Stronger together - the complementary nature of masculine and feminine leadership qualities

I was working as an EDP supervisor in Lausanne for more than three decades ago and used to receive mail addressed to Mr. Evenstad. When they called, they asked to be transferred to Mr. Evenstad. We didn't have Google or LinkedIn then and they couldn't guess my gender from my Norwegian and Turkish name either. The Swiss gave women right to vote in federal elections in 1971. Apparently, the IT salesmen in Switzerland could not imagine that a woman could have an IT management role in a multinational company with nearly 50.000 employees all over the world.

I used to drink champagne in business class on my way back from Geneva to Oslo on Friday evenings once in a month to celebrate that I was again on my way to my husband who had to stay in Norway. I always felt proud of myself that I, as a woman coming from Turkey with a highly masculine culture, had a great job in a male-dominated profession in Norway, the land of gender equality. Quite often, I was the only woman in the business class. The senior executives were on their way to wives who stayed home and supported their husbands' careers; the middle managers and young consultants had probably partners that would also have careers, which made them fight around the dinner table who would stay home with a sick child, whose career was more important. Men won often such battles because their careers were more important.

Sometimes, I talked with the passenger next to me and heard stories that made me reflect. Once there was a young consultant, about my age, on the verge of tears when he told me about the pressure he was under. He had a huge mortgage for a fancy house, an extravagant life style with ski vacations in the Alps and a wife who stayed home, but expected that after 12 hours workdays he had to take care of the baby when the baby cried at night. His boss was pressing him constantly and reminding him that he has a stay-home-wife and should be able to travel often and he wouldn't hear that there were strong demands at home for being a husband and a father too. I felt that behind the statistics and beyond the statistics, there are sad life stories regardless of gender. But, still he would one day get the promotion he deserved, pass by any female candidate for a leadership position. Man in senior positions, especially in STEM jobs, promoted men. A photo of the business class cabin could represent a human manifestation of these gloomy statistics over gender imbalance in management ranks and STEM jobs.

There I sat with my champagne glass, I felt powerful and privileged that my Norwegian husband respected and supported my career and I would never ever be a home staying wife. I would have to work very hard, may be twice as hard as my male Norwegian colleagues because I had this intersectional disadvantage that not only I came from a developing country, spoke Norwegian with an accent, but I was also a woman in a man's world in a STEM profession. Leadership positions would take time to obtain as leadership positions seemed to be reserved for men. It took time to become a CxO -1 in a global company and I remember how proud I was when I came to our IT department in Mexico with nearly all male employees and heard the whispers "la directora". I said to my self, I came far in my career, but it costed me a lot as I was also a good wife and good mother of two children. From a business class cabin that smelled male sweat and adrenaline on a Friday evening making me feel I didn't belong there, I had made it to the top.

Thinking about gender bias and gender balance

I worked many years in the male-dominated ICT sector and admired both many male leaders I had and the very few female leaders I had and met. I always thought that men and women have unique qualities that make them stronger together and they are unbeatable if they join forces. I got the chance to gain a better understanding of this when I was invited to give a lecture on female leadership to a Japanese foundation which select and educate young people of both genders in 18 months to become future leaders of Japan. What I could achieve during the course of 2 hours was to create awareness about gender bias and the wonderful potential that exists in gender-balanced teams. There are so many articles and statistics out there that would be boring to repeat, so I had to choose a starting point that would intrigue young and curious minds. I decided on neuroscience and discovered that there are amazing differences between male and female brains that explain so well the different communication and leadership styles females and males have. Then I thought, we must embrace the differences and understand the complementary nature of female and male qualities. On that day, my lecture was a success and my closing message was "together we are strong".

It may seem neurosexist to go that path to talk about female leadership and breaking the bias and also paradoxal, but to me it made sense. Many people who have read the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992) of John Gray gain a better understanding of differences between men and women and even improve their relationship as they understand each other better. It is important for dialogue that we understand our differences. Philosopher Ken Wilber says “In order to fully integrate, we must first differentiate.” He goes on : "The masculine and feminine are like yin and yang. They are both essential for us as a species to survive and thrive with each other on this planet. Each of us possesses both sides, what Carl Jung refers to as?anima and animus — our feminine and masculine elements." This perspective respects both women and men and gives the most compelling argument for gender balance.

