Top Strengths of Resilient Female Founders
Silvia Mah PhD, MBA
Published Author | 2 x TEDx speaker | Igniting Innovation, Impact & Investing through Action & Intentionality | VC | Associate Professor | Keynote Speaker | Advocate 4 Diverse Founders | Investor | Servant Leader
Lead like a woman .. but truly what does that even mean? What does it look like? Is it being bold and courageous or humble and nurturing? Is it dynamic and data-driven or soft and welcoming? In a recent report, 42% of the population say female executives are better at working out compromises than men. This is consistent with social role theory. As women, we get thrown so many different signals throughout life and those signals are reinforced by all of the interactions and relationships we have personally and professionally. The signals become patterns that we either reject or accept unconsciously or consciously. And even within that binary mode of reaction, or state of being, rejection or acceptance, the feelings we have as female founders are as varied as the HUES of a rainbow. So what do we do about it, how do we continue being the authentic leaders we are destined to be?
Especially for female founders, who are typically the leaders of their startup ecosystems, living in a primary solitary existence, knowing how to navigate all of the choppy and smooth seas of entrepreneurship maks all of the difference in the world when entering an investor meeting or strategizing on customer acquisition. When a female founder finds her village of women who walk the walk and talk the talk, they thrive because there are common challenges that can be overcome by the power of knowledge and shared experiences. Women are also multi-faceted in their professional and personal lives that have to co-exist in unique ways. Female founders are, on a daily basis, being mothers, aunts, caregivers, surfers, tennis players, partners, daughters, adventure-seekers, stay-at-homers, nomads, explorers, readers, prayers, fill in the blank, we come at our leadership from so many different unique and beautiful angles. I love the song, All of Me by John Legend, which says he loves all of a woman's edges and curves. It reminds us that we can be strong and edgy, and, at the same time, be empathetic and "curvy". But what I have seen is that the female founders I have advised over the years, invested in, and leaned into to support, are phenomenal women who are making a significant impact on the customers they serve; they are passionate, eager to work hard, and never back down from a hard thing. This is steadfast. But what I have also seen is that there have been patterns of strengths that these founders exhibit as a collective that I just had to dive into and see what I could analyze. A great data-driven approach is what I consistently strive for. When I have a curiosity, albeit analyzing the processes of the investment journey, reading about market trends because I am seeing signals on the ground level of the startup ecosystem, or researching unique leadership perspectives, I try my hardest to get the data that help exemplify the hunch and analyze.
HONORING RESILIENT FEMALE FOUNDERS
So in honor of women’s history month, I wanted to find out what were the top five strengths of female founders in our innovation ecosystems so we can rebuild patterns of startup success, founder strengths, and investment opportunities for female founders and funders. I believe that this will lead to more informed funding decisions, ecosystem resources, and economic development increase. Networks, thus, thrive! There have been 140+ female founders who have taken a Gallup Strengthsfinders assessment through one of my programs, whom I have advised, or invested in, whom I have had the blessing to walk alongside their founder journeys. These are all entrepreneurial-minded women who have launched a startup or small business and are driven towards creating wealth through entrepreneurship. This cohort of female founders ranges from leaders in industries from CPG to biotech to medical devices to SAAS to service-based businesses. I anonymized the data and took only the top 5 strengths of each founder and mapped them to find trends, and seek the top 5 collectively so to better understand what are the amazing qualities that make them exceptional so that we, as a community, can invest more in them (from financial capital to relational capital to network capital). I had huge help by finding a resource to analyze large data sets of Gallup strengthsfinder results, Cascade Strengths Reports . The founder of this massively important tool is Richard Sterry , who is so approachable & his videos of explanation are calm & invaluable. (thank you!) So grateful for this easy-to-use and powerful analysis tool. So let’s dive in. This is just the start of a larger research on strengthsfinders as they apply to female founders and how we as investors can use this type of data-driven approach to better select the startups with the best founding team to diversify and grow intensional gender-lens portfolios.
