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Why Women In Leadership Is Great For Business

battle-tested By now it should be obvious that women make great leaders. It should go without saying but there is still a real absence of female leadership in many businesses. That is a real disappointment after the long struggle that women have had to get into leadership roles. Women have always struggled to be taken seriously and be seen as leaders. Historically, people have thought of men as natural leaders and women as followers. Not only have women had to overcome that external bias as they worked to break the glass ceiling but they have also had to struggle with their own doubt about their ability to lead. It is time to look at why women make great leaders.

To begin with, there are recent studies showing that companies benefit from having women in top positions. It is becoming increasingly clear that having diversity throughout a company has an appreciable and positive effect on the bottom line. Why is that? In this article we will take a look at seven reasons why female leadership is good for business.

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  1. Networking is Critical.
In today’s business climate networking is more important than ever. With the advent of the digital age and an increasingly global economy it is clear that leaders need to be able to effortlessly network in order for their businesses to succeed. Networking is a skill that women excel at. The old-fashioned and rather sexist image is that of the coffee klatch; a gaggle of women sitting around gossiping. That may be an outdated image but it is true that women are great talkers. While those networking skills have historically been relegated to the PTA they have certainly proved transferable to business networking.
  1. Creative Thinking is Critical.
We live in competitive global marketplace. There is an absolute necessity for businesses to think outside the box. That is where there is a real need for women and for a diverse workplace in general. Women bring different viewpoints on a variety of issues to the table. Those different viewpoints are valuable. Businesses don’t need a uniform mindset informed only by men. They need the creative solutions that come from diverse minds.
  1. Female Leadership Helps Retention.
Retention is important to a healthy company. It takes money to hire and train new workers. There is also a cost to losing capable employees who know your business inside and out and replacing them with new and inexperienced employees. Women have the strong social tendency to be nurturers. That means that they are good at retaining valuable employees. It also means that they are good at cultivating talent and bringing out the best in their employees.
  1. Leadership Requires Flexibility.
The business world has never been a particularly laid back place. It has always been hectic and required leaders who could keep up a fast pace. The pace has only become more hectic today. Technology keeps us in constant contact. It shrinks the globe and overcomes the distance. That means that good leaders need to multi-task. Take a moment and think of what group of people would win a gold medal in multi-tasking. That’s right; mothers. There are probably no people who are better at multi-tasking than mothers; unless you count working mothers!
  1. Good Ideas Make Money.
Businesses exist to make money. The make money for their owners and stockholders and they pay a salary to the people who work for them. The bottom line here is that good ideas make money. Creative ideas for new products and services and advertising drive generate profit. Women have good ideas and come up with innovative solutions. Why would any business want to take a chance on missing out on the next big thing because they are not employing the woman who comes up with it?
  1. Communication is Key.
Good business leaders have great communication skills. Those skills help them motivate their team. Those skills help them persuade customers and close sales. Women have historically relied on their communication skills. They tend to be more verbally expressive than men are. Those skills translate to better communication in the boardroom.
  1. Woman Are Half the Population.
This should be so obvious but somehow it has been overlooked. Women represent roughly half of the population. That means that they are half of the available talent pool for companies to hire. It also means that they are half of the consumers who use goods and services. Why wouldn’t companies want to take advantage of that? With all the progress that women have made toward equality there is no denying what they have to offer companies.[/message][su_spacer]

In conclusion, women’s inclination toward a holistic, self-reflective approach could explain women are great leaders because they are able to balance professional and personal leadership skills. This enables them to have a strong understanding of what drives and motivates people, and how to acknowledge different people for their performance.

Andreas Jones
Andreas Joneshttps://battletestedleadership.com/
ANDREAS is the Founder of Combat Business Coaching, #1 Bestselling author of Business Leader Combat, marketing strategist, business growth expert, advisor, consultant and army combat veteran. Andreas works with small and medium-sized businesses and help them build meaningful businesses so that they can have more profit, fans and freedom. Service in the US Army forged Andreas’s character. It tested him, tested his endurance, faith, and internal fortitude. He describes it as “a trial by fire” and remains profoundly grateful for it. When he finally left the Army he did so with an astute understanding of self-ownership, implementing a vision, and the value in establishing trust and reputation. Jones applied all that he had learned serving his country to a series of jobs, including that of a VP at Sun Trust Bank. Each of his positions have endowed him with the type of knowledge required to start his own business and to provide a workable schematic for others to follow. Andreas has taken his hard-won Army lessons into the world of business, continuing to learn new skills and insight. Each fresh challenge, project or position has helped him grow into the individual he is today.

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5 CONVERSATIONS

  1. would tend to agree with ken – in fact your list could equally apply to men – but I do take issue with a couple of your points ….

    1] “That may be an outdated image but it is true that women are great talkers.” strike me as a very male viewpoint – primarily driven by that fact that outside of the work place we tend not to be – oh – and I woud say

    “it is true that women are great listeners.” – and that IS very different to men.

    2] “There are probably no people who are better at multi-tasking than mothers; unless you count working mothers!”

    … aren’t mothers who stay at home ‘working mothers’ ?

  2. I have a serious aversion to blanket generalities like “women make great leaders”. That is no more accurate than saying men make great leaders. The right person with the right experience, education, talents, discipline, and tenacity MAY make a great leader….having nothing to do with gender.

    Does a business benefit by having more women in leadership roles? Not unless they are the right women in the right slots with the right help from above and below. Have females had a fair and even shake at to the C suites? Of coursed not, and as noted that is partly their own doing because of self doubt, and I would add often because of poor choices made by them.

    • Ken I appreciate your sentiments. I agree that you should pick the person for the job gender aside.

  3. Andreas, insightful article, thanks. In the 1980s as I was planning my future in management I came to a startling conclusion; men need to manage more like women than other men. 80% of managers don’t know how to measure talent therefore the war for talent will be lost by the 80% but won by the other 20% and I suspect the percentage of women in the 20% is higher than that of men. Male managers tend to talk far more than they listen while women listen more then men.

    In the article “Transforming the Engineer into a Manager: Avoiding the Peter Principle,” Civil Engineering Practice, Fall 1989, the author, Dr. Neil Thornberry a Professor at Babson College, asserts that young engineers are judged on technical merit and accomplishment, and that promotions go to the technically proficient and verbally expressive engineers, while less technically proficient and less verbally expressive engineers wait their turn.

    The Peter Principle is “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

    Dr. Thornberry found that for a group of engineers the MOST talkative, competent engineer gets the first promotion into management. The second MOST talkative, competent engineer gets the second promotion into management. However, the third MOST talkative, competent engineer makes the BEST manager. The BEST managers TALK LESS and LISTEN MORE.

    Now let us presume that a growing company keeps promoting their most talkative competent engineers into management. What do we have? The best technical experts no longer doing the work and the best managers not in management and if they are in management they report to someone who is less capable of managing effectively–they talk too much and listen too little. No wonder so few CEOs have a positive culture and that men dominate management. Men mistake talking for doing.

    • Thanks for adding to conversation Bob. I agree that mangers should talk less and listen more and the who do just are very good and their team loves them for it.

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