Women in Leadership: Do men and women have the same innate ability and competencies to lead? Is leadership gender specific?

Why are there Queen Bees instead of King Bees?
By Erica Perry Briody

Would the world be the same without leaders? What if we were all equal?

We will never know since from the earliest pages of history someone always comes out on top, the cave man was the hunter and as for the cave woman, well she stays in the cave!
This article will explore whether men and women have the same innate ability and competencies to lead. Is leadership gender specific? If so, why is'nt there a king bee instead of a queen bee?Come to think of it…why does a hive need a queen bee anyway? Well bees, like humans need direction and without it would live in confusion and chaos. The worker bees need to know who does the fanning of the hive, that guards the hive from enemies etc…so, while the queen bee sits with her babies, the male worker bees sit around waiting to be told what to do. Sounds familiar? :-)
So would life be confusing and chaotic without a leader to direct? Most probably so!However, to become a leader, one must have followers, and to have followers, one must have gained the respect and trust to lead. Unfortunately, I could only come up with the queen bee…and the preying mantas that gobble up the males after having sex as examples of female insect leaders! Likewise in the animal kingdom, the male is usually the dominant species, not the female!… for example, the proud lion king warming himself in the sun while the lioness scouts for food for the family, and once the hunt has been completed and the fresh kill is waiting to be ravaged, she steps back and lets the male eat before she takes her fill. Is this respect, lack of innate leadership skills or pure survival?
Can women be leaders at home as well as at the workplace?BUT, why are there more male leaders than female leaders in the world? One could say it is nature vs nurture….. that the female has the family to breed and raise which takes them away from the world where leaders are developed and needed….but then who is the leader of the household? I can guarantee that if the man believes he is the king of his domain, the queen bee has been using some reverse psychology on him…..well at least in my grandmother’s case. Yet, with respect to the “business world” could we conclude that since society demands marriage and families, women are both the worker and producing bees? Until young men stop seeing the ideal male image as their “father”…..the one who brought home the bacon so the mother could fry it up in a pan and never ever let him forget he’s a man, women will remain the main caretaker of the family and household!
Personally, I do not believe gender dictates leadership, nevertheless… leaders, no matter what gender, are defined by having a vision with quantifiable objectives that answer the What, When, How and Why. The power of communication and charisma to clearly impart the roadmap to the worker bees so that everyone knows what their KPIs are and the benefits their work bring to the overall vision. So the question is can women be both the leader at home and in the workplace?
A woman with both Qs can no longer be held back!Well let’s analyze what the workplace expects of a leader…in the business world, the leader is measured by revenue and profit. If profit is the main driver for leaders, characteristics that assert cutting costs, efficiency and ability to fire someone to set an example may dictate the drivers. It is common place that the majority of these characteristics are seen today as male traits.Maybe it is because men come across as the stronger sex, more confident and dominating yet the way I see it, Leadership is not about telling people what to do; Rather, it is about people wanting to do what you suggest because they trust and respect your opinion and believe you will guide them in the right direction for the greater good!!!!In most companies today, work is all about discipline. Executives make life rational and predictable, with objectives, strategies, systems, procedures and most importantly rules. Information technology has greatly enabled this by streamlining and simplifying the workflow process. Unfortunately, that leaves little room for emotional intelligence in this equation. Companies are clearly dictated by a man’s point of view! Tasks are the focus and there’s ‘no time’ to worry about the feelings of the people who perform the tasks or what motivates them so they can be developed to their full potential. If your company conducted a Gap Analysis today, one would find that Leadership Development and “Succession Planning” were areas that needed improvement. Unfortunately, we are so caught up in the corporate life and becoming so competitive that we’re perpetually aiming to get one up on each other at work and worse yet, corporate incentive schemes are implemented to reinforce these behaviors.ENOUGH…we cannot continue like this, we are not in a jungle competing for survival of the fittest. We work together or die alone or something like that stated by the Doc in the TV Series “LOST”. I strongly believe that this is not the world we are seeing now….the world is changing…profit is no longer the “be and end all”.For instance, the inhibition for expansion of companies in China is the ability to locate talent to fuel their business initiatives. China will need 70,000 mid to senior level managers within the next