Which gender makes the best boss? It's a frequently asked
question in the workplace. Is it men or women who are superior
as boss-material? MSN Career Builder recently featured an
article espousing the fact that men are better bosses. The
writer's opinion and research notwithstanding, I don't actually
think this is an "either-or" kind of question. It's really a
question of what qualities make someone a successful boss, and
even further how do we quantify success?
There are clearly differences between men and women. How they
function, and how they show up through their work is simply not
always the same. There are both pluses and minuses on either
side. Some men are better bosses than some women, and some women
are better bosses than some men.
To explore this fully, we must understand how the attributes
that either gender brings to a management position plot on the
workplace management map.
Women are raised to be nurturing, caring and communicative. Men
are not necessarily taught to exhibit those same qualities and
are certainly not rewarded for them growing up. Often, when
communicating with male executives, I hear gruffly expressed
comments like, "I don't like this warm, fuzzy stuff", and yet
women in those same positions seem to be able to accomplish it
naturally, without any effort at all. There are pros and cons to
exhibiting these qualities. We live in a business landscape
where a leader's show of emotions is likely to affect the way
their people view their effectiveness. Often, emotional
awareness is associated with weakness and ineffectiveness. Since
women seem to be wired to express their emotions and men to
repress theirs, it's a no-brainer that many people see men as
more effective leaders than women.
Often the nurturing, caring side of women makes it difficult for
them to make tough decisions or have difficult conversations.
They don't want to 'hurt people' and so they soften their 'hard
conversations' in order to avoid inflicting emotional pain.
Often, this results in not getting the true meaning of their
thoughts across. Men don't put such a high priority on taking
care with feelings, and while they may not like conflict or
confrontation, they don't worry about hurting others. So when
they have the same sort of conversations, their attitude and
language ends up being more straightforward and direct. The flip
side of the coin is that men, in their lack of concern about
feelings, simply state exactly what they think without in-depth
discussion or exploration, often leaving the individual they've
spoken to with all sorts of unresolved issues.
For men in management positions, a lack of awareness regarding
the other person's feelings may mean that they miss the clues
and cues that show up during communication with employees.
People simply don't know how much you care until you show them.
It's possible to build loyalty without the nurturing piece, but
your staff may always question how much you actually care about
them.
In a society where social conditioning assigns specific
attributes to successful business management, many women feel
like they need to act like a man to work successfully in a man's
world. Since acting as someone that you are not, and cannot ever
be, will undoubtedly keep women from showing up as their true
selves, their business success is indisputably obstructed. Being
genuine and sincere in your leadership is the foundation of
business success.
Men see themselves as leaders. They are taught from a young age
to think, act and be the world's leaders. Inevitably, they grow
up to see themselves as leaders. So when they are placed in a
leadership role it is 'more natural for them' than it is for
women. This doesn't necessarily mean they are more successful;
simply that they don't work as hard at it as women have to.
The truth is that there are more men in leadership roles today
than there are women. The gap is closing slowly, but it's still
there. Since we are most familiar with men as leaders, it's easy
for us to think that men are better leaders - certainly there
are more good male leaders than good female leaders... However,
it's equally true that there are more bad male leaders than bad
female leaders. The simple fact is that there are simply more
male leaders - good and bad. This is not proof that either
gender is a better leader.
Being a good manager or boss means you set strong values for
your business and live by them yourself. It means that you have
respect for the people you manage, guide them without
micro-managing them, build strong relationships, create a team
atmosphere, and appropriately reward your people for a job
done well. So, the question isn't whether one gender is better
boss-material than the other, but rather the question is what
makes a successful leader, and manager.
About the Author:
Linda Finkle, CEO of Incedo Group, works closely with leaders
and management to create sustainable productivity and
organizational strength. She holds a Master Certified Coach
designation through the International Coaching Federation. For
more information on Linda and Incedo Group, please go to Make Some Damn Mistakes
