The battle of the sexes in organisational management

In the battle of the sexes, recent studies show that women have certain characteristics that make them better leaders. Women operate and manage businesses and organizations in some significantly different ways than men do.

Vicky Nimbalkar advises that the number of female managers have steadily increased through the years. These are women who have decided for themselves to succeed as managers and leaders just as much as certain men who have decided to do the same. Although gender offer a really huge part in the way men and women manage, it is the drive, motivation, attitude, perseverance, and circumstance that a certain individual has and/or had to deal with, regardless of whether male or female, that fuels their rise to the pinnacle of success as far as management and leadership is concerned.

As expressed by Barry Moltz in the following points: women have certain characteristics that make them better leaders—though men still hold the majority of these positions.

1. Better communicators. Women are better listeners than men, and this is exactly the skill that is most critical for managing employees and customers. According to Dr. Susan Sherwood, this is a result of women being more discussion oriented and men wanting to just take action. Men communicate through activities rather than conversations.

Why this is an important skill for everyone: Employees want their managers to hear their point of view, and customers want everyone to empathize with their problems. Being a better communicator will lead to a stronger relationship built on trust, which is critical to establishing loyalty.

2. Better community builders. Women are better consensus builders and don’t have the need like men to direct everyone in what to do. In this world of the connected Internet, “beta managers,” those that know how to build cooperative relationships, are becoming more successful than traditional “alpha managers.”

Why this is an important skill for everyone: In the new book The Fall of the Alphas, Dana Ardi shows how the traditional top down, male dominated authoritarian leader is being replaced by a more collaborative and connected manager. She says that the best managers are learning to lead through the influence that comes from building collaboration rather than straight force or all out competition.

3. Stronger business ethics. Bart and McQueen find that women, who are effective managers, “acknowledge and consider the rights of others in the pursuit of fairness … that is consistently applied in a non-arbitrary fashion.”

Why this is an important skill for everyone: Running a small business is a minefield of ethical choices. When pushed to the limit, too many owners do the wrong thing and run askew of their own ethical (and sometimes legal) standards. A strong moral code will help business owners deal with these types of challenges, which will certainly push them to their limit.

4. More patience. Women are far more patient with employees than men. They are less likely to jump to an immediate conclusion or make a quick decision or take action too soon. A study commissioned by Hermes shows that women are willing to wait longer for the desired result.

Why this is an important skill for everyone: For most small businesses, “overnight success” takes seven to 10 years. The winners are the ones that can be patient enough to take actions, which result in small steps toward a specific goal.

5. Better at activating passion. According to Jay Forte, author of Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition, women are “more astute about knowing how to activate passion in their employees. They watch the 43 muscles in your face and see how your emotions change.”

Why this is an important skill for everyone: Passion builds loyalty. Motivate your employees, and they’ll, in turn, be passionate about your product or service and company. As Sarah Robinson says in her book Fierce Loyalty, “in a social media world where most consumers check online reviews before buying, a fiercely loyal community is the strongest marketing strategy for any business.”

Are women better managers than men? Let us consider the following debate on the issue going on from a different background, gender and these are the exact comments from both with a little modification to keep to the topic:

Kwasi: Women are indeed better managers than men. They are polite and compassionate to everyone needs. The amount of pressure to remain polite at home as well as at work can only be handled by a woman -this quality cannot be possessed by the majority of men. Women value people whether at work or at home with a lot of patience. If women would be aggressive like men, the whole world will turn into a battlefield with nothing to gain – only loss.So to maintain the right balance there should be the right mix of managers from both sexes.



Gifty: Men are more organized. Men have pockets to keep all their things. That is why they don’t carry a purse. You also sometimes see them having a pen in their front pocket, just in case if they need to write something down. Compared to men, women must search through their entire purse to find things. This shows how men are better managers and even workers overall. Even when a common pen takes about three minutes to find and use then think about the rest of the things that needed to found and used in the office to order to take a decision and to move on with the processes and procedures in the company.

Elizabeth: Better are women in each aspect of life, who says women are not as good as men? They both have same aspects of life…both are equal, everywhere…None can tell a single area where women are not doing as well as men.Even nowadays females are better managers then men.They are much more “cool” and calm than men.They can handle so many tasks very smoothly.

Daniel: Women are better managers than men. They know how to manage time. Be it a housewife or a working lady they are never late. And of course, they have to manage so many relationships ~ a mother, a daughter, a sister and a wife. Then if talk about a working mother she has to get children to school then the husbands to work and after that, they have to get ready for their work. On the other hand, a house wife has to do preparations for lunch and dinner. Women carry a single purse whereas men have so many pockets to keep their things.

Juliet: Managers are known for their qualities of management, decision-making ability and involving everyone in their work. But females have ego problem. They can’t see anyone doing better than them in their work. According to science, more than 60% of the people who get depressed are women. You cannot afford to be depressed when handling the post of manager.

Baffour: Women are overbearing and argumentative and less likely to see themselves as a part of a team. The women have less willingness to take responsibility for mistakes.

Pemelia: Women are multitasking but not a good manager. It has been proved by doctors studying the brain of different genders that the male brain is composed of boxes. One box for every action at a particular place. For instance, if a man is party, his “party box” will come into function while other will be closed. But the female brain is like a wire gauze, Thoughts over lapped with one another. Thus this quality of the female brain makes women multitasking but not better managers. While the males, thinking on one task at a moment .“MAN” a noun that represents a husband, a son, a father and a brother all in one. We can also say that they are good at budget management. They always try to invest the money in right place so that the future of their kids would be secure and do same at work and management position.

What do you think? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this for next week – join the debate via my email, at the end of the day the power is yours.

Author: Daniel Adjei is a Management Consultant at Spint Consult Limited

dadjei@spintconsult.com

+233-302-915421