WHEN I started writing this article, I realized that I have always had female leaders. It is no surprise that most of my people management skills have been learned from extraordinary and accomplished women who have taught me that the most important skill a leader needs to have is influence. Today, influence is no longer based on diplomas or position, but on how effective you are in persuading people to follow you. Today, more and more women are showing that they are better than their male counterparts.
Julia Boorstin, in her book When Women Lead: What We Achieve, Why We Succeed, What We Can Learn, proposes several pointers that can help anybody learn how to become a better leader. Based on her interview of more than 120 women, she discovered that traits traditionally considered as weaknesses in women are actually the very reason why women are better leaders than men. These traits include leading with empathy, vulnerability, a sense of community, and focus on purpose.
An important trait a leader should have is empathy, not just for their team but for their customers as well. Numerous research has shown that women are more empathetic than men, which most people dismiss as being too emotional. What people forget is that being emotional is actually what makes women more attuned to put themselves in other people’s shoes, and to think of solutions so they can help others. Leaders who lack empathy decide without thinking of how their team or their customers will be affected.
One of the most empathetic leaders I have worked with was Ermalee Hidalgo, who was the academic dean of a community college where I taught for some time. She had been with the college for some time, and she understood the different political and social dynamics at play within the organization. And even though she was bombarded with different issues and problems, she always took the time to talk to her teachers and get to know them better. Her knowledge and understanding of our own concerns and struggles helped her make decisions that would benefit the entire team and made it easier to talk to those who would be most affected by new policies. Her personal relationship with the teachers made it easier to convince them of how new policies would benefit them in the long run, while at the same she kept an open ear to their concerns.
Another trait that leaders can learn from women is vulnerability. People think that this quality is a weakness because it opens you to attacks from other people when they discover your shortcomings. But Boorstin says the opposite because she has discovered that vulnerability invites collaboration. In her book, she talks about Gwyneth Paltrow, the Academy Award-winning actress and the CEO of her own company called Goop, who would ask her people about things she did not know. This lessened the pressure on everyone to act like they should know everything and helped open communication lines so that everyone on the team is on the same page. Asking for help made it easier for people to offer help and contribute meaningfully to the team.
Kat Valdez and Aina Castaneda were that for me when I moved from management training to corporate training. They have been doing training programs for quite some time and I knew they were experts. So, I was surprised when they asked me how we did management training in my previous organization because I felt they already had a good training program. I was more surprised when they used some of the ideas I presented, and it made me proud that I contributed to the team’s accomplishments. Later on, I discovered it was easy for them to admit they do not know everything because they are always willing to learn. This made it easier for all of us to speak our minds and helped us develop a mindset to always be learning from each other. With empathy and vulnerability, women also tend to adopt a communal approach to doing things. Because women find it easier to relate to more people, it gives them the added advantage of knowing how to rally people behind a cause. When I joined the training and development team of a hospital, Irene Isleta led the way in breaking down the silos among the different sections of her department by instituting group activities and creating opportunities where the different groups had to work together. This helped us see members from the different sections as colleagues and helped us respect each other’s work and appreciate how everyone contributed to the success of the team.
In her book, Boorstin also discovered that more women focus on purpose alongside profits, which means that women have a higher tendency to include corporate social responsibility to their projects. Having projects that make a positive impact to the community provides purpose and direction to your team especially when office work has become routine or repetitive. When your team understands that what you do impacts other people’s lives, they are more likely to exert more discretionary effort to perform better in their work.
One woman I looked up to when I was still a high-school teacher was Maricar Cascasan-Villafuerte. Her advocacy was helping children in her hometown have enough school supplies for their schooling. She would ask for donations from fellow teachers and bring those materials all the way to Bataan. There were a lot of teachers who gave, and some would even go with her to the outreach. She was not just teaching her ideals, she was practicing them, and that made her all the more admirable. Leaders like her helped the faculty understand that their influence is not confined to the four corners of the classroom but also in the communities they live in.
As people managers, you can learn to become more influential and trustworthy by leading like a woman. By leading with empathy, vulnerability, a sense of community, and focus on purpose, you can influence not just your team but your community as well. Leadership knows no gender because women have a lot to teach men about what it means to be a true influence to their team.