https://hbr.

org/2014/03/its-time-for-a-new-discussion-on-women-in-leadership/
http://www.businessinsider.com/study-women-are-better-leaders-2014-1

Why Women Are More Effective

Leaders Than Men

Bob Sherwin, Contributor

Jan. 24, 2014, 1:22 PM

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AP

GM CEO

Mary Barra

In a three-part series for Business Insider, Sherwin, the COO of

leadership consultancy Zenger Folkman, examines women's
leadership effectiveness,representation in corporate America,
and solutions for increasing their ranks, building upon the firm's
research first published in a 2012 Harvard Business Review article.
In today's large organization, as women climb up the corporate ladder
they vanish. While the statistics vary slightly around the world, this is
an extremely consistent pattern.
At the lowest levels, more than half of the employees in organizations
are female. As you move to each successively higher level in
the organization, the number of women steadily shrinks. At the CEO
level, worldwide, there are only 3% to 4% who are women.

Zenger Folkman

We find this to be a puzzling, even mysterious phenomenon when you

examine the hard data that describes the overall success that women
have when placed in successively higher leadership positions. It is
even more curious when you analyze the success they have in those
functional areas that have traditionally been dominated by males.
For more than a decade, our organization has been collecting 360
feedback data from leading organizations worldwide. We now have
450,000 feedback instruments pertaining to about 45,000 leaders,
covering a wide variety of industries. The studies that follow include
our most current data collected in 2011 and 2012. The sample we have
used includes just under 16,000 leaders of whom two-thirds were
male and one-third female. Each participant had on average 13
respondents, including their manager, their direct reports and their
peers.

Overall effectiveness
An aggregate look at how women leaders compared to their male
counterparts shows the following.

Zenger Folkman

Because of the large sample size for this study the difference shown
here is statistically significant and does not occur by chance.

Differences by Age
To better understand the differences between males and females it is
instructive to look at overall leadership effectiveness by age. The
effectiveness of women as leaders appears to change over time. As
women and men begin their careers there is very little perceived
difference. Then men soon are perceived to be slightly more effective
than women. As women mature they are perceived in an increasingly
positive way and more effecting than their male counterparts.
The gap between them and men continues to diverge, until they reach
their 60s, when the gap begins to narrow. At its peak the largest

difference between males and females is 9 percentile points. The

following graph shows the average percentile gap between males and
females.

Zenger Folkman

What Causes the Difference

What do women do that creates this difference in leadership
effectiveness? One of the clues for us came from talking with women
about this research. When we ask them to explain why women were
perceived as more effective, what we frequently heard was, In order
to get the same recognition and rewards, I need to do twice as much,
never make a mistake and constantly demonstrate my competence.
(The shorter version of what we regularly heard from women was that
we must perform twice as well to be thought half as good.)

When we looked at our data on males and females, we looked at

results from a competency called Practicing Self Development. This
competency measures the extent to which people ask for feedback and
make changes based on that feedback. We know that as most people
begin their career they are very motivated to ask for feedback and take
actions to improve. Over time most people gain competence and tend
to not ask for feedback as often.

Zenger Folkman

This graph shows percentile scores from men and women on the
competency of practicing self development.
Note that the results are fairly similar until about 40 years of age. At
that point women maintain the habit of asking for feedback and taking
action to improve. Note that the effectiveness of men on this
competency continues to decline as they age. Men assume that they
are doing fine and dont really need much feedback.

Differences by competency
Our standard 360-degree feedback instrument measures 16
competencies. A comparison of how women and men are perceived in
terms of these specific competencies shows the following:

Zen
ger Folkman

The chart above shows the differences between men and women and
has arrayed them in descending order. It confirms that women
actually scored higher than men on 12 of the 16 competencies. The
differences on ten of them were statistically significant. Men scored
higher on two competencies, "develops strategic perspective" and
technical or professional expertise.
Note the large difference on the first competency, Takes Initiative.
Each reader will probably have some theory as to why this is so. Our
explanation gravitates toward the double duty, which many women
live with that necessitates them getting things done in order to
survive.

Females and Nurturing Competencies

The majority of people we talk with make the assumption that women
will excel at nurturing competencies such as developing others,

inspiring and motivating others, relationship building, collaboration

and teamwork. The chart above demonstrates that these competencies
are more positive for women. But those competencies with the largest
positive differences are taking initiative, displaying integrity and
honesty, and driving for results. These are not nurturing
competencies.
These competencies highlight that women were seen as more effective
in getting things done, being role models and delivering results. These
skills describe leaders who take on difficult challenges, ensure that
people act with integrity, and who simply achieve challenging results.

Differences by function
Our current fact pattern becomes even more intriguing when we
analyzed various functional areas within an organization. Here is what
the data showed:

Zenger Folkman

We found it interesting that in the traditional male bastions of sales,

legal, engineering, IT and the R&D function; women actually received

higher effectiveness ratings than males. Many of our stereotypes are

obviously incorrect. Again, the concern about women not being able to
perform well in those functional areas is resoundingly refuted by the
data. Only in facilities management and maintenance do they not do
well.

Differences by level in the organization

Finally, as women move up the ladder in an organization, the higher
they move the more positively they are perceived.

Zenger Folkman

To the degree that senior executives and boards of directors are

putting men into senior positions, fearing that women will not
perform well at higher levels, we hope that this information adds to
the assurance that they need not worry about that.
Bob Sherwin is the chief operating officer of Zenger Folkman, a
provider of leadership research, assessment, development and
implementation programs.

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