TOP 5 STRENGTHS OF FEMALE FOUNDERS
What I did know is that all female founders in this cohort are RESILIENT. They are all entrepreneurs who hustle in their startups, can prevail over any obstacle, and have ridden the rollercoaster of entrepreneurial life. Of particular interest when analyzing this data set, the top 5 theme was, Achiever. I thought back to data about research about how women leaders feel about the word, "Ambition". In this research , they interviewed women and found that for them, “ambition” necessarily "implied egotism, selfishness, self-aggrandizement, or the manipulative use of others for one’s own ends. None of them would admit to being ambitious. Instead, the constant refrain was 'It’s not me; it’s the work.' 'It’s not about me; it’s about helping children.' 'I hate to promote myself. I’d rather be in my workshop alone.'" But what remains is those female founders who lead, are ambitious by nature to be able to withstand startup life, so let's acknowledge their #1 strength, being an "Achiever".
So let’s replace “ambition” with “achiever”
That's the FIRST & most prevalent strength that female founders as a collective bring to the venture table. To be aware of these strengths is to be an ally for female founders and for founders, to know you are NOT alone and are more powerful than you could ever imagine.
The top 5 Strengths of female founders are: Achiever, Futuristic, Learner, Strategic, Activator. Think about the female founders you have encountered and picture them in your head when thinking about these DESCRIPTIVE themes of the strengths they bring EVERYDAY to their startup. Founders exceptionally talented in the Achiever theme work hard and possess a great deal of stamina. They take immense satisfaction in being busy and productive. Get it done. Get it off my plate. Check it off my list. Founders strong in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future; especially potential investors. See the vision, be the vision, invest in the vision. Founders with the strength of Learner are?drawn to learn new things, they are energized by the journey of learning and become momentarily satisfied when they have learned something new.?Get creative. Learn more. Gain more insight. Founders with the strength of the Strategic theme?can sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. See the forest above the trees. See the noise & focus. People with the strength of Activator are the ones who make things happen. One of their most recognizable behaviors is the?ability to turn thoughts, ideas, and concepts into action. Make things happen, Act, Innovate & Impact. Period. Can you now see WHY that female founder is who she is? and founders, THIS IS YOU - I see so many founders struggling and challenged on a daily basis with so much, but these strengths are yours, and leverage them and celebrate them!
Your new mantra, founders, should then be (informed by your own awesomeness):
Interestingly, the?StrengthsFinder Theme of Achiever ?has remained the most commonly occurring Strength, showing up in more than 31% of 15 million individuals’ Top 5 Strengths. Conversely,?Command ?remained at the bottom of the list, showing up in less than 5% of 15 million individuals’ Top 5 Strengths.
DEEP DIVE INTO THE DATA
The Analysis of this cohort becomes the group's identity. That's the beauty of this type of analysis. The Frequency of strengthsfinders themes showcases the top 5 just mentioned, but also the next 5: Relator, Communication, Ideation, Positivity, and Responsibility. This signals that female founders (1) build great teams due to their relator strength, (2) communicate the goals of the startup to investors and their team with excellence, (3) can pivot and ideate on the product so that what their team is building has purposeful product-market fit, (4) they are positive amongst the chaos while lifting up their team and other founders around them towards the greater good, and (5) have impact at their core because they feel a strong sense of responsibility to their customers and communities being served by their startup. When looking at the "Frequency of Domains" (Executing, Strategic Thinking, Influencing, and Relationship Building), female founders are mostly Strategic Thinkers (at 32%), then equally Executing and Influencing (good for investor meetings) and lastly, Relationship Building. When analyzing the theme spark chart, the longer the line in the chart, the more people in the group have the theme. So, what's fascinating is that even though Achiever is the longest #1 strength of female founders, there is a cluster of long lines in the "Strategic Thinking" realm, signaling that female founders are probably more aligned in that domain than any other.
