Those who think leadership skills have to do with gender?

Question

1- Which gender has an advantage and why?
2- All or specific areas?

***Anti/non/pro-feminists: I'm not looking for politically correct, bitter or baseless answers. I'm looking for logical evidence backing up your position***

Steve: I believe a while ago you mentioned something about how men and women react differently when a child is born. Women want to stay home and take care of the baby, while men want to get out and make that money. I actually asked people with kids that confirmed the claim, mostly. I believe that may be tied into what you just said. I have never done any research on this, so I don't know about the biological differences, except the obvious hormonal.

Answer 1

It is not quite, IMO, a question of technical or management "skills" or intellect, etc. Rather willingness and motivation.

Think of all the men and women you know. Now, how many of those women vs. the men WANT to be leaders? How many women vs. men (anecdotally) want to lead hundreds, thousands, or more people?

Are men or women more frequently inclined to want to go out and lead hundreds or thousands of people vs. being more frequently inclined to "keep the home fires burning", for example.

I think men are, in general (statistically, based on anecdotal observation), are more willing, desirous, and motivated to lead.

Motivation to lead is certainly one of the most basic "skills" needed. Without that, all the other technical stuff becomes irrelevant.

This, in no way, diminishes women, or makes men superior. Women can certainly successfully lead thousands of people, but less often want to be bothered.

EDIT:

Ms. Lioness. True. And, we've all seen the pattern.

New fathers are, like "I've got a kid now. I need a raise. I'd better get my butt in gear!"

Mothers are more, "oh, s/he's so beautiful, I want to just hold him/her all day. . ."

How often do you see the reverse pattern? Hardly ever. That's just the way it is, and it's not a bad thing.

Answer 2

Leadership is a gift not granted to all. Regardless of the gender, when one has the tendency to lead, and is successful, capable,and efficient, naturally s/he is going to lead. It won't make that difference whether the person is a male or a female; I can see brilliant sides and different skills in both sexes. What most matters is to be balanced and to lead out of inner strength rather than out of a need to rule.

Ruling is different than leading. The latter has a deeper meaning where one is in charge of improving the rest, while ruling is to dominate, but not necessarily to work for the goodness of others.

As to skills, I can not see any reason to think that women can not handle politics. Just I hope they can handle them without playing the games of men, because males society had established its politics, with its own rules, and any new comer would be seduced to exceed those men within the frame of their society.

Answer 3

I don't believe one gender has an advantage over the other except for when it comes to cultural customs. That is changing to where women are catching up with men in the number of opportunities available now that weren't before. Same goes in the business world---the gaps are closing up. As "logical evidence" look at the page linked below. It gives the biographies of over a hundred women in positions of political authority of independent states and self-governing understate entities who have been in power since 2000.

Answer 4

I don't think leadership skills have to do with gender - they have to do with the qualities of the individuals using those skills. Now, if you wanted to talk about how those skills are developed and emphasized in different areas, that would certainly be a long conversation, exploring the differences in how leadership skills are promoted and developed in men and women.

Answer 5

I believe that both women and men can make good leaders, but there is a clear tendency for males to become leaders moreso than women. I attribute this to a generally greater level of assertiveness among men, which is necessary to support ideas and face their challenges. Men obviously don't have an absolute monopoly on that assertiveness as there are plenty of examples of quality female leaders throughout history.

Answer 6

Males have the advantage. It is the case in all areas, though academic, business, political and the military spheres are boasting a few success stories.
Women have the same qualities as men to enable them to be good leaders.

Two things are different:

Where men can rely on their assumed assertiveness and command presence, women must be aggressively assertive and overbearing to demonstrate their resolve; they must work against assumption.

People, men and women, both, are prejudiced against a female in a leadership role for a myriad of reasons. You can't be a leader if no one follows.
C. :)!!

Answer 7

Type "women better leaders" or some variant thereof, in a search engine and you'll get multiple articles and studies about it.

Here's one, from the reputable and trustworthy US News:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/010129/archive_006560_2.htm

I didn't post a whole bunch of links to articles because it's annoying when people do that.

Now, I don't know that I necessarily believe that women are better leaders...but I do believe that men aren't. If anything, we're equal.

Answer 8

Once upon a time, when leadership was measured by how hard you could bang your stick on a rock, male leadership was the norm.

Since we no longer need to bang sticks on rocks and world affairs are generally accomplished by intelligence, diplomacy and the ability to inspire people, I think women are AT LEAST as suited for leadership as men.

The crude answer is, men have screwed up the world so badly thus far, it wouldn't be difficult for women to top the so-called leadership skills on display by men around the world today.

Answer 9

I actually do think there are some primal differences. I've found that women can make pretty good instructors, possibly due to a maternalistic bond, while men often have a more authoritative presence, thus make good field leaders, like commanders in combat. Now, this doesn't really mean that men can't make good instructors, or than women can't make good commanders, it just means that they seem to have a slight edge over one another, though it varies greatly from individual to individual.

Answer 10

males have the advantage only because it's more acceptable <-- that's really not the word i'm looking for they have a past of it

females are just now coming out of the works so it's new to them - at least in general and in the buisiness envoiroment!