Why Can’t a Woman be More like a Man? Vive La Difference!

“Can't a woman learn to use her head? Why do they do ev'rything their mothers do? Why don't they grow up - well, like their father instead? Why can't a woman take after a man?” 

These are lyrics from the song “A Hymn to Him (Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man)” from the classic 1964 movie-musical My Fair Lady. It’s a scorchingly sexist song, but we roll our eyes and laugh along because it’s from the ‘60s and we’ve come a long way since then, right?

Then this happens: In late 2015, Google releases a Gmail plug-in called “Just Not Sorry” which purports to help women write stronger, more impactful emails by flagging the words that undermine our messages.  In other words: to help a woman be more like a man.   

Talk about a giant step backwards.

In response, Amy Allen Martin wrote a brilliant blog entitled, “Why I Won’t Write Emails Like a Man” in which she asks, “Aren’t [women] being recruited because we do think and act differently – and because we can bring a different level and depth of thinking to the Board room?”

Exactly! When it comes to leadership and communication, women are often handed a male playbook. Some of it is sound advice – but we’ve known for a while that many traditional male approaches don’t always serve women well. Now there’s mounting evidence to suggest that many of these tactics may not serve corporations well – and that traditionally feminine values and approaches are increasingly critical to success. 

Case in point: Auder Capital

Halla Tomasdottir understands – first hand – the need to balance male and female perspectives in the business world. As an investment banker in Iceland in 2007, she had mounting concerns about the country’s economy and a male-dominated banking industry that was driven by risk-taking, short-term gain, and individual reward. So, just over a year before Iceland’s economic collapse, she and a female partner founded Auder Capital, a financial services firm based on feminine values – including risk-awareness, long-term benefits, and team goals.

 Why the need for a female approach to a male dominated industry? As Halla explains, “A lack of diversity leads to disastrous problems. It’s not about women being better than men; it is actually about women being different from men, bringing different values and different ways of doing things to the table. You get better decision making and less herd behaviour – and both of those things hit your bottom line with very positive results.” 

The proof, they say, is in the pudding: Auder Capital was one of the only firms in Iceland to make it through the eye of the financial storm without taking any direct losses to its equity or to the funds of its clients. 

(After Iceland’s Prime Minister stepped down due to the Panama Papers scandal Halla ran for the presidency of Iceland in June and came an amazing second) 

Remember Mars and Venus?

As John Grey illustrated in his late-90s blockbuster, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,” men and women generally have very different communication traits. Kate Russell of BBC Click addressed this point at Cisco’s Women of Impact conference in March with a discussion of male rules vs. female manners.

Her keynote address underscored the point that business success is not based on getting one gender to be or speak like the other. We are all far more comfortable and communicate better when we can act like ourselves. However, by acknowledging and understanding each other’s differences – and by ensuring a diversity of perspectives – we can actually build stronger teams that make better decisions. 

I am woman – and that’s just fine.

So ladies, please, let’s not try to be more like men. Let’s focus on being the strongest, best, most successful version of ourselves. What does that look like in a professional context? To that end, Cisco set out to qualify the characteristics female executives at Cisco need to get ahead. Based on multiple data points – including interviews of European Cisco women executives, business and technology research (journal articles and statistics), and interviews with Learning Partners who train women executives – we have learned that successful female executives at Cisco need to:

1. Build confidence
2. Learn to take risks, stepping outside the comfort zone
3. Be authentic as leaders and as women
4. Build brand and gravitas
5. Plan and communicate where they want to go
6. Play on their strengths
7. Know how to secure sponsors

Perhaps the most important of these is #3: be authentic as a leader – and as a woman. We won’t be half as effective if we try to act and sound like something we’re not.

The bottom line? A lack of gender diversity hurts the bottom line.   

Each year since 2005, companies around the world that have more than one women on their boards have seen a 3.3 percent bigger stock market return than those without any women, according to a 2014 report from Credit Suisse. Another study, cited in the Harvard Business Review, shows that firms with more women in the C-suite are 15% more profitable.

 And now we can easily invest in companies that fit this profile: There’s a new Gender Diversity exchange traded fund – with the ticker symbol SHE – that will invest in US-based companies that are leaders in advancing women through gender diversity on their boards of directors and in management. 

Will the SHE fund be a stellar performer? Will more companies recognise the importance of having a gender-balanced perspective? And will we – once and for all – stop trying to make women behave more like men? 

To answer those questions, I’ll go back to My Fair Lady and quote Eliza Doolittle, “Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly!”

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This blog first appeared in Forbes