According to research published last week, female chief executives inspire significantly greater faith in employees than their male counterparts. The Index of Leadership Trust, compiled by the Institute of Leadership and Management in conjunction with Management Today magazine, reveals that women score an average of 68/100, five points higher than the male norm. The gap is largely attributable to women’s willingness to empathise with employees, and demonstrate an understanding of other workers’ roles. Further bolstering scores was the conviction that female bosses more often displayed integrity and honesty. These characteristics are crucial to good leadership. Empathy and integrity do not only make for nicer work environments, they contribute to well-run organizations, since respected CEOs are far more able to negotiate difficult changes without causing resentment.
So what’s the explanation for this particular gender gap? We certainly can’t put it down to some innate female capacity for empathy; leadership style is not dictated by sex. It is instead more likely that women’s greater preparation for top roles better equips them for effectively dealing with colleagues. As the institute’s chief, Penny de Valk, describes: ‘We know that women are unlikely to put themselves forward for new roles unless they feel 95% capable, whereas men will happily do so at 65%, so . . . when women are promoted, they are very familiar with the tasks their people are doing.’
Whatever the answer is, it is refreshing to see that the benefits women have brought to board rooms are being recognised. Too often, we are subjected to the same, implicitly sexist explanations for female exclusion: only two weeks ago, ukjobs.net released a ‘study’ cataloguing the reasons why women don’t make good bosses (a tendency for bitchiness and mood swings being among the reasons). Let’s just hope that employers respond to the Index of Leadership Trust findings when recruiting, acknowledging the varied and multiple attributes needed for good leadership, and recognising that these are not specific to either gender.
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