five years. These numbers do not exist. Unless we take a look at the female population maybe we can change the odds. The male dominated traits of leadership are not the key attributes attracting talent nowadays. Leadership and success are becoming more holistic in approach…and we should be looking at attributes women can bring to the table.Today, women are already making headway at C level positions. To be good leaders, women need to realize that they do not have to compete with men in the “men’s world”. It’s a “Brave New World” as our friend Huxley once said! No one is expecting women to replicate men; we are different and therefore should value and embrace the differences. Companies valuing team work, contribution to society as much as contribution to the bottom line, work life balance, career enhancement etc.. will have a place for women at the helm.
We need more leaders with human relation skills that focus on education, healthcare and community issues, social responsibilities, someone with emotional intelligence, which is becoming as important as Intellectual intelligence. A woman with both the Q’s cannot be held back!!
Does EQ make women better leaders than men?Today’s business dynamics that include the struggles of East meeting West, the X Generation not relating to the motivations of the Y Generation, will need a leader who is more compassionate, understanding and better at communicating and trusting. An innate empathy for humankind with the aptitude to look at relationships from a multitude of angles and due to the conditioning of being female, possessing the inner strength to persevere despite barriers are traits favoring the female species. It’s about consensus building, alignment, and seeing each issue from a variety of perspectives. A woman who, uses her maternal instinct to take the lead and sort out the daily activities of the household which no doubt can also be replicated to sort out the dilemmas and challenges facing companies today!
So what is this Emotional Intelligence that everyone is talking about? Emotional Intelligence (EI), defined by Wikipedia and often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), describes an ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups. The most distant roots of Emotional intelligence can be traced back to Darwin’s early work on the importance of emotional expression for survival and adaptation.[1]Evelyn Mungai, President, All Africa Businesswomen’s Association, at the Eskom African Business Leaders Forum Johannesburg, South Africa wrote: “A key requirement for a high-EQ person is excellent self-knowledge”.Yet, haven’t we found that the more powerful someone becomes, the more they risk getting out of touch with who they really are and how they relate to others. Consider what powerful people have in common? Most of them are men for a start! As people become more powerful, those around them increasingly tell them what they want to hear. The powerful think they’re in touch, they imagine their EQ is high, but is it really?When a man shows emotion he is criticized for being a wimp or a “girl”. Aversion to emotions is not only implicit, executives discourage public emotional display in the workplace. Emotions interfere with efficiency, reasoning and judgment; it’s a waste of time, distracting and prevents people from making tough business decisions. Revenues must increase even as costs continue to be squeezed. Hours are becoming longer and work life balance is no longer equally weighted. So this causes a dilemma because women tend to put in less time than men, working fewer hours; and, statistically, people who work 44 hours a week make almost twice as much as those who work 34 hours.As a result, women still comprise fewer than 2% of Fortune 500 CEO’s and about 8% of Fortune 500 top earners. As an article in the Wall Street Journal once pointed out, the reasons are many; “women hit their prime child bearing years at the same time they are most pressured to prove themselves at work; they are reluctant to put in the 80-hour work week and globetrotting required for the corner office; they are too concentrated on staff positions like HR and marketing, where they never learn P&L responsibility; and they don’t have informed mentoring and networking opportunities, like golfing with the guys.”These theories belie a consistent finding in research -- there is little difference between the leadership abilities of successful male and female bosses.
In my opinion, communication is the key. Women need to step up to the plate and make it known that it’s your intent to become a leader in your company. Both men and women alike should engage in “hinting” about their aspiration to become a leader. There is nothing wrong in telling your company that you want to become a leader and that you also intend on having a family. My view is that with this knowledge and level of honesty, corporate will be able to help you manage your career path much more effectively than if they had waited around and second guessed one another about the “what if’s?” There is no need for surprises; If you have the skill and will to lead, and you make it known, you may find much greater support, which may even accelerate your path to leadership.When that happens, we will probably find more Queen Bees!Erica Perry Briody is the Vice President of RPO for Kenexa, a leading international talent outsourcing and management company. She can be contacted at erica.briody@kenexa.com

