The Effects of Gender on Leadership Style

In 2010, my colleagues at the Barrett Values Centre drew data from 100 Barrett Values Centre Leadership Values Assessments, a 360-degree leadership development tool, to examine the perceived differences among leaders based on their personal entropy (degree of dysfunction).  They recently revisited that data to compare the overall results by gender.   They looked at the top values, strengths and areas for  improvement that were chosen most frequently by leaders’ assessors.  Note that strengths and areas for improvement are submitted as free responses.  They found that there are significant differences among male and female leaders that follow gender stereotypes.

The study concludes that despite the progress made over the years to chip away at the glass ceiling, stagnant growth in numbers was found in women corporate officer and top earner positions in the Fortune 500. They surmise that women who do find themselves in leadership roles tend to be unjustly measured in their abilities due to the continued presence of gender differences.  “Current models of leadership and leadership development cannot be applied to males and females in the same way. The research in organizational settings should focus on understanding the ways of ‘becoming’ and ‘being’ for males and females in order to identify strategies for each gender in terms of understanding what it means to be a successful manager from each perspective.”

There is growing acknowledgement that the more relationship-centered approach commonly displayed by women may be a more effective way to manage others.  Additionally, researchers believe that embracing gender differences among leaders may be the path to success for many organisations.  “Companies that are able to harness the strengths of both sexes may be said to be gender ‘bilingual’ rather than gender neutral. Organizations with gender diversity at the top are more successful than others and will find their way out of the current economic crisis into sustainable profitability.”

Their investigation of leadership behaviours based on gender concludes that, while there are similarities among male and female leaders, the differences demonstrated are significant and appear to be tied to biology and the socialization males and females receive during upbringing.  As a result, it seems paramount to support leaders of both genders in ways that legitimately take into account both their similarities and their differences. For the complete paper, visit: http://www.valuescentre.com/uploads/2011-08-30/Understanding%20the%20Battle%20of%20the%20Sexes.pdf

Employee engagement through leadership development

Our global leadership crisis has me thinking about the need to develop the leader inside each and every one of us. Leadership development is often reserved for our "best and brightest", the people that have been identified as "high-potential" performers. This practice and philosophy has surely contributed to the widespread state of inept governance and corporate corruption we see in headlines across the globe. If we can no longer count on our best and brightest to lead, perhaps it's time to to consider a new approach.

The unprecedented, exponential pace of global change demands a new vision of everyone as leader. A Japanese proverb advises: "None of us is as smart as all of us." and there is not a single person I can think of who I would not benefit from leadership development- particularly in the crucial skills of "leading self". This approach also has the added benefit of increasing employee engagement. Investing in the development of people has a multiplier effect on desired performance.

It is important to note that the cost of providing development opportunities has dropped dramatically. Thanks to technology, the cost of high-quality self-development programs are now within the reach of any organization. Take for example the leadership learning system recently created by Richard Barrett. The New Leadership Paradigm training program is a state-of-the-art leadership development learning system based on evolutionary principles.  The system is flexible, customizable, and comprehensive. It provides for both emergent and structured learning in a self-managed or facilitated learning environment. The training program is comprised of four learning modules: 1. Leading self 2. Leading a team 3. Leading an organisation 4. Leading in society

The New Leadership Paradigm web site and learning materials are updated on a regular basis based on feedback and suggestions from users and facilitators of the learning system. It is a collective, collaborative, and evolutionary learning venture that can deliver cost-effective leadership training to everyone in your organization. 

While it makes sense to limit participation in module 3 and 4 to your high-potentials and high-performers, it makes equal sense to offer modules 1 and 2 to everyone in your organization. Everyone can benefit from more focus and development in the areas of personal mastery and teamwork. 

This time of great change calls for each of us to step up to greater personal mastery and a greater appreciation of  what we can accomplish as leaders and members of teams. After all, none of us is as smart as all of us.

The leaders daily practice

It's no secret that the best leaders are a self-disciplined bunch. As Richard Barrett points out in "The New Leadership Paradigm", leading self or self-mastery is the first skill of all leaders. And the very best leaders make self-development and self-mastery a life-long learning project. Patricia Aburdene, author of "MegaTrends 2010" agrees, stating: "The cornerstone of effective leadership is self-mastery... And the surest route to self-mastery is spiritual practice. Time spent in peaceful reflection or mindful meditation clarifies thought, sharpens intuition and curbs unhealthy instincts. Spirituality, it turns out, is a lot more practical than most of us ever thought."

