Female leadership: the real difference in leading

In the future, there will be no more female leaders. Only leaders.”Boss LadyGirl Boss or Female Leader

„Girl Boss, Female Leader or business woman – these labels appear again and again, not least on social media.”

Please don't get us wrong: at this point grandega doesn't want to tie into such hotly debated topics as the women's quota or feminism. Such debates have been going on for decades and already take up the emotions of all genders enough.

No, what we're really interested in is the exciting question: do women actually lead differently than men?

We ask this question not because, on today's International Women's Day, we want to further divide the camps. Quite the opposite – behind it is the wish to draw a neutral picture of the mood and create more balance.

Because the real point is: does leadership even need a gender?

Or isn't it slowly time to shed antiquated role models and concentrate on what really counts? (Spoiler: it has nothing to do with X and Y chromosomes.)

Female leadership – what's different about women in leadership positions?

The very existence of terms like female leadership shows very clearly where we stand as a society. Instead of talking generally and inclusively about possible leadership qualities and methods for everyone, we distinguish two concepts.

Leadership as the supposedly male domain, and female leadership, to which tendentially female traits are assigned.

The first question that naturally arises is why such a distinction by gender even still exists. After all, the times when women had to ask their husbands for permission if they wanted to work are long gone.

Today we live in a modern world where both genders can take the same educational paths, go to work and have careers.

Equal opportunities for all, right? Well, the statistics show something different.

In 2020, women held 28% of nationwide leadership positions. The EU average was 34%, while countries like Sweden or Poland reached over 40% women in the executive suites.

In 2021, the proportion of women on the boards of the 100 or 200 largest companies in Germany was just 16.4%.

It should be noted that the statistical ratio of both genders is relatively balanced. In 2020, of the inhabitants aged 30 to 40, 48.8% were women and 51.2% men.

That shows: the underrepresentation of women in the leadership of companies is still a very current and real fact.

And that, even though the Equal Rights Act was passed over 60 years ago.

Why the distinction between men and women in leadership positions

But why is it that women in leadership positions apparently don't have the same conditions as men?

The answers to this question have long filled books, lecture halls and TV formats. It's quite simply an imbalance between the genders. A distinction of attributes, abilities and social roles grown over so long historically that it can't simply be reversed in half a century.

That men and women can be fundamentally very different, we've known not just since Mario Barth filled stadiums on this topic. On top of that, however, come structural conditions that don't allow equal opportunities in the professional possibilities of both genders:

• Women are out of work longer when they want children and often put career plans on hold for it.
• Women carry a double burden when they want to combine family and career. Women aren't strongly enough represented in politics and decision-making bodies to bring about the necessary structural changes.
• Women lack role models, mentors and suitable networks to support and motivate them.
• Women often choose industries where the proportion of women is already high and/or where there are low chances of advancement.

It's true that politics and society have been actively contributing for years to softening these factors further. For example, through a legally defined women's quota and a simplified tax model that makes the career path easier for women.

Companies themselves can also contribute, with measures like more flexible working models, home-office rules and non-hierarchical career models, to more women being able to combine work and family as well as rise into leadership positions.

The probably biggest step, however, still lies ahead of us all as a society: we need a new mindset. A worldview in which women in leading positions are perceived as just as natural and competent as men. Unfortunately, we're still far from that.

Pigeonhole thinking still plays a big role

There's yet another factor why we, as a society, distinguish between male and female leadership. One that plays a decisive role in this discussion and is yet readily dismissed nonchalantly in public debates:

stereotypes about the traits, abilities and qualities of men and women.

Men have always been the strong gender here. Determined, self-confident decision-makers with tunnel vision.

Women, by contrast, are ascribed attributes like empathy, emotional intelligence and level-headedness. Traits that, in times when men were considered the sole breadwinners of the family, were readily smiled at as weak.

But even if the last defenders of the dominant male society still don't want to admit it, the zeitgeist today is a different one. The moment has come to really critically question antiquated stereotypes and create a system that truly includes everyone.

Does leadership need a gender?

Have you heard this one?

„If women ruled the world, there'd be no wars. Just a few jealous countries that don't talk to each other.”

This joke is a vivid example of the role that's still readily ascribed to women in leadership positions today. Yet it couldn't be further from reality.

Nevertheless, it underlines the showdown of the two approaches that's regularly fought out in everyday business: male leadership vs. female leadership.

Male leadership stands for the classic understanding of leadership. It's traditionally associated with qualities like integrity, communication skills, decisiveness and assertiveness. All abilities stereotypically attributed to men.

“Male leadership is traditionally associated with qualities like integrity, communication skills, decisiveness and assertiveness.“

Female leadership concepts, by contrast, emphasize the fact that women can have these traits just as much. Moreover, deploying „typically female” potentials like prudence and empathy can be of great advantage in the executive suites. 
 

If you believe various studies, women in leading positions have not only similar, but sometimes even better leadership skills than their male colleagues.

This is due, among other things, to the fact that female decision-makers place the focus of their work more on employee orientation and consequently value qualities like empathy, team bonding and care.

That women are per se worse leaders is a binary rumor that has held on in our society for far too long. If you summarize the results of common studies, only relatively small differences can be found between the male and female leadership style.

So leadership doesn't need a gender. It needs social and professional competencies that can be acquired equally by women and men. Just as it takes a suitable leadership style. That too isn't oriented to gender, but to factors like the individual situation of the company, its structures, workflows and people.

The real difference of successful leadership thus doesn't lie in whether the leading position is filled by a man or a woman. For employees and partners, it's ultimately all the same anyway whether they'd rather send a bad leader to Mars or Venus. What should count is performance.