HROA-Asia Pacific

Strategic Resourcing in China-The Key to Talent Acquisition in Europe? by Erica Briody

What can Europe learn from China in relation to Talent Acquisition? If China has 2,000 foreign companies moving in every month with the need to hire thousands of employees, how can we relate this to finding talent in Europe?

Our perception is that countries more advanced or experienced in an area should automatically be more sophisticated and better at it. Usually, in emerging markets, we adopt best practices from developed economies and apply it. We rarely apply lessons from younger markets into the Western world!

On the other hand, perhaps a country dealing with high volume, high growth and a higher concentration of younger people may make us more aware of the multigenerational segmentations. General segmentations are clearer since time has not blurred the lines together which may enlighten us on how to integrate the labour pool of new entrants into the European Union. Both China and Europe have a similar emerging class and the key is to determine how to access and attract them.

So lets discuss Europe and the challenges we are currently facing. Candidates are in the market, but are they the most qualified candidates? Perhaps Europe has become too comfortable with their current processes and methodologies and relies too heavily on the internet in hope of touching some of the passive talent market. Organisational inertia may mean that the majority of employers are slow to adapt and due to being risk averse, they may tend to hesitate on the big decisions. By contrast, in China, due to no accepted practice, Talent management has been developed from first principles and has made the giant leap straight to Resourcing 2.0 and is now starting to reap the benefits.

If we did take notice of our global partners, the worst thing that could happen is we walk away with a few ideas and perhaps a sourcing approach that accesses 78% of a qualified market audience!
I will share some lessons I have learned from China which will directly impact Talent Acquisition challenges in Europe.
This paper will discuss 3 main points from China for reapplication into Europe.

First, in order to learn and benefit from the wisdom of others, one has to understand the DNA of the Chinese and more importantly the misconceptions made about the Chinese.
We all struggle to understand the talent paradox of how a country with 1.3 billion people has a shortage of quality staff. I have several reasons why I believe this may be the case:

a) Education
b) Language
c) Mindset

a) Qualifications stem from education and even though the Chinese government seeks to increase higher education participation from 10% to 15% by 2010, many students opt to study abroad or work for their families. Due to a massive expansion and an economic growth of 9% per year, new universities are being developed but the physical infrastructure has not caught up with the educational demand. In addition, the Chinese educational system is still very much based on "rote learning" and hard study rather than critical thinking and problem solving. The Chinese nature stems from “Chabuduo”, which directly translates to “close enough”, meaning the Chinese do not aspire to have leadership qualities but as a norm prefer to do what is necessary to learn something but never volunteer to go the extra mile or raise their hand to take on additional responsibilities. This directly affects quality of work and is having a direct impact on quality control standards in companies, especially within the manufacturing business where recalls are taking place due to poor adherence to quality standards. In addition, “Mianzi” (face value) causes both challenges in the education and work environment since it prevents a team member to go the extra mile and stand out among their peers due to the possibility of losing face and not acting as a team member. Education is key to a qualified talent pool and whether in China or Europe, senior management personnel are expected to have a degree in higher education.

b) Chinese is a difficult language utilising tones to differentiate sounds and meaning. Due to the many dialects, it is rare to find Westerners with fluent Mandarin. On the other hand, unless a local Chinese has been educated abroad there is a limited pool of potential candidates that speak Business English. Besides the language barrier and hundreds of different dialects, the Chinese have a “contextual” language and find the Westerners direct communication style difficult. They tend to not feel comfortable with an “open door policy” where they are expected to share their concerns or ideas to improve upon company policies.
Chinese as a rule are not comfortable with negotiation and confrontation and tend to say ”yes” to everything without really agreeing to anything. Respect is crucial and therefore they tend to not challenge authority or their elders as a rule. Unless a Westerner understands these cultural differences and adapts their communication style accordingly they will not get the most out of their local employees.

c) Limited “Western mindset” for business practices.
The inner pole of Confucianism was reformist, spiritual and idealistic. Family interaction and respect for seniority and age stems from the core. The younger generation grew up with authority and are accustomed to expecting direction and strong leadership from their elders and superiors and not comfortable with ambiguity. The customer is viewed as "King" and never questioned. Guanxi (who you know) is the establishment and maintenance of relationships which are mutually beneficial. The culture is driven by relationships and networks. Coupled with everyone under the age of 28 years old being an only child tends to have influencers that dictate a spoiled and egocentric nature stemming from their child rearing experience. These “little emperors” expect companies to become surrogate parents and take care of them in ways which go beyond traditional compensation, training and benefits. Hence, understanding the child and parent relationship is beneficial to conducting business in China but causes complications when blending with Western practices.
All of these misconceptions fuel the hiring challenges for foreign companies looking to expand into China; nevertheless, to every problem there is a solution. So what can we learn from a nation where the average multinational is hiring in the hundreds and thousands with minimal internet access and a lack of sophisticated sourcing strategies?
My organization was fortunate to be awarded one of the first end-to-end RPO projects in China. Due to the lack of market knowledge, we developed a research centre to give us the market intelligence needed to identify and attract the targeted market. Our strategy was a blended process of research, attraction, sourcing and engaging:

This paper will explore 3 main points from the blended strategy to implement into Europe:

1. Developing resourcing strategies from first principles - getting back to the basics
2. Talent acquisition through targeted attraction campaigns to appeal to the current labour pools
3. Break the walls of having a passive talent database and embrace Web 2.0 to build long term relationships

Developing resourcing strategies from first principles and going back to the basics.

So what are the basics or first principles?