Actually, we don't even need this argument since we need to #breakthebias and ensure #genderdiversity out of respect, in the first place! Gender diversity continues to represent a key challenge for organizations. Despite women’s progress at moving into managerial positions in recent years, only a small percentage of senior management positions are held by women and they tend to be the "soft" roles such as HR, communication, and marketing. Following a consistent process of gender stereotyping throughout life, we have gender bias about women and men and this manifests itself when leaders are recruited and promoted. The "hard" and prestigious roles such as CEO, COO, CFO goes to men.

The most common gender biases as very well explained by the Lean In organization with the mission statement "We help women achieve their ambitions and work to create an equal world" Learn how to identify and counteract our unconscious biases – Lean In

Performance bias is based on deep rooted—and incorrect—assumptions about women’s and men’s abilities. We tend to underestimate women’s performance, and overestimate men’s.

Performance attribution bias is closely linked to performance bias. Success of those from dominant or high-status groups, such as men at workplace, is attributed to abilities, whereas for those from low-status groups, success is attributed to help from others or through special programs. Because we see women as less competent than men, we tend to give them less credit for accomplishments and blame them more for mistakes.?

Likeability bias is about expecting men to be assertive, so that when they lead, it feels natural. We expect women to be kind and communal, so when they assert themselves, we like them less.

Maternal biases is about motherhood triggering false assumptions that women are less competent and less committed to their careers.

Affinity bias is about gravitating toward people like ourselves in appearance, beliefs, and background.

Intersectionality & double discrimination is about experiences several biases at the same time. Women can experience biases due to their race, sexual orientation, a disability, or other aspects of their identity.

So, I guess for my part I can meet intersectionality and multiple discriminations today because I am woman (gender bias), originally Turkish (racial and cultural bias), mother (maternal bias), overweight (lookism), and getting old (ageism). The last two biases wouldn't matter that much if I had been a western white male. With my educational background and my talents, I would have climbed the corporate ladder fast if I had been a native of Norway, member of the "boy's club" who went to BI or NTNU, had the right contacts in the big organizations and mentored by other powerful man.

Because men have historically been in the workforce longer and continue to hold the majority of leadership positions, they are maintaining the status quo by recruiting more men. As Ely, Ibarra, and Kolb (2011) says leadership is equated with behaviors believed to be more appropriate in men, and women are considered ill-suited for leadership roles. Furthermore, two types of discourses such as “women won’t climb up” and “women can’t climb up” place the blame on women and cement the gender bias and gender imbalance at senior positions further.?In most cultures, the prototypical leader is a man: decisive, assertive, competitive, independent, task-oriented, and focused on delivering results. By contrast, women are thought to be collaborative, friendly, unselfish, care-taking, emphatic, relation-oriented, and process-oriented and thus perceived as lacking what it takes to become a successful leader.

This polarization of female and male leadership qualities are standing in the way for superior performance that organizations could have enjoyed. Several studies have shown that the more women there are in senior management, the better is the performance of the company.??The Pipeline found in 'Women Count, 2017' that profit margins are almost double in FTSE 350 companies with at least 25% females on their Executive Committee compared to those with none. McKinsey’s 2017 ‘Women Matter’ research found higher return on equity (47%) and operating results (55%) in global companies with the most women on their executive committees. Hedge funds run by women have generated returns two times higher than their male counterparts this year (HFRX Women index, 2017). Those organizations have understood the value of diversity and leveraging the differences females and males have.

Our differences

Men and women have many biological, neurological, and psychological differences which influence the way they process information, communicate, collaborate and lead. The biological differences also result in differences in the way they handle stress which affects the work environment. Both female and male leaders need to learn about these differences, become self-aware and develop their authentic leadership style. Especially women need refrain from adopting a masculine leadership style, becoming a “man in skirt” and believing that it is the way to success.?We need to embrace and use our differences as both female and male qualities are needed in the ever accelerating work life in the VUCA landscape in BANI times (see my article on LinkedIn). Looking to the future of work, research indicates that attributes and skills that women display more often than men, such as social, emotional and higher cognitive skills, are expected to be more and more in demand by enterprises (McKinsey & Company, 2018).