The piece of this analysis that I have loved the most is the insight because of the massive database of strengthsfinders insights, is how we can interpret the strengths of female founders to be able to understand the true strengths and leverage for better investments, better advisory, better mentoring, and growth of the female founder ecosystem. As a cohort, the information is broken down into three categories:
So, be more aware of what actual female founders bring, need and love.
To start off with, here are the top 5 strengths of female founders, again, as reference:
What female founders BRING (aligned to these top 5 strengths in order):
What female founders NEED:
领英推荐
What female founders are MOTIVATED by (what they love):
WHY THIS ALL MATTERS
Today, women lead successful startups like 23andMe , Glossier and Maven , showcase strong, resilient, determined female founders who have found their success; and Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. But progress is slow, and the gender gap in leadership remains stubbornly large. In all industries, from politics to film, women are at single-digit to teen number representation, for instance, only 6 percent of all venture capital board representatives and lead only 9% of venture capital deals and in 2014, women were just 20% of executives, senior officers, and management in U.S. high-tech industries.
We have serious work to be done, so much opportunity.
We are at an inflection point in venture where a massive shift is happening that will benefit both sides, investors and entrepreneurs. From Erica Wassinger , investor extraordinaire, she also believes in this major reckoning in venture, especially "on the model itself as well as what's happening at the IPO level and what's happening at the acquisition level. I think the database won't sell the same way it used to because it's not as COVID-proof." You can find her entire podcast episode on this topic and how strengthsfinders shows up for entrepreneurs HERE .
The deeper meaning of this research is that the more we can understand the true strength of a founding team of a startup, the more intensional we can be of our investment decisions as investors and the more confident we can be of seeking investment for founders. Codification of decisions democratizes the process that has been created historically through a lens of bias. Pattern recognition, at this point, does not favor female founders. The more we are away and amplify data sets of empowerment, we can:
Investors who deeply understand what types of startup founders will be successful in their respective markets, the more we build a data set of success that looks and feels like and identifies as women.
"If you focus on your limitation, you will be limited, so focus on your strengths to be stronger to abundantly live, boldly achieve and unebashedly dream." -Silvia Mah
For Further Research:
Content Acknowledgements
Gallup?, CliftonStrengths??and the 34 theme names of CliftonStrengths??are trademarks of Gallup, Inc.?All rights reserved.?To learn more about CliftonStrengths?, please visit?Gallup Access .
Data Analysis
Graphs generated with the amazing resource of Cascade Strengths Report.
She Invests! License No. C20326
Freelance Project Manager for Creatives | Speaker | Multi-passionate
2 年This is so interesting! Futuristic and Activator are two of my top five as well!
Science storyteller. Medical writer. Women’s health advocate and researcher. Graduate Program Director & Writing Professor at James Madison University.
2 年Great insights here! Thank you for sharing the CAP "The Women’s Leadership Gap" resource. Everyone should know the stats listed there. I'm sure the stats for women of color in leadership positions is even more alarming.
Social impact entrepreneur ?? | Assistive Tech Inventor ?? | Speaker on adaptive sports, inclusion, & entrepreneurship ??
2 年Always look forward to your articles! I am honored to be included in the data set for this. Your Bootcamp was so helpful. And thank you for including not only the strengths, but what ACTIONS companies and mentors can take to support the founders based on their strengths!
Gardow Consulting, LLC
2 年Fascinating article, Silvia Mah PhD, MBA. I remember many years ago taking the Strong Interest Test, when I was at a crossroads in my career. I found that I was in the top 10% for men in willingness to take risks and off the charts for women, in the willingness to take risks. This article just confirms those strengths that I admire and appreciate.
Helping Launch Innovative Products and Services in AgTech, GovTech, IoT, AI, Privacy and CyberSecurity
2 年Thank you for this really insightful data analysis, Sylvia! This list of traits of successful female entrepreneurs translates well into what makes a female leader in any size company. 1_ Achiever 2_ Futuristic 3_ Learner 4_ Strategic 5_ Activator Now that we know what to look for, how can we best nurture these traits, starting early in life, reinforcing that being an achieve is "ok" and helping our future leaders be life-long learners and activators.