Why Women May Be Better Leaders for Our Chaotic Times

Men have dominated Western culture for centuries, with men being showcased as being superior and women being considered either ill-suited or inferior to assume leadership positions.

?In recent decades, women have made substantial progress in being recognized as influential and inspirational leaders, but the glass ceiling has only been cracked, not broken. The U.S. has never had a female President, compared to more than fifteen women in Europe, Canada, and New Zealand who have had female leaders.

?The selection of Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee for President is a significant event that may signal a shift in public attitudes. This shift could be a direct result of Hilary Clinton's previous candidacy, which has undoubtedly influenced the perception of women in leadership roles.

?It raises many questions: Who might be better for leading us through the world’s chaotic times—men or women? Recent research suggests women might be better.

?This article argues that women may be better suited to assume leadership roles in our organizations and institutions, given the chaos, uncertainty, and changing aspects of our culture and economy, because of their personalities and skill sets.

?The Gender Equality Gap

?According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report, the overall score for gender equity in 2024 is?68.5%, meaning?31.5%?of the gap remains unaddressed.?Progress?has been?extremely slow, with only a 0.1% point improvement from 2023. At the current rate, it will take?134 years to reach full gender parity?globally, far beyond the Sustainable Development Goals ?2030 SDG target. The gender gaps remain largest in?Political Empowerment (77.5% unaddressed)?and Economic Participation & Opportunity (39.5% unaddressed). Top-Ranking Countries: Iceland (93.5%)?remains the?world's most gender-equal society?for the?15th?consecutive year. It is followed by Finland, Norway, New Zealand?and Sweden in the top 5 rankings.? Seven?of the top?10?countries are from?Europe?(Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Spain). The report ranked the?United?States 43rd among 146 countries examined on its global gender parity, and Canada ranked 36th. The rankings were determined based on gaps in four main areas: work, education, health and political leadership.

?In an article I wrote in the?Financial Post?in May, 2010, entitled “What’s Happened to the Glass Ceiling,” ?I said, “Call it a glass ceiling, glass wall or a glass floor—there is still a barrier blocking senior women leaders in organizations. High-powered executive and professional women are increasingly opting out of, being bypassed, or otherwise disappearing from the?professional?workforce. While this exists, true diversity in organizations will not happen.”

?Although women make up?over half ?of the U.S. population, they remain minorities within the most elite sectors of society; as of 2023, women constituted?less than 30 percent ?of the House of Representatives, the Senate, Fortune 500 CEOs, and governors nationwide. Yet, any female presence in such positions of power demonstrates progress towards the advancement of women’s rights compared to a century ago. Traditionally, American women were excluded from paid work and politics, their capabilities believed to be limited to childcare and housekeeping, while men were seen as the ideal workers without such distractions. Despite subsequent expansion of?women’s economic empowerment ?and the rise of dual earner households in the U.S.,?outdated stereotypes ?surrounding gender roles still devalue women’s work to this day. In comparison to men, women in the U.S.?earn less ?, even when doing the?same job , and they?feel pressured ?to take on more responsibilities at home, even when working?full-time . The gender pay gap – the difference between the median earnings of men and women – has remained relatively flat in the United States over the past two decades,?according to an analysis of hourly earnings of full- and part-time workers . In 2022, U.S. women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar men earned. That was about the same as in 2002, when women earned 80 cents to the dollar.?Simultaneously, even though women surpass men on?educational attainment ?in the U.S., they continue to be underrepresented in the?highest-paying careers , and even if a woman has a higher degree than a man, it is still likely that the man will?earn more on average .

A 2023 study found?over half of Americans ?to believe that a major reason behind why there are fewer women than men in high political offices is that women have to do more to prove themselves while a further 44 percent cited that family responsibilities make it harder for women to run for office, demonstrating how lingering assumptions on female capabilities may hinder future advancement of women in American politics. In addition, the study revealed how?50 percent of Americans ?said that a major reason that women earn less, on average, than men, is that women are treated differently by employers and 42 percent agreed that it was because women tend to make different choices between balancing work and family, further supporting the theory that gender equality in the U.S. remains restricted by outdated?gender stereotypes and expectations .?

