By Elaine Allison

Despite having numerous leadership roles, including a four year stint as one of Canada’s first female prison guards in an all male maximum security prison at the age of 19, (back in the early “affirmative action” days),  I’ve finally come to the realize as a female leader – my methods and approaches are vastly different than my male counterparts. It also hit me as I was securing my shoulder pads, I no longer needed to behave like a man, even though every book I’d read on leadership had been written by one, and encouraged me to use tactics that work for them. I had been following their advice and doing this without even recognizing it for years.  I then threw the pads out and also put on my matching skirt and went on a journey to find out what would work for me.

According to a 2004 report at www.catalystwomen.org 50.3% of all managerial positions in the United States are now women (in middle management), yet there seems to be a huge lack of mentors for women wanting to progress to the top.  One of the challenges – is most books and training programs on leadership have been written by men and often the tactics don’t work for women.  We can be come out like “hammers” only to alienate the very team we need to get things done.  If we resort to becoming too “velvety” nothing may get done. Where is the in between?

The differences in how men and women behave as a leader, is quite profound, and for very scientific reasons.

The Brain

By using PET and MRI scans they found that men and women when conducting certain tasks used different parts of the brain.  Scans showed that men typically lit up one hemisphere of the brain, whereas women lit up both sides.  The dendrites (tube like transmitters) leading to both sides of the brain are also larger in women. This could explain why some male leaders have the ability and a tendency to remain focused with a strong vision or path to get results, (often a heralded leadership skill).

On the other hand, women have the great ability to multi-task very efficiently. However women may be perceived as scattered as they pay attention to the details and move quickly to get the variety of tasks to be done. In the past, women have been deemed to be good at all the “little stuff.” It is perhaps one of the reasons we’ve excelled at administration jobs, and if you add up all that stuff, it amounts to a lot being done.  Could this explain why women business owners are outpacing their male counterparts in business start ups?

Hormones

Another large difference is hormones.  As we know men produce more testosterone.  In historic times this hormone provided men the necessary assertiveness skills to compete, negotiate and often the drive to win (think promotions). Women on the other hand primarily produce estrogen, the necessary hormone that provided them with the need to nurture and raise the children. These hormones have provided different abilities to both leaders.  On one hand, men were able to remain focused on the bottom line without often the strong amount of guilt women feel towards their team, especially in downsizing or other non-inclusive situations.  Women also tend to feel more emotional and at a higher volatility level than men.

Hormones, Stress and Leadership

When under stress men produce adrenaline which offers the fight or flight reaction.  Recently we discovered that women produce higher levels of oxytocin than adrenaline when under stress.  Oxytocin is what a women’s body is flooded with when giving birth or breast feeding. This may be the reason when women feel stressed they have a tendency to want to talk it through (bond and nurture), whereas; men will often want to either solve it, or leave it alone. 

Can you see how this might be played out in a boardroom?  A crisis will hit and women may want to “call a meeting”.  Women will frequently take the time to be collaborative, inclusive and ensure the thoughts and feelings of others have been taken into consideration before moving forward (sometimes this can cause longer delays for decisions) and can work for or against them depending on the situation.  The male in the boardroom may be quietly fuming “Make a decision” as this is often not their preferred approach to the crisis.  Could these behaviors really be hormones? If a woman doesn’t include her team – other woman could feel excluded and be left thinking that their opinion doesn’t matter.  Women want to collaborate.

Cultural Expectations

Most leaders are judged on their results and “approach”.  Evolution has set up some cultural expectations. If a male leader attempts to be too much of a nurturer, he can often quickly be put back into place.  If a woman becomes too aggressive when attempting to get results, she can be deemed a hammer or worse. If she alienates the very team she needs – things don’t get done.  One also has to ask, “Do we code female leadership behaviours as wrong” and often is it done in a blink of an eye?  Are we conditioned to automatically think that male leadership traits are the correct way, without even thinking about it?

We must find ways for both men and women to celebrate and understand the differences in approaches and methods in the way each other lead.   According to the Tyson Report, organizations with a small number of women on the board have proven to show 34% return on equity to shareholders.  Could it be a holistic approach is being used here and the numbers tell the truth?  Putting qualified, experienced women in leadership roles just makes good sense.

My only hope is that women will capitalize on our unique leadership abilities that are often “hidden” talents as they have not been deemed true leadership qualities – yet! These talents are real “assets” that can be brought to the table for progress globally in any organization.  I hope that men and women will accept and honor these approaches, and understand that they are just different.  We know where evolution has taken us; I wonder where will we end up?  

 Elaine Allison is a successful business owner and winner of the “Visions of Excellence” Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002.  She is a corporate trainer, international speaker and author of The Velvet Hammer “PowHERful Leadership Lessons for Women Who Don’t’ Golf.  She has presented to hundreds of audiences on a variety of management practices and leadership skills for over 17 years.  Among a variety of both front line and executive positions, Elaine was one of Canada’s first female prison guards in an all male maximum security prison at the age of 19.  She learned early there were differences – her life depended on it. To order her book or get access to valuable checklists and evaluations for the women leader visit; www.thevelvethammer.com