Women who take on leadership roles in academia and business should resist the urge to adopt ‘masculine’ traits such as aggression to get results and use emotional intelligence instead, says psychologist Paula Nicolson from Royal Holloway, University of London in the United Kingdom.
In a recent study of leadership and management in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), Nicolson found that women in senior positions tend to behave as they think men behave. “This notion drives women away from a healthy assertiveness into emulating more aggressive male models,” she says.
Nicolson says the issue is exacerbated by a lack of support at the top. “Organisations feel that provided they have appointed enough women at a certain level, their job ends there,” she tells Naturejobs. “There don’t seem to be enough role models who [use] emotional intelligence.”
Both women and men should use emotional intelligence more to understand the needs and motivations of employees, says Nicolson: “There are different approaches for different situations, but you still need to make it worth their while to do something with and for you and the organisation.”
Although the study was conducted in the healthcare sector, Nicolson says the findings also apply to labs and research departments. “As the primary investigator, you still need to think about how your staff are managing their own roles,” she says. “You can’t make assumptions.”
Rachel Webster, an astrophysicist at the University of Melbourne in Australia and winner of one of Nature‘s 2006 mentoring awards, is a good example of how using emotional intelligence can help you succeed as a leader in science. In her nomination for the mentoring award, she was commended for recognising the skills of individuals in her team and for appreciating that not everyone will have the same career trajectory as her. “She assumes you are a complex person who also happens to be a scientist, instead of a scientist who it so happens turns out to be a complex individual,” says Maurizio Toscano of the University of Melbourne (see ’Model mentors’ for more).
Webster says she works hard at using emotional intelligence in her professional interactions. “As a supervisor, I try to work as a collaborator, to allow my students to develop their own agendas rather than imposing my own,” she says. Her management style eschews the stereotypical ‘male’ model of leadership, which she says is characterised by traits such as low levels of empathy, a rigid hierarchy and a reluctance to express divergent opinions. “I try to understand things from my students’ point of view,” she says.
What do you think? What is your experience of different management styles, and what style would you say is most effective in a research environment? Share your thoughts below.
UPDATE: 14 July, 2011 – A new meta-analysis published in Psychological Bulletin supports the notion that men fit the cultural stereotype of leadership better than women, but shows that the perception of women in leadership roles is improving.
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Unfortunately, this is a bitter fact that the male dominancy is direcly or indirectly evident in all corners of the global village. I dont know if it is natural or due to the prolonged dominancy of the men since creation that our general concept about the Lord is "masculine". Besides, religious history also indicates that all prophets had always been men. If we see at the canvass of the globe, we will find that male dominancy is obvious even in those countries where gender equality slogan is considered as a symbol of their success. So I am really confused as what is the real and successful model of leadeship. Unfortunately, it is inherited chracteristic of the human kind that since stone age, we are worshiping, respecting and responding to those who have some nuisance value. So a factor of fear has penetrated in our gene as one of the most important factor of good governace. Generally males are arrogant, hard spoken and less courteous as compared to ladies, so they easily dominate. We have seen that the sub-ordinate generally less bother to the boss if she or he is a kind hearted, polite, sympathethetic and humane. That is a why we have seen most of the successfully women had been termed as Iron women, Men like women or Strict one. Under the circumstances, I am convinced that in the prevailing environment, masculine attitude is a key to success for the ladies. But in an environment where workers are senestive, caring, respectful, hard working and devoted, the gender does not make any difference. Rather in such ideal working environment, females must be more successful as compared to males due to their caring and kind nature.
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Problem 1.: Assuming "aggressionmasculine" and "caring, nurturing, emotional intelligencefeminine." By this metric, a good few of my undeniably male managers have been "feminine." The mark of a good manager is the ability to work with people as people, period. Similarly, however, there are oh-so-many women out there who are not naturally "nurturing." This is not some gender inevitability….
Problem 2: Associating the traits so firmly with gender, as opposed to social status. In my experience (backed up by some psychology studies, no cite to hand, sorry), people who start out in a higher social status are less likely to take any account of the emotions of those below them; those in more precarious social situations learn more emotional sensitivity, out of need to secure their positions. Implication: any individual who hits high up the ladder early likely to end up "rigid, arrogent, less sensitive, more aggressive." Think about, maybe women are "more sensitive" not out of a biological gender imperative, but out of social imperative — both culturally and in relative social status. As default status changes, will we also see corresponding decrease in "normal" "female" social sensitivity.
Problem 3: Assuming that women will ever REACH a "leadership role" in academia or business in the first instance without regularly displaying "aggression." Where does this assumption even come from?
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I don’t think it is necessary to be aggressive. But I would say it helps to be a lot balanced and not to be too emotional. It is not healthy to treat everyone with the same empathy as we treat the family. (It is not wrong, but it is just practical to be so, so as to save ourself from exploitation). I have come across female leaders/ppl in higher positions often chosing to imitate the men since they would want to be successful in the male dominated academia/industry. I completely disagree with this. In order to be successful one dont need to be arrogant, you just have to be assertive. And u can be polite and assertive at the same time. Its simply possible.
I, being a woman, though still a Graduate student ,would prefer to be assertive and not agressive when I lead a group.
Aggressiveness in a relationship can win the talk but not hearts. Same is applicable to science as well!!
cheers and keep smiling.
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Being a woman in this society, I can say, gender is a big factor to consider on how people would treat you aside from your educational attainment. Since it is the norm that women are the weaker people in the society, this is commonly taken advantage of by men and not just men but also by some other women. So as a defense mechanism, women show that they have a strong personality, intelligent and firm. This kind of behavior is sometimes misunderstood by many as an arrogant response especially on the jobs they are in. And because of that some women may also become jealous women because they seem to take envy as part of the normal responses when they see another woman shine at the top because of her consistent strong and firm behavior.