The Results Are In: Women Are Better Leaders

The Results Are In: Women Are Better Leaders Erika Andersen (Courtesy Forbes)

 

Just read an excerpt of an article from HBR, over at my friend Bob Morris’ blog.  The article, by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, is based on a research study they did of 7,280 leaders in 2011.

They looked at leaders in a variety of positions – from very senior management to ‘individual contributor.’ In the study, they asked others to rate the leaders in 16 leadership competencies.  According to the data shared in the article, they found that women out-scored men in all but one of the 16 competencies, and in 12 of the 16, the women were better by a significant margin. And, in the words of Zenger and Folkman, “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.”

And though there were more males in the study (and the imbalance increased at higher levels, as is the case in most corporations – at the highest level, 78% of the mangers were men), the women were seen as better leaders at every level. Again, in Zenger and Folkman’s words: “…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.”

This lines up with my experience. Women are among the most talented and respected leaders in the organizations with which we work; I often find that the women at the 2nd or 3rd level from the top in an organization, especially, are more impressive than their male peers.  They build better teams; they’re more liked and respected as managers; they tend to be able to combine intuitive and logical thinking more seamlessly; they’re more aware of the implications of the their own and others’ actions;  and they think more accurately about the resources needed to accomplish a given outcome.

This study by Zenger and Folkman seems to demonstrate pretty strongly that women are seen as better leaders than men by those around them.  And there are other studies indicating that companies that have a higher representation of women in management ranks are more profitable and have higher employee productivity. And yet – I’ve noted this statistic before, but I’ll say it again in this context: only 33 of the Fortune 1,000 are headed by women.

So, what’s the deal?  Why are women still so woefully under-represented, especially at the most senior levels?

I’d love to hear your sense of why this is still happening.  Here are two elements I think have a big impact:

Women don’t self-promote. Of the 16 leadership competencies Zenger and Folkman assessed, the only one where men outranked women was “develops a strategic perspective.”  One of the areas in which I observe womennot developing a strategic view is the advancement of their own careers. I notice that many more men than women focus on where they want to take their careers, and regularly use some part of their time to develop the relationships that will support their success, and offer themselves for outside-their-day-job opportunities that will show their superiors they have the bandwidth and the capability to do more.  Women, on the other hand, tend to put all their energy into simply doing the best possible job in their current position.  We seem much more inclined to believe that work is a meritocracy, and that if you simply work hard and get great results, you’ll get noticed and promoted. Admirable, but not very accurate.

Senior men still mostly hire other men. My husband and I have been watching the first four seasons of Mad Men lately, and it’s shocking to remember that only 50 years ago, women in business were almost exclusively secretaries and telephone operators – and generally stayed in those jobs only until they got married. In the mid 1960s, only about 35% of women worked, and only 1 in 50 working women held managerial or professional jobs. The grandmothers and grandfathers of the young women coming into the work force today expected that women, if they worked at all, would be secretaries, nurses, teachers, librarians, or possibly factory workers, and that they would only work if they “had” to – that is, if they didn’t have husbands who could be the family breadwinner.  The older white males who run most companies are only one generation away from those beliefs – and I suspect their parents’ expectations still color their hiring and promotion decisions more than they would acknowledge.

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel, though. Perhaps I’m being overly hopeful, but I’m seeing both of these phenomena much less often in men and women in their 20s and 30s: the young women I deal with in organizations tend to be as confident and ambitious as the men, and the young men seem to be much more gender-neutral in their hiring and promotion decisions.

But till these younger people come fully into power in business, what can we do to change the statistics, and give women a more equitable – and, according to Zenger and Folkman, well-deserved – shot at the corner office?