Do women lead differently?

- Dr. Angelica V. Marte

I just had a great evening at the Bosch foundation in Stuttgart. I was invited to give a speech: “Do women lead differently?” There were about 100 Bosch ladies, and I was not surprised that about two-thirds indicated a “yes” to the question of the evening. This is an experience I have been facing ever since I started posing this question to audiences like this.

What answers does the research provide to this question? Broad research efforts lifted off in the 90’s with the path-breaking article of Judy Rosener: “Ways Women lead”[1]. There is an ever-growing body of multi-disciplinary research going on since then; among the fields are sociology, psychology, business, economics, and history. If we look closer, we find three main research streams with three answers to this question:

- No, they do not lead differently. To reach leadership positions today, female leaders have to adapt to male leadership styles which are promoted in hierarchic, patriarchal companies[2].

- Yes, they do lead differently. Women and men are different, and therefore they lead differently. Following a selection of male versus female leadership differences: transactional versus transformational; big picture versus duty oriented; rational versus emotional; lead via ideas versus involve others.[3]

- Yes, differences develop via the addressing of stereotypes (Eagly 2001) or preferences of different/same gender subordinates (de Vries 1997). The “token woman” activates the stereotype phenomenon. A paradox develops: the expectation with which female leaders are faced are (1) to lead as a male because they are leaders (leadership is still associated with males – see its history deriving from military), and (2) lead as a female because, guess what – yes, because they are still ladies!

All these differences evoke irritation. Female leaders still face problems of acceptance and authority, underestimation, arrogance, depreciation, and mistrust. Also, female leaders’ interventions are often observed differently. If a male leader shows aggressive behaviour, it is often perceived as leading and directive; if a female shows the same behaviour, it is perceived as aggressive and arrogant.

The questions are: What is the different leadership style of females good for? What results would these differences bring?

There is an ever-growing body of evidence for these effects, and this is just a selection: Mixed leadership teams have a quite significant 36% positive impact on share prices (McKinsey 2007); a 53% higher return on equity (Catalyst 2009); and a higher share price movement (Credit Suisse 2012).

My field of expertise is (female) leadership, diversity and executive development. I can only vouch for the female difference of leadership style having at least a 30% share at the board table. That means 30% of board members should be female leaders, and their difference should be appreciated in the board room. According to a widely referenced study by Woolley et al. from the Carnegie Mellon University and MIT[4], mixed teams have a significantly higher collective intelligence than men- or female-only groups because of their level of female social sensitivity. Mixed teams produce better decisions through more perspectives on the table, and have a higher problem solving competence.

As always there is a price to pay: insecurity, ambiguity, complexity, slowing down of decision processes, longer communication processes, and the appearance of sexuality as a topic. But nothing comes for free. If we want to see growth, there is an ethic-proofed way to do this.

As Andy pointed out in his last blog, there is no quick fix in changes like these, and the very core of the problem is the exceptionally slow change. Indeed, the figures show that women constitute only 16.6% of boards in the US[5], and on average 16% for Europe, with very poor growth (5%) since 2007[6].

So, to come back to the answer, yes, women lead differently, if they have a chance to do so. Now, let us speed up this process – but that is another story for another post!

[1] Harvard Business Review, 1990
[2] Further information see e.g. studies of Chao/Tian 2011, where they found out, that in most MNCs male leadership is promoted, female not.
[3] For more details see e.g. Eagly et al. 1987, Kanter 1995, Rosener 1995, Kabacoff/Peters 2010
[4] Published in Science 330, 2010
[5] Catalyst Gender-Gap-Report US 2012 of the Fortune 500 companies
[6] McKinsey report 2007 – 2011





 


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