Men and Women: Can We Talk About Differences?
What Happens To Women When Companies Use The Male Business Model?
My mission is to do whatever I can to help close the gap between men and women in the workplace. I look forward to the day when we can look at occupations, salaries, and rates of promotion and see the same numbers for women as we see for men. In future postings, I’ll cover each of these topics and give you the latest numbers. Today, these numbers are nowhere near equal.
When I graduated from Berkeley, I adamantly declared that there were no differences between men and women. Different meant to me that women were less capable than men. Different meant women would not be welcomed in the scientific world that I was aiming for. But that was ages ago and I’ve seen the folly of maintaining this stance.
No one gender has a monopoly on traits. That said, let’s talk about general differences between men and women that we see in the workplace. Women—most women—are comfortable with certain behaviors. I like to think these are good traits—and those attributed to men are also good traits.
The traits or talents most often attributed to women are: relationship building, collaboration, win/win negotiation, holistic thinking, use of intuition, adaptation to change, empathy, information sharing, ease in working outside a hierarchy, emotional sensitivity, use of power as influence rather than rank, ability to read subliminal clues, concern with process, multi-thinking and multitasking, ability to improvise, comfort with ambiguity, long-term planning, and linking rather than ranking workers.
Unfortunately, most companies are set up along the male business model. Women are trying so hard to act according to that model. This limits how effective they can be. Can you imagine asking men to act more like women? That’d go over real well!
Tip: Let’s do something to help women. When others are trying to make everyone conform to a command-and-control style of leadership, talk about the advantages of allowing work outside of a hierarchy. When turf wars erupt, discuss the benefits of information-sharing. When it’s mentioned that emotions don’t belong in business, speak up that sales and employee loyalty are secured through emotions.
Further Reading:
The Differences Between Men and Women
Nancy Clark interviews Martha Barletta
America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers
by Judy B. Rosener
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