?A Pew Research Center study reported that women still lag in top leadership positions in business and government.?Women have made inroads in a?wide range of leadership positions ?in recent decades, but have not reached parity with their male counterparts in most cases. As of September 2023: 28% of U.S. congressional members and about a third of state legislators are women;?8 Democratic and four Republican women serve as governors; of 25 Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions, 12 are held by women (48%) and 11% of Fortune 500 company CEOs are women, along with 30% of Fortune 500 board members.

?There still is considerable gender bias when it comes to considering women as leaders.?Harvard’s global online research study , which included over 200,000 participants, showed that 76% of people (men and women) are gender-biased and tend to think of men as better suited for careers and women as better suited as homemakers.

??A significant new study ?of working women conducted by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. gathered data on promotions, attrition and career outcomes at 132 global companies, and they surveyed 34,000 men and women at those companies on their experiences at work.

?The disparity begins at entry level, where men are 30% more likely than women to be promoted to management roles. It continues throughout careers, as men move up the ladder in larger numbers and make up the lion’s share of outside hires. Though their numbers are growing slowly, women hold less than a quarter of senior leadership positions and less than one-fifth of C-suite roles.

?Leader Stereotypes

?The stereotypic leader has frequently been described in distinctively male characteristics,

Notwithstanding a century of progress toward sex and gender equality, the so-called “alpha?male” stereotype of leaders persists. Leaders are still stereotyped as possessing male-typical and dominant physical characteristics such as tallness and personality traits such as masculinity and agency. In contrast, characteristics such as compassion, kindness, non-judgment and empathy—associated with women—have been viewed as weaknesses.

?Research studies have reported that there are general characteristics people perceive with to describe the characteristics of good leaders. They are masculine, charismatic, visionary, powerful, rational, analytical, assertive, non-emotional, aggressive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, self-sufficient, confident, and prone to act as a leader.?In contrast, female leaders have been traditionally viewed as Stereotypes regarding women lie in communal characteristics portraying them as affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturant, and gentle.

?As a result, several studies contend male candidates for leadership positions were preferred because the general public and organizations preferred those stereotypical characteristics.

?The misfit of stereotypical feminine characteristics to leadership characteristics results in negative behavior toward female leader. If female leaders show agentic or strong competency characteristics, they are rated as less likable, less hirable, and face more prejudice than male leaders displaying agentic characteristics. The perception of dominant male leaders as the norm helps male leaders to be perceived as leaders; however, dominant female leaders are seen to be abnormal, which hinders them from being perceived as leaders Female leaders in male-dominated working domains were especially devalued compared to male leaders and were found to be less competent, less influential, and less likely to have played a leadership role than their male counterparts However, not only the misfit of characteristics but also failing to show stereotypical characteristics results in negative evaluations.

Connecting Personality with Leadership Effectiveness

?Personality is almost as significant as intelligence when it comes to our ability to perform work tasks efficiently.

?“For leaders, personality plays an even bigger role than for many other professions,” according to professors ?yvind L. Martinsen and Lars Glas? at the BI Norwegian Business School.

?Martinsen and Glas? have analyzed data from an extensive leader survey that was most carried out in 2011 by the Administrative Research Institute (AFF) at the Norwegian School of Economics.?The survey measured personality traits in Norwegian managers, work motivation and organisational commitment.

?More than 2900 leaders provided complete responses to the personality measurements. Of these, more than 900 were women, more than 900 were senior management and nearly 900 came from the public sector.

?The survey is based on the recognised theory of human personality, which describes personality as stable response patterns in thinking, emotion and behaviour. The results of their research concluded the following.

?Women Score Higher Than Men. Female leaders score higher than men in four of the five personality traits measured. “The results indicate that, as regards personality, women are better suited for leadership than their male colleagues when it comes to clarity, innovation, support and targeted meticulousness,” according to the BI researchers. The survey also indicates that female leaders have a somewhat stronger tendency to worry. “Disregarding the worrying (emotional stability), it could be legitimate to ask whether women function better in a leadership role than their male colleagues,” according to Martinsen and Glas?.

