Why Women Make Great Leaders

How our natural skills generate collaboration and inclusion

I visited a friend’s house recently to see their new construction. I noticed a new room with 5 comfy leather chairs lined up along the wall, facing a huge TV screen. Obviously a man cave. I laughed.

                Peter: What’s so funny?
                SD: This is obviously your man cave.
                Peter: Why is it so obvious?
                SD: Women would never line chairs up like that. We’d have them in a semi-circle.
                Peter: Why would you do that?
                SD: So we could engage with each other, see and hear each other, communicate.
                Peter: Why would we want to do that?

Why indeed. 

The Representation of Women in Leadership

I was the second woman on the Board of a public company in the UK in 1986. I quickly learned to keep quiet during meetings: Men would over-talk me when I spoke; they’d seize and spout my ideas to broad approval with no attribution; they’d ‘forget’ to invite me to important meetings (“Oops! Sorry. My bad.”) even though my group brought in 142% of the net profit of the company and they needed my input. 

Once I was so furious, a few tears of rage seeped out of one eye. “Awwww. Let’s give Sharon-Drew a moment to compose herself,” said the Chairman. “I have no need to compose myself. I’m just enraged at all of you.” Funny, but at the next meeting, one of the other Board members cried. As women have done for centuries, I had given them permission.
 

I’m sure times have changed in the past 35 years. But why, why, has there been such a struggle? And why, why are women in leadership still uncommon? 29% of leadership positions go to women, only 87% of companies have ‘at least one’ woman in senior management (even though 60% of the workforce are women), less than 20% of companies have women on their boards, and there are 37 women CEOs (37!) in the Fortune 500. And while 40% of all US businesses are woman-owned, women receive only 2.6% of start-up funding. Still.

There are lots of reasons offered as to the low numbers: women have babies and will leave; there aren’t enough women in the workplace to choose leaders from; women aren’t accepted into the Boys Club and don’t have the mentors to provide them a leg-up; men don’t respect women and won’t listen to them; women don’t play by the rules; women aren’t part of the ‘bro culture’. And of course, we can’t forget bias or misogyny. 

Much has been written about the differences between men’s and women’s leadership styles. And yes, it’s been proven that working for a woman leader offers more success – staff are happier, there’s less turnover, more profit is generated, teams work better with more creative output. 

For sure, more women are being hired in leadership roles these days. But it’s not enough and it’s not representational.

With so many excuses as to why women aren’t promoted to leadership positions, maybe it’s time to explain precisely why women make great leaders.

1. We care. We not only care about the bottom line, our place in the market, our superiority over our competition, but we care about people – staff, teams, creativity, well-being. In my tech company, I gave staff one week and $3,000 a year to take any course unrelated to work to boost their creativity. They all took one day off a month to do volunteer work in the community. I suggested they use one-hour mid-day for dream time, to expand their thinking and de-stress. They weren’t given vacation days but told to take off whatever time they needed to maintain their clarity, so long as they covered their work. And note: They so rarely wanted to leave work that I had to call their spouses and force them to take time off. Apparently, competitors tried to pry my employees away by offering them higher pay, but they wouldn’t leave me. Happy staff, happy clients.

2. We listen. In conversations, women not only listen more than speak but attend to differences in speaking patterns to ascertain shifts, hear disconnects and evasions before they become problems, notice when someone is having difficulty they may not want to make public. Our listening enables us to bond with another’s humanity, not for what they do but who for who they are.

3. We’re curious. When women notice a problem, we get curious. Instead of going straight into action, we wonder about its origin, how to fix it from the inside, how to assemble the right people to design a fix. And then we try different approaches, get team agreement for different outcomes.

4. We’re problem solvers. And not only in conventional ways, but often out-of-the-box thinking. 

5. We’re risk-takers. We have less fear of failure than men, with a greater understanding of possibilities. Since we’ve had to go-it-alone and recognize our own value and strength without the need to belong, we’re willing to offend the status quo. And we appreciate that the road to success is bumpy and uneven.

6. We communicate. We inspire discussions, ask questions, pose hypotheticals. We start conversations where there is too much silence and leave spaces for silence so answers can emerge where appropriate.

7. We collaborate. Working in groups is natural for women. If you’ve ever done an exercise where everyone in the room is given 6 pipe cleaners and told to make a ‘reporting’ structure, all the men attach each to the ones above and below – either/or. Women make a daisy chain, in a circle – both/and. It’s endemic.

8. We’re flexible. We’ve had to be.

9. We work to the future. Instead of taking steps sequentially with a perfect forward-moving plan, we see the aggregate and try different actions to cause change as a whole. 

Given the obvious pluses, I will never understand why women are kept out of leadership positions: our companies suffer, we lose market share and profit, have diminished creativity and kindness, experience higher turnover, and are just not as happy. If nothing else, it should be a purely strategic decision.

It seems that in today’s workplace, change is afoot. I look forward to there being an equal number of men and women leaders someday and looking back on these times with bewilderment. And just maybe we can all share an environment where kindness need not have be hidden, and equality and respect, empathy and communication, risk-taking and curiosity, are the norm.

Sharon Drew Morgen is an original thinker and author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller, Selling with Integrity, 8 other books and over 1000 articles on listening without bias and the servant-leader model Buying Facilitation®. As a coach, trainer, and consultant, she develops innovative models in sales, leadership, coaching, communication, and healthcare that facilitate permanent behavior change. Sharon Drew is noted for her out-of-the-box concepts that enable leaders to facilitate others through their unconscious to best choices. Visit https://sharondrewmorgen.com  Connect Sharon Drew Morgen