I have two practices that I try to make time for everyday, and also recommend to all of my executive coaching clients. The first is daily meditation, the second is a daily check-in with what I affectionately refer to as my inner wisdom advisory council.
Meditation is a wonderful stress reliever for the busy executive. It can also be very convenient, since you can do it anytime you find yourself with 10 minutes or more of down-time. While I have great admiration for people who find the time for robust practices such as yoga or tai-chi, I prefer a decidedly westernized version of meditation. Research into the neuroscience of leadership has led to new technology that combines breakthoughs in positive psychology and brain entrainment that allows anyone to achieve the benefits of deep meditation in as little as 30 minutes a day. My i-phone holds a complete set of short programs from 10 to 40 minutes in length that consistently gets me into state of deep relaxation and focus. It is a great way to fit my self-mastery exercises in while flying on a plane, riding the subway or cab, or waiting for an appointment. If I don't have sufficient wait-time on any given day, I listen either upon waking or right before going to sleep. Since 30 minutes of deep meditation in a theta or gamma wave brain state is equivalent to several hours sleep, I have more energy and stamina even on my busiest days.

The other thing I do everyday is check in with my inner wisdom advisory council. Using a process I teach to all of my coaching clients, I have a dialog with my parts and trusted source. First invented by the great psychologist Carl Jung, active imagination dialog is the best and easiest way I have found to exercise my intuition and develop my inner wisdom. Harnessing the wisdom of our inner voices is crucial to developing the ease with uncertainty that is a hallmark of the great leaders. This is especially true of entrepreneurs who work very hard at developing their gut instincts to help with decision making. Developing intuition easier than you might think. Again, Richard Barrett has a useful model that outlines how the most evolved leaders make decisions from values, intuition and inspiration. If you want to read more about this powerful and simple practice, check out the book "True Purpose" by Tim Kelley.

Whatever daily practices you choose, choose them wisely. It just might be the difference that takes you from a being a good leader to a great leader!

Agile Leaders Do Not Resort to False Strength

The world desperately needs a new type of leadership. The time of heroic trailblazing based on sheer strength of will and personal achievement is long past. Yet much of our American success story remains stuck in the "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" thinking. Guy Finley wrote about this recently as a distinction between  leaders with real strength as opposed to false strength: 
"Most people want very much to be strong, but they do not seem to be able to find the real strength they yearn for. Instead, they find qualities that pass themselves off as strength, but secretly leave them feeling weak. Here are some examples of false strength:
- lashing out in anger when frustrated
- demanding that we are right
- blaming someone else for causing the problem
- being loud and intimidating, or cold and critical
- feeling confident because of any contrived appearance

By contrast, here are some examples of real strength:
- remaining calm in a crisis
- never feeling the need to prove ourselves to anyone
- seeking to solve the problem rather than placing blame
- enjoying self-command regardless of uncertain circumstances
- seeing all setbacks as necessary steps to higher success"

In this fast-paced, ever changing, globally connected world, we desperately need agile leaders with real strength. For a reading list of books to help develop your agile leadership strength, visit: http://bit.ly/9sBGnD

Shifting Collective Consciousness

Transforming organizational culture begins with transformational leadership, which was briefly defined in our last blog post. What we are talking about here is a shift in individual consciousness from a primary concern about the self to a broader concern for the common good. As leaders in an organization shift their consciousness, the culture of the organization shifts with them. We know the effects of individual transformation can be dramatic within a relatively small eco-system like organizational culture. But do individual shifts in consciousness affect the larger community, or even the global community?

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is a pioneer in leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness - including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor. These folks are definitely on the leading edge, and their research findings challenge many of our traditional beliefs. They recently released a short animated video, starring Dr. Dean Radin, a world-renowned researcher of psychic (or "psi") phenomena, as Jedi Master Oh Be One Kenobi, as he takes viewers on an amusing foray into quantum entanglement and planetary fields of collective consciousness. Click here to learn more about research findings into how our collective consciousness shifts with world events.