?Innovative Public Leaders. In their analyses, Martinsen and Glas? compared the personality traits of leaders in the private sector with leaders in the public sector. The results surprised the researchers and might challenge our perceptions and stereotypes regarding leaders in the public sector. Leaders in the public sector score higher in innovation, support and targeted meticulousness than their colleagues in the private sector. “Can the best leaders really be found in the public sector?”, the researchers wonder. The analyses also show that senior management has greater potential for innovation and systematic and targeted behaviour in the leadership role than leaders at lower levels in the organisation.

?Motivated for the Job. Martinsen and Glas? also investigated whether there were any correlations between leaders’ personality and whether they have an internal or external motivation for the job. Internal motivation is an expression of a genuine interest in the work, perceived opinion about the work and perception of independence. External motivation is a form of motivation where we, for example, perceive that the work is governed by external rewards (e.g. bonus). Research has consistently found that such forms of motivation, in the best case, impact simpler routine tasks.The results show that high numbers in the five traits in the five factor model are associated with internal motivation. This means that those with a basic personal expertise for the leader role, are also those with a favourable internal motivation for doing the job. The researchers find that external motivation correlates with low emotional stability, sociability and regularity. “Leaders with difficulties handling pressure, who have a lower tendency to support and are less thorough and targeted, state that they have higher levels of external motivation in their job,” according to the researcher duo. Work motivation is yet another reason to spend time identifying leader candidates that have personality traits that support becoming effective leaders.

?Self vs. Others’ Ratings

?The researchers discovered that when it comes to self-rated leadership effectiveness, male managers tend to give themselves higher leadership effectiveness ratings than female managers do. Meanwhile, if we only look at ratings from other sources (i.e., supervisors and subordinates), female managers receive higher leadership effectiveness ratings than their male counterparts.?

Other Research Studies

?Several studies by Ohio State University identified other reasons why women are more effective leaders:

The Ability to Achieve Common Goals

?Leadership is one’s ability to influence others to achieve common goals. To accomplish this, a leader needs to possess skills that can effectively communicate goals, motivate others, help others improve, give support when needed and ensure their subordinates' well-being. Survey results from both supervisors and subordinates showed that people believe female leaders are better at both communicating with others and showing consideration. In a study that examined gender and leadership styles, researchers found that, compared to male leaders, female leaders use more transformational leadership (inspiring, caring and encouraging) and also engage in more of the contingent reward behaviors (this for that in a consistent manner).

?Meanwhile, male leaders tend to adopt manage by exception style (only intervene when problems become severe) along with the?lassiez-faire leadership ?style (absent when needed).

?What does this mean? Compared to male leaders, female leaders are more likely to attend to followers’ personal needs, be open to new ideas and others’ opinions, and reward the satisfactory performance of followers in a consistent manner. On the other hand, male leaders are statistically more likely to only stress meeting the standards, wait until problems become severe before attending to them, and/or withdraw or be absent during critical junctures. Furthermore, these studies show females are less narcissistic than males.?Thus, female leaders tend to adopt democratic or participative style and a less autocratic or directive style than men. They also point out that the traditional gender stereotype that female leaders tend to focus more on interpersonal aspects — as opposed to task-oriented aspects of leadership — does not hold up in the analyses.

Women Score Higher on Emotional Intelligence

?According to new research by the Korn Ferry division of Korn Ferry (NYSE: KFY), the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm, women score higher than men on nearly all emotional intelligence competencies, except emotional self-control, where no gender differences are observed.

?Data from 55,000 professionals across 90 countries and all levels of management, collected between 2011-2015, using the?Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) , developed and co-owned by Richard E. Boyatzis, Daniel Goleman and Korn Ferry, found that women more effectively employ the emotional and social competencies correlated with effective leadership and management than men.

?“Historically in the workplace, there has been a tendency for women to self-evaluate themselves as less competent, while men tend to overrate themselves in their competencies,” said Boyatzis, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor, Case Western Reserve University. “Research shows, however, that the reality is often the opposite. If more men acted like women in employing their emotional and social competencies, they would be substantially and distinctly more effective in their work.”

