Every time I give a talk or am interviewed for a podcast, someone asks, “How did you get started in women’s leadership?”
My journey began in the mid-to-late 1980s, when the field of women’s leadership barely existed. There was a scattering of women leaders, often superb ones, though few in major organizations. And almost no research about what women might have to offer as leaders, or how their skills could be encouraged or developed. There was an emerging interest in parental leave, flexible work schedules, and the like. But these were viewed as women’s issues, having little specific to do with leadership. Now they’re simply workplace issues, which makes sense (and shows progress).
Back then, I was mostly writing speeches for executives at Fortune 500s. I worked for excellent companies but women I met were almost all in admin or support. However, knowing that my own talents were under-recognized, I figured this must be true of other women as well. So I paid special attention to conversations then mostly conducted in what were known as “ladies lounges.”
Amid the usual gossip, I also heard plenty of pointed comments about the lame decisions that team heads or division heads routinely made. A lot of what I heard was insightful and I wished the women could find ways to share their thoughts. Or that the men would think to solicit their input. But lacking such avenues, the women had for the most part given up trying to influence anything that lay outside their own job descriptions. “We’ll never change things,” seemed to be the common consensus.
This was hardly surprising, given that most of the advice being offered to women in those days emphasized the need to adapt to male ways of doing things in order to have any hope of success. Books and articles, whether popular or academic, drove home the message: Learn from the men. Leave your values at home. You’re in the Army now, so when it moves, salute it.
I disagreed. I was persuaded that women had much to offer, not just as workhorses but as thinkers, planners, and leaders. Also because I believed that organizations were on the cusp of major change, which would demand fresh approaches to leadership. Hierarchy could not remain the sole structural model as networked technologies began to reshape how people did their work, made connections, and accessed information.
I was convinced that women’s talents and insights could play an important role in the new world that was being born. But what exactly were those talents? Did they have any unifying themes? How did they differ from male talents, which for so long had shaped and defined the workplace? Finally, what might organizations, teams, or divisions led by women look like? And what could male leaders learn from them?
I didn’t really have answers, and as there was virtually no research on the subject, I decided that it was up to me to write a book about what women had to contribute as leaders. Having spent a decade as a journalist, my impulse was to start interviewing all the women in leadership positions I could find. But my editor at the time suggested that my book would be livelier and more useful if I documented how a limited number of outstanding women leaders actually did things, how they spent their days.
The idea was to use the diary study method pioneered by business author Henry Mintzberg. This would provide a full account of the details that comprise a leader’s style: how they prepare for and manage meetings, how they build alliances inside and outside the organization, how they make decisions, how they communicate, motivate and engage. How they hire, and who and how they fire.
I went to the library (it was the pre-internet era) and began the slow work of identifying women leaders and owner-entrepreneurs who might make good subjects. I wanted women from a range of sectors and geographies, with diverse backgrounds and styles, from organizations big and small. Once I made my selections, I arranged to spend 3 or 4 days shadowing each of my subjects’ every move.
I also read through the literature then emerging about differences in how most men and women made decisions and what they believed mattered. What they saw, what they valued, and how they connected the dots. Carol Gilligan’s ground-breaking book A Different Voice was invaluable. I drew on her insights, interpreting them through my workplace lens.
My book, The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership was published in 1990. It found an immediate audience. Being first on the topic gave journalists a hook, so we got the feature articles that every author dreams of. The women I profiled in the book helped, as did Tom Peters, who saw an advance copy and became an enthusiastic and credible evangelist for my work.
The Female Advantage identified what I believed then, and believe now, are the five key skills women leaders have to contribute. Not all women leaders, but the best among them.
Women tend to place great value on the quality of relationships, and spend thought and time managing the details that build strong personal connections.
Women tend to prefer direct communication to communication up and down a chain of command.
Women tend to prefer leading from the center, putting themselves in the center of things and drawing people in around them rather than positioning themselves at the top.
Women understand from personal experience the value of diverse perspectives, having been outsiders to the leadership mainstream themselves.
Women are highly intentional about integrating their personal and work lives, drawing on domestic skills for use in the workplace and applying workplace skills to their lives at home.
As should be clear, each one of these skills has become more important as the workplace has been reshaped by a confluence of demographic, technological, and economic changes. And many of these skills are increasingly evinced by men as well, as they adapt to these forces of change (among them, having peers and bosses who are women).
The somewhat tired axiom “we’ve come along way” is as true as it is unoriginal. But I’m not done examining how these issues felt, or what they meant, at the time.
Next week, I’ll reflect on how my findings were received...
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