The Female Advantage As the textbook notes, women are still underrepresented as

Question

The Female Advantage

As the textbook notes, women are still underrepresented as managers of businesses, yet some people, such as Sally Helgesen see women as the business leaders of the future. Why? Because their style of management is more democratic and flexible, and therefore able to adjust more easily to the fast-changing, dynamic business environment, or thrive in a company where educated young professionals expect to be treated as individuals.

      In a recent article summing up their book, Megatrends for Women, Patricia Aburdene and John Naisbitt describe women leaders as having these strengths relative to men:

women encourage more participation

women share more power and information

women more effectively enhance other people’s self-worth

women get workers more excited about their work

      While these qualities all sound “nice,” the authors warn that this would be an oversimplification. “Caring about people and supporting them always must be balanced with objectivity. . . . Anyone who thinks ‘supporting people’ and being ‘nice’ alone cut it in the business world is in need of a serious reality check.” (p. 46)

      One thing that helps women, according to Judith Hall, a psychology professor at Northeastern University, is that women traditionally are better at interpreting body language and other non-verbal cues. They also are able to tolerate ambiguity and to juggle many things at once.

      Men, however, who see job performance “as a series of transactions--rewards for services rendered or punishment for inadequate performance,” (Ibid) might misinterpret women’s management style. A female manager’s willingness to empower employees by asking them for help, might, for example, look like ignorance, and as though she truly does not know what she is doing. Also, other employees might feel freer to criticize a woman, or to challenge her authority.

Discussion Questions

Characterize women’s management style according to the two leadership roles and three leadership styles discussed in the text. Do you agree with the claim that the two sexes have distinct leadership styles?

How do more creative jobs differ from more routine jobs in terms of the type of leadership that works best?

Explanation / Answer

Part 1: 2 Leadership roles are managers of businesses and business leaders of the future

Part 2: 4 leadership styles are

1. style of management is more democratic and flexible, and therefore able to adjust more easily to the fast-changing, dynamic business environment, or thrive in a company where educated young professionals expect to be treated as individuals.

2.traditionally are better at interpreting body language and other non-verbal cues.

3. They also are able to tolerate ambiguity and to juggle many things at once.

4. A female manager’s willingness to empower employees by asking them for help

Part 3: Yes i agree with the claim that the two sexes have distinct leadership styles because of the following reasons:

women encourage more participation

women share more power and information

women more effectively enhance other people’s self-worth

women get workers more excited about their work

Part 4: The first priority of a leader is to engage the right people, at the right time, to the right degree in their creative field of work

the leader has to re identify the role for that employee

A Google study indicates: the greatest successes come from workers’ own initiatives

Motivating employees all the time, train employees with lesser potential to think of ideas of their own, lack of office politics, appreaciating new ideas and giving a thought for food, map the entire journey with more focus to quality then on quantity, encouraging teams to collaborate with each other and discuss topics all of this helps a leader in making a job more creative and being an exceptional company. Any other company can keep doing mundane work thats no big deal! These are the possible ways by which a leader can make a difference between a routine and creative job.

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