?In fact, when assessing the competency levels of both men and women across the 12 key areas of emotional and social intelligence, Korn Ferry research found:

• The greatest difference between men and women can be seen in emotional self-awareness, where women are 86% more likely than men to be seen as using the competency consistently (18.4% of women demonstrate the competency consistently compared to just 9.9% of men).
• Women are 45% more likely than men to be seen as demonstrating empathy consistently.
• The smallest margin of difference is seen in positive outlook. When it comes to this emotional intelligence competency, women are only 9% more likely to exhibit the competency consistently than men.
• Other competencies in which women outperform men are coaching & mentoring, influence, inspirational leadership, conflict management, organizational awareness, adaptability, teamwork and achievement orientation.
• Emotional self-control is the only competency in which men and women showed equal performance.

?“The data suggests a strong need for more women in the workforce to take on leadership roles,” said Goleman, Co-Director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University. “When you factor in the correlation between high emotional intelligence and those leaders who deliver better business results, there is a strong case for gender equity. Organizations must find ways to identify women who score highly on these competencies and empower them.”

?As organizations increasingly recognize the importance of providing resources to nurture and develop female leaders, women who score highly in these emotional and social intelligence competencies will rise to the top. Further, as these competencies underpin highly effective performance, men have an excellent opportunity to learn from women in the workplace how to leverage these emotional and social competencies best to become more effective leaders. Through greater emotional intelligence, both men and women can boost performance within their organizations, accomplishing their goals through both internal and external stakeholders.

?In addition, according to Korn Ferry research, a leader's level of emotional intelligence is strongly related to how long their team members plan to stay with the organization. Leaders with strong emotional intelligence create conditions that inspire team members to stay and contribute to the organization long-term. Conversely, leaders with low emotional intelligence have greater potential to drive team members away from the organization.

?Stephen Lams, Talent Product Manager at Korn Ferry added, “Throughout our work with clients, Korn Ferry has seen that the most effective leaders within organizations are those who have the greatest scores on emotional and social intelligence. Whether remaining calm during times of turbulence, inspiring and building team consensus or serving as an empathetic mentor and coach to nurture the next generation of professionals, leaders who tap into their social and emotional intelligence competencies positively impact their teams and drive greater performance throughout the organization.”

?Women Often Excel at the Soft Skills Required for Business Leadership

?While technical skills and knowledge are essential for career success, CEOs regularly rate soft skills as the?most valued professional characteristics ?(paywall). Hugely valuable personalities include good communicators, empaths and self-aware individuals who are conscious of their strengths and weaknesses. According to?research ?linking character strength with business performance, CEOs who score highly for traits like compassion and integrity can earn a 9.35% return on assets over two years.

?Soft skills and emotional intelligence may be a competitive advantage for women in business. According to a survey by the international consulting firm Hay Group published in 2016, women surpass males in 11 of 12 major emotional intelligence characteristics. These include emotional self-awareness, empathy, conflict management, flexibility and teamwork—all essential skills to becoming a good leader at work.

?In an article in Forbes writer Avivah Wittenberg-Cox ?argues “The mountain of evidence keeps growing. Women leaders outperform. Especially during a crisis. Companies with more of them do better. Countries led by women managed the Covid crisis better than their male counterparts.” She cites research published by the Social Science Research Network that shows states and countries led by women did a much better job at handling the COVID crisis.

?She goes on to argue that research conducted over the last decade “has been linking bottom line financial results to more gender-balanced leadership teams.?Consulting firms ?started this off, followed by?banks ,?investors ,?media ?and?others . Some will argue this doesn’t prove causality. A growing number of them, including Blackrock, AXA, and others worth a combined US$13 trillion, have publicly said they?won’t invest ?in companies that aren’t gender balanced.”

?Alice Eagly, PhD, a professor of psychology emerita at Northwestern University and pioneer in researching women’s leadership has published several research studies showing how women perform better than men in current times:

• Female leaders demonstrate more transformational leadership styles , according to a landmark 1992 meta-analysis of 61 studies led by Eagly. They are more likely to epitomize what’s good in the organization and inspire people to go along with its mission, compared with men, study results show.
• Women are now seen as equally or more competent as men , finds a 2020 meta-analysis led by Eagly. The study included data from 16 nationally representative public opinion polls involving more than 30,000 U.S. adults from 1946 to 2018. The researchers looked at three types of traits—communion (i.e., compassion, sensitivity), agency (i.e., ambition, aggression), and competence (i.e., intelligence, creativity)—and whether participants thought each trait was truer of women or men or equally true of both.

