Are We Being Eclipsed As Leaders At Work?

http://images.askmen.com/money/caree...8875-flash.jpg
Debate is constantly raging about whether women are better leaders than men. Two newstudies suggest that they are, and, honestly, we're starting to think about letting ourfemale colleagues into the mens-only cigar lounge we installed at AskMen (just kidding).The most recent study found that women inmanagement positions lead in a more democratic way, allowing employees to participatein decision-making and establishing interpersonal channels of communication. Theother, published on Harvard Business Review, determined that at every level, more womenwere rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts. The latter is thearticle you're about to read, written by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. JackZenger is the CEO and Joseph Folkman is the president of Zenger/Folkman, a leadershipdevelopment consultancy.We've all heard the claims, the theories, and thespeculation about the ways leadership styles vary between women and men. Our latest surveydata puts some hard numbers into the mix. Our data come from 360evaluations, so what they are tracking is the judgment of a leader's peers, bosses anddirect reports. We ask these individuals to rate each leader's effectiveness overall andalso to judge how strong he or she is on the 16 competencies that our 30 years ofresearch shows are most important to overall leadership effectiveness. We ask, forinstance, how good a leader is at taking the initiative, developing others, inspiring andmotivating, and pursuing their own development. Our latest survey of 7,280 leaders, which ourorganization evaluated in 2011, confirms some seemingly eternal truths about men andwomen leaders in the workplace but also holds some surprises. Our dataset was generatedfrom leaders in some of the most successful and progressive organizations in the worldboth public and private, government and commercial, domestic and international. In the confirmation category is our first finding: The majority of leaders (64%) arestill men. And the higher the level, the more men there are: In this group, 78% of topmanagers were men, 67% at the next level down (that is, senior executives reportingdirectly to the top managers), 60% at the manager level below that. Similarly, most stereotypes would have us believe that femaleleaders excel at "nurturing" competencies such as developing others and buildingrelationships, and many might put exhibiting integrity and engaging in self-developmentin that category as well. And in all four cases our data concurred -- women did scorehigher than men. But the women's advantages were not at all confined totraditionally women's strengths. In fact at every level, more women were rated by theirpeers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overallleaders than their male counterparts -- and the higher the level, the wider that gapgrows:Specifically, at all levels, women are rated higher in fully 12 of the 16 competenciesthat go into outstanding leadership. And two of the traits where women outscored men tothe highest degree -- taking initiative and driving for results -- have long been thought of as particularly malestrengths. As it happened, men outscored women significantly on only one managementcompetence in this survey -- the ability to develop a strategic perspective:So what can we do as men? That's next... Continue Reading

http://www.askmen.com/money/career_900/967_women-and-leadership.html ]More...[/url]