye, said women as leaders of businesses and all such corporate bodies are more fastidious, more focused and most of the time, they enforce rules and regulations better than men partly because they are less diverse and more focused on the job at hand.
“Even though I have not particularly gone out to conduct any research, usually, women tend to be more disciplined and they tend to closely follow rules and regulations that govern the organisation because men are more diverse to accommodate some other factors which might distract them.
“Most of the time, a woman would have become an adult before she could get to such a position, so the issue of being unusually attracted to men because of the power she has will be largely reduced, so she has no reason not to concentrate.
“Also, men tend to have more connections or tied to other interests like politics, from where they tend to owe favours or tread with care, whereas a woman may have no such ties,” he explained.
Elegbeleye added that the power base of men is always weakened by the very many connections they have here and there unlike women who may not be very socially active, hence, being more focused.
“All she has that dominates her world would be the organisation’s affair and so she may be far less compromising in terms of doing what she ought to do,” he said.
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