Women Make Better Leaders than Men - Essay Example

TOPIC: Women make better leaders than men. (NAME) (COURSE NAME) (INSTITUTIONS NAME) 30th APRIL 2009 Introduction The global society has been asking whether women have what it takes for them to lead nations, manage organizations and groups. This has lead to many researchers to conduct studies in different regions so as to find what the society says about the women leadership. Most of them concluded that women are transformational, are mentoring and use coaching styles that is effective in any organization. This paper takes a critical look at the reasons, arguments that proves that indeed women can make effective and better leaders either politically, economically, socially and even religiously (Schein, 2001). Recent research has indicated that women constitute to a better part of the political leadership and that they employ different leadership styles than men. As much as the women constitute to a small number of CEO’s in the world, their leadership skills are more effective than that employed by men. Women have been proved to use leadership styles that are more reliant on high EQ than on IQ used by men. Internationally it is believed that women fit well in running political matters in comparison to men. Women are believed to be honest bright and pertains a number of traits that proves good leadership in the society. In the society women have been rated as superior to men socially. The society has gradually appreciated importance of educating the girl child and hence women have moved fast on attaining education and being in forefront of attaining the best posts of jobs in organization and politics. Though women have been fast on heading political and corporate leadership, the society has for very long time promoted gender inequality, opposition to change and self serving which has resulted to slow empowerment of women to the top positions in the society (Juliana, 2007) The domestic responsibilities held by women in the society have reduced the chances for women to get opportunities and enough time to participate in business and politics. The society over time has not identified what women lack to prove they have what it takes for them to leaders. To the contrary, the leadership styles that women practice in comparison to men’s have been rated to hold better traits and to some point equal to men. For instance, 50 % of the public believes that women are more honest than men while 20 % believe that men are more honest. The remaining percentage believed there was no major distinct between the two in terms of honesty. Honesty being one of the leadership traits that are key to powerful and good leadership, women stand better chance of leadership. The other important trait in leadership is the aspect of leadership is intelligence. In current society women have been known to acquire and concentrate on acquiring education in stiffer way which is centrally to men. In this scenario, women outdo men. Research has proven that 38 % of the societies believe that women are smarter than men intellectually while 14 % hold that men are smarter. The remaining group believes that both sexes are equilibrium. On hard work and ambition leadership traits both women and men have been seen tie in their leadership styles. Men are perceived to override in being influential with the biggest number of society saying that men are influential in comparison to women. In conclusion, the society still believes that women have outdone done in public ranking of the leadership traits discussed. This means that women have been rated to be companionate, social and resourceful by the biggest number in the society (Juliana, 2007) Survey and research statistic have proven that women over men by 78 % to15 %, with two ties, on eight characters, each of which at least two thirds of the public says is very significant and totally necessary to management. It is important to note that the stipulated traits of gender leadership on this paper assesses that the traits are shared among both sexes, although the differences sides positively on females respondents than among male respondents (Linda, 2009) In the evaluation of performance of women and men in public offices, job performance and policy making challenges, women have been rated to stand a better position than men in dealing with social issues like education health social related field while men have performed well at public insight on dealing with crime, pubic wellbeing, justification and national protection. Women stand out to be at job performance skills where they have proved to stick to their professional principles; maintained honesty governance and uncompromised in decision making hence they have vastly represented the needs of the public. Due to the global business environmental changes, women have been in demand in science related fields. The world of science needs people who have right brains in order to conquer the scientific global challenges. Women are termed to carry a right brain than men. The society should accept that the world requires individual with right skills and not the gender. A writer by the name Schofield says that in order to have good leaders, there should be a combination of both the right mind and left brained character in an individual. It has been proven that women are able to manage changes which are a major role in the world of science. Women have persistently been aspiratory in proving the can do what me can regardless of gender inequality (Linda, 2009) The society has not rewarded the female gender equally as men are. Most women are involved in administrative posts in many organizations where they have for along time been undervalued. Most of the organizations perceive women as workhorses and demand full for any criteria of job but they do not persist on acquiring the top positions in corporate sector and politically. The society has continually misunderstood women of not being competent as men. research proves that when both sexes are placed in the post in an organization, the performance of women have been rated by junior staff that women are more effective that men or they