?Other research cited by Amy Novotney, writing for the American Psychological Association reports the following:

• Team collaboration is greatly improved by the presence of women in the group, ?an effect that is primarily explained by women’s benefits to group processes, according to a 2010 study. In two studies with 699 people, organizational psychologist Anita Williams Woolley, PhD, and her colleagues examined working groups of two to five people and found the proportion of women in a group was strongly related to the group’s collective intelligence, which is their ability to work together and solve a wide range of problems. Groups with more women exhibited greater equality in conversational turn-taking, further enabling the group members to be responsive to one another and to make the best use of the knowledge and skills of members.
• Women rank better than or equal to men in seven of eight traits ?relevant to leadership assessed in a 2008 national survey by the Pew Research Center. Half of the respondents ranked women as more honest than men, with 20% saying that men are more honest than women. In terms of intelligence, 38% said they viewed women as smarter, with only 14% indicating men are smarter. Women were also ranked as being more compassionate, outgoing, and creative.
• The?mere presence of a female leader relative to a male leader led perceivers to anticipate fairer treatment ?in that organization and greater projected salary and status, according to a 2022 study led by social psychologist Mansi P. Joshi, PhD. Female leaders cued organizational trust in both male- and female-dominated industries and when they occupied different levels of the organizational hierarchy.
• Appointing women to the top tiers of management can even?help mitigate deep-rooted stereotypes that are expressed in language , suggests a 2022 study. Researchers used natural language processing techniques to analyze more than 43,000 shareholder documents and investor calls from 33 male- and female-led S&P 500 organizations and found that hiring female chief executive officers and board members was associated with changes in organizations’ use of language by helping to associate women with characteristics that are critical for leadership success. “Our findings suggest that female representation is not merely an end, but also a means to systematically change insidious gender stereotypes and overcome the trade-off between women being perceived as either competent or likeable,” study authors wrote.

?Kellie A. McElhaney and Sanaz Mobasseri of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkley, produced a report, “Women Create a Sustainable Future.” Among the conclusions in their research and published in the report, was “companies that explicitly place value on gender diversity perform better in general, and perform better than their peers on the multiple dimensions of corporate sustainability.”

?A 2022 Dow Jones study shows that business startups are more likely to succeed if they have women on their executive team. And according to the?Center for Women’s Business Research, although women own about 40% of the private businesses in the U.S., women make up less than 10% of venture-backed start-ups.

?A 2005?Report on Women and Entrepreneurship , the percentage of entrepreneurs who expect growth for the businesses is higher for female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs. And according to a separate study by Babson College and the London School of Economics, women led start-ups experienced fewer failures in moving from early to growth–stage companies than men.

?Catalyst, the U.S. non-profit company, found that in 2014 a 26% difference in return on invested capital (ROIC) between the top-quartile companies with 19-44% women board representation and the bottom quartile companies with zero women directors. When the McKinsey team asked business executives globally what they believe the most important leadership attributes are for success today, each of the top four—intellectual stimulation, inspiration, participatory decision-making and setting expectations/rewards—were more commonly found among women leaders. McKinsey reported in its?Organizational Health Index(OHI) companies with three or more women in top positions scored higher than their peers.

?A Pew Center Global Attitudes Project found that 75% of respondents in the U.S. and 80% in Canada believe that women make equally good political leaders, and the numbers were much higher and Europe, Asia and parts of South America. Another Pew Center study, Social and Demographic Survey found women leaders possessed more leadership traits of honesty, intelligence, compassion and creativity than men, whereas men scored higher only in decisiveness.

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?Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, authors of?The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Activate ,?writing in?the?Harvard Business Review Blog Network ,?argue that in today’s complex demanding world of organizations, women may possess superior leadership capabilities compared to men.

?Zenger and Folkman make that contention based on 30 years of research on what constitutes overall leadership effectiveness that comes from 360 evaluations of a leader’s peers, bosses and direct reports and a 2011 survey of over 7,000 leaders from some of the most successful and progressive organizations. They concluded “at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts—and the higher the level, the wider the gap grows.” Specifically, the authors note, “at all levels, women were rated higher in fully 12 or the 16 competencies that go into outstanding leadership. And two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree—taking initiative and driving for results—have long been thought of as particularly male strengths.”? Men outscored women significantly on only one management competency—the ability to develop a strategic perspective.In fact, at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts — and the higher the level, the wider that gap grows.?