Direct cold call
External referral program
Professional associations: to build up client “employer branding”
“Candidate care program” to warm passive candidates
Proactively source internal candidates across client’s organization
Internet-data mining
Employee referral program
Dedicated client Career site
Job boards
On and off-line advertising campaigns
PSL Agents; existing and sourced
Proactively network candidates for additional referrals
Direct sourcing techniques
Local job fairs
Mobile recruitment drive

The answer is picking up the phone and dialling for market intelligence!
Due to limited internet access, advertising campaigns and sophisticated attraction strategies, our number one sourcing channel was the labour intensive channel of “direct cold calling”. We were responsible for actively identifying where that talent was located in order to engage them.
Our conclusion was that before we could target the talent we needed to get a clear understanding of the talent market.
We developed segmented surveys targeted to a specific market that matched the criteria of our client.

The survey comprised the following market information:
· Composition (who?)
· Location (where?)
· Current status (what are they doing now?)
· Size & distribution (how large?)
· Mindset (what do they think about...?)
· Drivers, motivation
· Interests, needs

A roadmap needed to be created to find, attract, recruit, hire & later retain talented employees. Having the ability to benchmark our client’s own recruitment programs against other firms who compete for the same talent pool was a valuable tool.
Our approach consisted of utilizing the tools of business intelligence and market research to provide hard facts about the talent market.
The Content of the information contained:

A. Candidate Profiles
· Title
· Tenure
· Job Scope
· Education Level
· Past Experience
· Language Skills

B. Compensation
· Base Salary
· Bonus
· Allowances
· Fringe Benefits
· Annual Leave

C. Needs & Motivations
· Employee Satisfaction
· Distinguishing key motivations at both the current and future employer

D. Perception / Insights
· Perception of the client's employer brand
· Perception of the client's brand compared to the competition
· Preferred employers
· Information about recruitment activities among competitors

E. Assessments
· Personality types
· Work style
· Social style
· Leadership traits
· Generational categories

F. Industry Profile

G. Competitive Benchmarking

We entered all the information into our Applicant Tracking System and built a database populated with a targeted talent pool of passive candidates specific to our client’s expectations. This also enabled us the ability to present “opportunity hires” to our client since we knew the market and were able to identify exceptional talent which met the culture of the organisation.
The research also helped our recruiters to assess the needs and motivators of the preferred candidate population, enabling them to better tailor the “candidate experience” to reflect their needs.

Once we had the market intelligence, we were able to assist our clients create targeted attraction campaigns to appeal to the current labour pool which brings me to point #2. Believe in the power of branding – but recognise the differences in a multigenerational / multicultural workforce and refine the message and delivery channel accordingly.

Since the surveys identified the needs, motivations and vulnerabilities of our targeted talent pool, we were able to develop attraction campaigns specific to the identified vulnerabilities and generations. For example, most Chinese are responsible for their elders and it is a strong financial burden on the younger workforce. We turned this into an attraction strategy and formed a partnership with an insurance group to insure not only dependents but the parents of the employee. This was seen as a substantial benefit to the targeted candidates and created a unique selling point for the client. Once you know your target market, you can develop the campaigns to attract them.
Campaigns may include:

■ Branding themes for a multigenerational / multicultural workforce

■ SMS campaigns and linking http sites from web enabled handsets

■ Research for universities

■ Advertising and digital campaigns

Lastly, break the walls of having a passive talent database and embrace Web 2.0 to build long term relationships

Point no #3 is Relationship Strategy - embrace Web 2.0 and become a technology adopter. Take advantage of stretching the relationship with a candidate over a longer period of time so that the candidate may come to you over the long term. What a luxury to be able to directly interact with candidates! In addition, be conscious of who the decision makers are for your targeted market. In China, it was often the parents that determined which job a candidate would select. Who is involved in the decision making process in Europe? If you do not know who is involved, how can you engage them in the process?
Know your target market and speak their language, understand their communication channels and lifestyle habits. Write Blogs, show your expertise, newsletters, client press releases to keep the candidates engaged over the term of the relationship.

Move from associations to social networking and unlock the power of search engines by utilising aggregators, data, social networks and job boards. Keep on top of your database, contact candidates every 30 to 90 days, set up alerts and RSS feeds and track your results.

In summary, due to China’s extensive growth and need for volume hires, lessons can be learned and applied to Talent Acquisition in Europe.
Integrating a blended approach dictated by research and mapping campaigns to truly understand your targeted talent market, refining your message and delivery channel to target the select audience as well as adopting relationship strategies and technology to be the communication mechanisms to reach the multigenerational workforce will increase your applicant to hire ratios and in turn delight your client!

Special thanks to Andy Dolby, Tony Dickel and Jam Mariquit for sharing their views and knowledge.