Developing Female Managers Who Are Less Like Men - Building Gender Balanced Business

• In a study of 65,000 people worldwide, including senior executives, Hudson, the talent management consultancy, found that — surprise — “women in general pay more attention to people-related issues and quality performance, while men seem to attach more importance to an effective control of emotions and an extraverted attitude towards their environment.”

• As leadership, effectiveness and other skills that are less hierarchic become more critical to companies in the increasingly globalized era, companies will increasingly need top executives with stronger “female” tendencies.

• But Hudson found that the women who have already reached C-level jobs tend to have leadership styles far more “male” than the general female population.

• Like C-level men, C-level women score very high on extraversion, decisiveness, strategic thinking, results-focus and autonomy.

• However, younger women who are rising to the top demonstrate less of a mimicking nature.

• But that difference could well make it hard for them to advance, given the “male” nature of their predecessors, male and female. In particular, the predominance of “male” personalities on boards will limit more “female” executives as they reach the highest ranks in business.

• Can existing C-level women better tap into their “female” sides, and can the rising women retain their skills? That is what companies need to work on, Hudson warns.

To request the 25-page study, ‘Could the Right Man for the Job Be a Woman?’