They are also running a special Trial Month of the Shift in Action program for a $1 donation to the Institute of Noetic Sciences. May the Force be with you in 2009!

An Integrative Definition of Leadership

Leadership has many definitions. At Leadership Beyond Limits, we subscribe to the efficacy of transformational leadership as presented by Bass and Avolio (1994). This leadership definition implies that leaders lead followers to levels of higher morals. In addition, transformational leadership implies that the followers are better off with the four I's of:

1. Idealized influence - does the right thing for the right reason
2. Individualized consideration - treats each person as an individual and with care and compassion
3. Intellectual stimulation - offers employees stretch goals and encourages creativity and innovation
4. Inspirational motivation - lives from his/her values and inspires employees to build on the vision

I recently came across an excellent scholarly article that painstakingly researched the various definitions of leadership. The authors identified 92 discrete dimensions of leadership, along with a 93rd miscellaneous list of 20 more leadership characteristics. The authors believe that researchers, scholars, consultants, and leaders have helped create confusion around the definition of leadership in that we have examined the parts of leadership but not the whole. They draw on the story of the blind men describing the elephant and the different accurate descriptions that each blind man gave, yet each was insufficient to understand the whole.

The article is definitely worthwhile if you haven't yet read it, you can find it here:
http://www.regentuniversity.org/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.pdf

If you find that interesting, you will likely also appreciate their longer working paper, which includes the above analysis, along with a more in-depth discussion of servant leadership:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/working/integrativedefinition.pdf

I admire the authors effort at creating an integrative definition of leadership, and appreciate their metaphor that reminds us that leadership is a large, complex animal.

Can Your Innovators Breathe?

Nurturing the innovators within an organization is key to growth. An article in the December 2008, Harvard Business Review, Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators, by Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak explores corporate America's inability to identify and utilize people in the workplace with these vital skills. The authors sum up the problem, "Most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark." They have studied 25 organizations over the last five years and have found that,"Companies usually develop leaders who are replicate rather that innovative."

Most large organizations utilize competency based leadership development systems. These systems create cultural understanding of what it means to be a leader within that organization and they provide a structure for appraisal and development systems. They offer consistency to the appraisal process and conformity to the development process. Is this what organizations need?

While there are benefits to competency systems, brilliant innovators rarely fit the mold and are stifled by the system. According to Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak, only 5-10% of the high potential leaders within an organization have the skills and abilities to become innovators. These people rarely surface within organizations because they have unique skill sets.

Focusing on employee strengths is a solution to the innovation crush. Organizations with a strengths focus support the identification and nurturing of each employee's strengths. Leaders in these organizations work with employees to determine how to invest in and capitalize on their unique strengths. Employees who are natural innovators are given opportunities to put their strength to work.

Investing in employees' strengths is a generative solution; employees flourish and both the employees and the organization reap the rewards.

What Does It Take To Lead Generation Y?

Enter any organization and you will hear a leader from the Baby Boomer Generation expressing frustration over a co-worker from Generation Y.

When you think about it, this issue is probably less of a values gap then it is a leadership gap. Generation Y was parented by Baby Boomers. It is apparent that a different type of leadership than is currently practiced by many Baby Boomers is required to tap into the brilliance of Generation Y.

Let's look at what Generation Y wants. According to studies conducted by Rainmaker Thinking, Generation Y wants:

*Leaders who are honest, transparent and authentic;
*Leaders who use story-telling as a means of communicating;
*Leaders who inspire them and who recognize that different things inspire different people;
*Leaders who stimulate their thinking and allow them to make a contribution;
*Leaders who appreciate their civic mindedness and provide opportunities for them to give.

These desires are the characteristics of transformational leadership - the leadership of the future. It is the leadership of the future because it is the style of leadership that will truly tap into the brilliance of every generation and lead organizations to success. Take a look at our "What Engaging Leaders Do" blog posting for a list of transformational leadership characteristics.

This style of leadership can be learned through development and coaching programs. For some it will come naturally and for others it will be a longer journey. It requires a deep self-awareness, a sense of purpose, big-picture thinking and a willingness to give up control. These things can't be faked or rushed, therefore the time to support leaders in their own transformation is now.

Leadership Beyond Limits offers a variety of leadership development and coaching programs to build transformational leaders.