New technologies have generated a lot of evidence that there are inherent differences in how men’s and women’s brains are wired and how they work. When it comes to differences, there are two important findings. One is about the differences of various parts of the brain. Certain areas of the brain are larger in women than in men and vice versa. The second and newest difference that is found is about connections : The females’ brains show strongly coordinated activity between hemispheres, which could account for better verbal skills and intuitive abilities, in contrast to men's brains, where the connections were typically stronger between the front and back regions. This could account for better spatial skills and motor (muscle) control in men. For more reading on this, you can visit How men's and women's brains are different | Stanford Medicine and Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain | PNAS and Why sex matters for neuroscience | Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Let me summarize what I understood: First, we have to underline one thing: the fact that males have 10% bigger brains doesn’t mean they are more intelligent! But, for example, their amygdala is bigger. Amygdala is also called the reptilian brain, and it has to do with emotional reactions such as fear, anxiety, and aggression. Males turn quickly physically aggressive when they get angry and have the typical flight-or-fight response under stress.?Females prefer to tend-or-befriend under stress, meaning that they try to strengthen social bonds. Would we have fewer wars in the world if women had the decision-making authority for war or peace? I believe there would be more peace.

Men have more grey matter and have better and faster information processing capabilities while women have bigger frontal lobe responsible for problem solving. Do you see the opportunity here? Put women and men together in a team and they can analyze massive amounts of data and solve problems effectively together.

After reading about these biological differences, I was curious and investigated what this could imply about behavior. Are there differences between females and males concerning how they process information, communicate, and lead?

Men and women communicate differently

When listening, left hemisphere of the male brain is activated and they are action-oriented listeners. They pay attention to facts and are analytical. They will rapidly proceed to solutions. Females are people-oriented listeners; they try to build emotional connection. Both hemispheres of the female brain are activated when listening so they are both analytical and intuitive as they use both hemispheres.

Jennifer Coates, author of Women, Men, and Language: A Sociolinguistic Account of Sex Differences in Language (Longman, 1986), found the following:

·??????When women talk, they stick to one topic for a long time, let all speakers finish their sentences, and try to have everyone participate. Conversely, men compete to prove themselves better informed on a variety of topics.

·??????Men are more likely than women to interrupt other speakers, and they are more likely to interrupt women than men speakers.

·??????Women tend to use a less assertive style of speech—using questions (such as, “I really like this idea, don’t you?”), disclaimers (“I may be wrong, but . . .”), and question statements (“Won’t you create that report?)

·??????Men nod for approval, women nod for encouraging the other(s).???

?Men and women lead differently

Men are efficient, they're task-focused and clearly define issues. Men focus on making a decision and tend to narrow options down quickly. Men are also more likely to think and act based on available data and facts, so the team has strong justification when they present their decisions to other people. Women, on the other hand, tend to pay more attention to context. They work to create different options and solutions (Ingalhalikar et al., 2014) and consider the consequences of decisions more carefully. Women are discovery oriented, meaning they continue to gather data beyond what's readily available. And, women trust their intuition, questioning what doesn't seem to make sense to them.

According to Annis og Nesbitt, (2017)?women are, innately and by design, more perceptive, understanding and take personal interest in people. Women are considered more likely than men to seek social contact in stressful situations, respond quicker to positive feedback, prompt personal and group improvements, blame themselves for poor performance, and use communication in collaborative ventures (Ruderman & Ohlott, 2005). Some studies speak of the essential human-centered skills of women – such as relational skills, communication skills, empathy and emotional intelligence (Cran, 2017). Furthermore, men are competitive; women are collaborative or cooperative. While men compete among themselves, women compete with themselves, meaning they try to improve themselves all the time. This can explain why so many women suffer from the imposter syndrome.

In summary, people regard men as task-oriented, efficient and suitable for leadership while women are seen as social, relation-oriented employees who will anyway prioritize their family before their career and therefore not suitable for leadership. This is conscious or explicit gender bias! In addition, we all have unconscious gender bias. For instance, not only men thinks that social jobs are for women, but women also think that for example nurses should be females and their daughters should not choose male jobs such as welding. Men expect that if a woman is a manager, she should still be the primary care-taker in the family. During the pandemics in Norway, when everybody was working from home, both parents and kids, the mother was the one who mostly assisted the children with the home-learning and prepared most meals. Unconsciously, the mother is expected to take care of everybody.

If a woman is a mother and also have a successful career, it is automatically thought that she is a ?bad mother?. If a woman acts decisively and is proactive and assertive, she is automatically thought to be ambitious (in a negative sense) and aggressive. Therefore, woman faces a difficult choice: either speak up and be perceived as competent but less likable or keep quiet and be perceived as likable but less competent (double bind). I myself experienced that for some decades ago when my boss asked me several times: “How on earth can you travel so much when you have small children? Isn’t it difficult for your husband?”. He made my life very difficult, and I left that job. I was sure that if I had been a man, he would never ask me these questions.