perform equally the same. The society should appreciate that women have long excelled in team building and earned high score in these study. Women act as inspirational mentors who encourage their staff to develop and learn leadership abilities which target achieving the goals of the organization. With such kind of leadership styles the organization acquires creative ideas that lead to structural change. Women therefore have a higher EQ that facilitates the transformation of this leadership style. For example Christina Fernandez de Kirchner was the first female president in Argentina. In addition, 11 and more other women are serving in the positions of presidents, prime ministers in the world. For example, in Liberia, the current president is a woman (Ruder and Ohlott, 2005). This implies that many women are making gains in the political leadership allover the world. In fact even Muslim nations have now recognized the value of women in terms of their leadership contribution in the society. For instance, in Kuwait women have a right to vote and even run for the post of the president for the first time in 2005. They are using the affirmative action in order to ensure that they participate fully in leadership roles in all spheres that is, the social, political economical and religious states. There are various countries in the world that have recognized the leadership of women as important. For example, most of the North American countries, Western Europe and Latin America equally value and rate men and women in terms of their leadership capabilities. For example, 75% of people in the United States of America say that men and women are equally good in leadership. That can be proved during the recent presidential campaign in the United States America when during the primary field reports indicated that Hillary Clinton was leading the Democrats in the campaigns. Although she lost eventually to Barrack Obama, she is the Secretary of state for the people of the United States of America, a post that was previously run by Condoleezza Rice, also a woman during the last Bush regime. !5% of Brazilians think that women make better leaders than men especially politically. The World Economic Forum political empowerment index has been researching on the role that women play in political leadership (Nicholas, 2008) As much as there are fewer women in the leadership scale, they have been limited due to their art of balancing with family responsibility. Therefore they tend to be satisfied at the lower levels of management. They allow flexibility in their roles in the society. The meta-analyzing showed that women use leadership styles than men which the end results shows that they produce better results, performance and are effective in today’s world. They encourage innovation leading to a successful organization or country. Women managers tend to reward they staff for good performance and give praise more the male counterpart’s managers in many companies. With such kind of a leader, the employees develop loyalty and confidence that eventually motivate them to increase productivity. Rob May’s research concludes that “And the glass ceiling itself may produce more highly skilled female leaders. Research shows that higher standards are often imposed on women to attain leadership roles and to retain them. Because transformational leadership constitutes skillful leadership, women may be more skillful leaders than men because they have to meet a higher standard.” (Rob, 2003) In the meta-analysis project of transformational, transactional and Leissez Fairer Leadership styles, revealed that men and women have equivalent roles in leadership. The difference between the men and women leadership styles is observed in their managerial behavior since all managers have to carry out basic tasks that are needed for their roles. The aspect of transformational leadership is linked to positive outcomes. On the other hand, men used transactional aspects such as the use and implementation of punishment and the Leissez Fairer which does not develop effectiveness in the organizations. Women use transformational leadership style especially in teaching since they are excellent than the traditional boss who was a man. They socialization nature gives them more ability to lead by teaching. This aspect nurtures the employee’s abilities and inspires them to produce effective results in any organization (Nicholas, 2008) Conclusion In conclusion women have proven their readiness to lead companies, society and politics into the future, though they are not yet to be appreciated until the society is prepared to impede living in the ancient times. The glass ceiling is said to have produced female leaders who are highly skilled. Leadership roles require high standards that women posses in order to become skillful leaders. It is evident that as much as the roles of leadership is equally same to both the male and females, female leadership style is proven to be more effective than that of men. Women leaders encourage mentoring, innovation and inspirations in addition to the use of reward schemes to the employees. This leadership style that is transformational encourages employees to be loyal hence this effect has a positive effect to the organization’s output in terms of productivity. Male leaders tend to be authoritative, take full control and use bureaucratic forms of leadership style that does not encourage innovations leading to less productivity in the organization. Reference Juliana M. (2007) “How the World Rates Women as Leaders”, (New York, Sage Publishers) Linda L. (2009) “Qualities of Women Leaders” (New York, New York Times) Nicholas D. (2008) “When Women Rule” (New York, New York Times) Rob M. (2003) “Do Women make Better Leaders?” (New York, McGraw Hill Publishers) Vecchio, RP. (2003). Leadership and gender advantage from leadership quarterly Vol 14 No. 6835-850 Schein VE (2001). "A Global Look at Psychological Barriers to Women's Progress in Management," Journal of Social Issues, 57: 675-688. Ruder, R. and Ohlott PJ (2005). "Leading Roles: What Coaches of Women Need to Know," Leadership in Action, 25(3): 34 Read More