Research by Zenger and Folkman from 2011 (updated in 2019) ?clearly shows that women are more effective on most of the top competencies of good leadership – including taking initiative, inspiring and motivating others, and building relationships.

?Thomas Malone, a management professor at MIT and his colleagues completed research which tried to determine what made a team smarter. He created teams of people aged 18 to 60, had them take IQ tests and then gave them a series of problems to solve. He found that those with the highest IQs did not perform the best, but the teams with the most women did. He reported in the?Harvard Business Review , “the standard argument is that diversity is good and you should have both men and women in a group…But so far, the data show, the more women, the better.”

?According to a?study conducted by Chris Bart, professor of strategic management at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, and Gregory McQueen, a McMaster graduate and senior executive associate dean at Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine, women actually run better performing businesses than men.

??Researchers at Columbia Business School and the University of Maryland analyzed data on the top 1,500 U.S. companies from 1992 to 2006 to determine the relationship between firm performance and female participation in senior management. Firms that had women in top positions performed better, and this was especially true if the firm pursued what the researchers called an “innovation intensive strategy,” in which, they argued, “creativity and collaboration may be especially important”—an apt description of the future economy.

?Gallup reports in?State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders ?that employees who work for a female manager in the U.S. are actually?more engaged , on average, than those who work for a male manager.?

Would We Have Fewer Wars and International Conflicts with Female Leaders?

Psychological research on the characteristics of men and women shows substantial?evidence ?that female leaders tend to be more collaborative than their male counterparts, suggesting women would be more likely to work with their neighboring countries to find peaceful solutions to conflict. Women also tend to be more?empathic , and their empathy may make them less likely to harm their enemies physically. By contrast, from a young age boys are more physically?aggressive ?than girls and this greater tendency toward aggression may make male leaders more likely to initiate war.

?According to one study countries are? more likely to achieve lasting peace post-conflict when women are invited to the negotiating table. Although the number of women included in peace talks is minuscule (a United Nations study found that just 2.4 per cent of mediators and 9 per cent of negotiators are women, and just 4 per cent of the signatories of 31 peace processes), the inclusion of women can make a profound difference. Peace is more likely to endure: an?analysis ?by the US non-profit Inclusive Security of 182 signed peace agreements between 1989 and 2011 found that an agreement is 35 per cent more likely to last at least 15 years if women are included as negotiators, mediators and signatories.

?Women succeed as mediators and negotiators because of qualities traditionally perceived as feminine and maternal. In Northern Ireland, Somalia and South Africa, female participants in peace processes earned a reputation for fostering dialogue and engaging all sides. They are also often seen as honest brokers, more trustworthy and less threatening, because they act outside formal power structures.?

?Society Has Changed

?What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men? For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, and that shows up now as a drive to win on Wall Street; women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more- nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity. This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order. But what if men and women were fulfilling not biological imperatives but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history? What if that era has now come to an end? More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women?

?The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true. Women in poor parts of India are learning English faster than men to meet the demands of new global call centers. Women own more than 40 percent of private businesses in China, where a red Ferrari is the new status symbol for female entrepreneurs. Iceland elected Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of state, who campaigned explicitly against the male elite she claimed had destroyed the nation’s banking system, and who vowed to end the “age of testosterone.”

This is the first time that the cohort of Americans ages 30 to 44 has more college-educated women than college-educated men, and the effects are upsetting the traditional Cleaver-family dynamics. In 1970, women contributed 2 to 6 percent of the family income. Now the typical working wife brings home 42.2 percent, and four in 10 mothers—many of them single mothers—are the primary breadwinners in their families. The whole question of whether mothers should work is moot, argues Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress, “because they just do. This idealized family—he works, she stays home—hardly exists anymore.”

?The general public’s—and indeed even leadership experts'—views on what constitutes good leaders has not substantially changed, and a 20thcentury stereotype of leaders is persistent, despite research evidence to the contrary. The countries that adapt to the new order the fastest, and recognize the value and need for women in leadership may be the ones that most successfully navigate the balance of the 21stcentury.

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