Apparently, expectations to male and female managers are different as well as how people believe female leaders are and what they expect from them. Wharton professor Anne Cummings used to start her sessions on gender perceptions by asking the women executives attending the program to brainstorm a list of words describing female leaders. They said : multi-tasking, emotional, empathetic, strong, intuitive, compassionate, relationship building, verbal, consensus building, collaborative and gossipy. She also asked about being a male leader. Strong, arrogant, intelligent, ego-driven, bravado, powerful, dominant, assertive, single tasking, focused, competitive, stubborn, physical, self-righteous and direct were the answers. ?

According to Korn Ferry, there are two types of leaders: those who are heart-led with high average scores on the people-related traits of authenticity and emotional resilience, optimizing talent, integrating diverse perspectives, and building interpersonal trust. The head-led leaders are mindset- and action-oriented, with high average scores on the enabling traits of flexibility and inquisitiveness, have an adaptive mindset and achieve transformation. They say that, ideally, the inclusive leader is heart-and-head-led which makes me think that they have masculine and feminine leadership styles combined. In their research of 24000 leader assessments, they found only 5 % inclusive leaders. I guess instead of looking for the rare pearl, it would have been much easier to put gender-balanced teams together which bring the feminine and masculine qualities together. This strengthens my belief of female and male leaders having complementary brains that make their communication and leadership strengths complementary too so they are stronger together. This must the compelling argument for gender-balanced teams, where we embrace and leverage our differences.

According to a study by McKinsey, women apply more of certain leadership styles: they are interested in people development, they try to give clear expectations and rewards for results, they try to be good role models for their subordinates, they try to inspire them and they involve people in decision making. These are leadership behaviors that are empowering.

All I said and referred to until now are not absolute truths of course because both men and women can display male and female leadership qualities. Feminine leadership is not gender-specific. A man can have feminine leadership style when he is relationship-oriented. Relationship-oriented leaders are?focused on supporting, motivating and developing the people on their teams and the relationships within. Feminine leadership belongs to all of us. This style of leadership encourages good teamwork and collaboration, through fostering positive relationships and good communication. It is that part of both males and females that will connect, learn, share and evolve. Integrated with masculine leadership, it creates space for unique creativity, inclusiveness, collaboration and healthy competition.?

Neither can the above be considered as universal truths. What we consider as gender bias in some countries can be so deeply seated as normal in a culture that both women and men can defend it. Let’s have a look at how cultures compare concerning masculinity. We will use the framework of Geert Hofstede where he has 6 dimensions of culture. He has a country comparison tool on the internet and you can compare your country with one or several other countries at the same time. According to Hofstede, in a masculine society, success is measured by how competitive you are and what you have achieved in your career (hard values) while in a feminine society success is measured by quality of life, having free time for caring for others and yourself (soft values).

Soft values are encouraged by laws and regulations in Norway. Dads get?15 weeks?of non-transferable, use-it-or-lose-it paid leave. And, overall, new parents can take 49 weeks at 100 percent of earnings or 59 weeks at 80 percent of earnings. When I had my children for 29 and 26 years ago, the father quota was only 4 weeks. Norway has a very low masculinity score of 8 in Hofstede's culture dimensions. In comparison, Japan has 95. Still, both countries have sports that are /have been reserved only for men such as sumo wrestling in Japan and ski flying in Norway (the latter will be allowed from 2023). In my lecture to young future leaders of Japan, I was asked if I thought sumo wrestling would ever be allowed for women in Japan. I said it may take many years. Ski flying battle took many years in Norway. I was also asked by a brilliant young man what he could do to contribute to break the bias and work for better gender balance. I said you already do contribute by asking this question, just continue!

What I believe is that different cultures and societies are in different places concerning how far they came in achieving gender balance. The awareness and eagerness to break the bias is there too. The young generation all over the world see the value in gender diversity, they are more and more experiencing having great mothers to work at home and out in workplaces and how they are striving to advance their careers. They also see how their fathers are participating more and more at home chores and becoming proud of their wives advancing in their careers. Today's economic conditions are pushing for double incomes. The days of being the sole provider and having the power over the female partner are gone. The society is changing and at workplaces, men are discovering the great qualities of female leaders. We are talking about inclusive leaders, inclusive workplaces. I am optimistic. The trend is good and in order to continue on the good path, our most compelling argument can sadly be that gender-balance in senior levels and gender-balanced teams are the recipe for success. But I am pragmatic, if the promise of better performance will shatter the glass ceilings and glass walls, let it be. Sooner or later we will embrace our differences and understand that our differences are complementary, this is not a competition between men and women but it is collaboration! Together we are strong! "Stronger together" is a great motto.