Highlights of "Toward a Partnership of Women and Men" - Building Gender Balanced Business

George Starcher, founder of the European Bahá‘í Business Forum, wrote “Toward a Partnership of Women and Men: Source of Excellence in a Global Economy” in an effort to highlight how businesses need to move past what he calls the “dominator” model to a “partnership” model.

• “Often, corporate cultures further reinforce the handicaps many women feel in striving for equal opportunities for development and advancement [such as the ways of corporate socialisation, the internal language and vocabulary speak and act with, the working hours, the ways that managers get value recognition, the corporate role models to emulate.”

• The concept of partnerships are “about shared agendas as well as combined resources, risks and rewards. They are voluntary collaborations that build on the respective strengths and core competences of each partner…”

• “[F]eminine values inspire the leadership practices of both women and men throughout the corporate world.”

• “If women business leaders act consistently with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft. If they go against gender stereotypes, they are considered too tough.”

• But “best practices”, as means of alleviating these negatives, not only can arrest these negative trends but help a company benefit more fully from partnership approaches to management.

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