The issue of female leadership is still controversial due to considerations of percentages, which are discussed both concerning leadership in corporations and at the level of central, European, or other administrations, all over the globe. The question of quotas seems to me to be more of an ethical one, for example, how do we ensure that these quotas are used correctly and that they serve both representativeness and competence? Otherwise, in my view, we are only fueling the controversy and turning people away from seeking and seeing the real value of female leadership through their traits and mindsets…

The theme is much deeper and somehow it's an "egg or chicken" type... It is society, its evolution, and the stage of development we are still in that creates the need to discuss female leadership, in the sense that society, in real terms, in no corner of the world is it prepared to treat women equally with men? Because, even in advanced societies or with a culture that favors diversity, the presence of women is not overwhelming in formal leadership positions... And here's how, the more they support the values of diversity without applying them, the more hypocritical they seem in what regarding these values.

From the perspective of gender equality and many other aspects of diversity being truly accepted in organizations and society, humanity still has a long way to go. And that's because the need for diversity, I believe, arises from our need for uniqueness and self-esteem. But if we want to be unique, the need for superiority immediately arises, because self-esteem requires us to be unique and special, and the easiest thing is to be special to another of your kind who is different from you, so diverse, and which automatically becomes inferior. Even if this inferiority is only a shade.

I find it very valuable that organizations, at this time, choose to speak explicitly about the need for diversity and inclusion and about female leadership, even if the number of skeptics and those who ridicule and minimize the initiatives are still quite high. Because diversity and inclusion are all about values education. Female versus male leadership reflects one facet of the need for diversity, perhaps the most obvious because it can be immediately visible and measurable, evidenced by the physical presence of women in management teams or expert teams, and visible in payrolls and compensation packages. rewards that are different for the same type of work and skill. And these aspects cannot be denied, they will only be justified sometimes with some arguments that make you smile.

In a team coaching project, where values were discussed at one point, I remembered the extremely valuable reply of someone saying: "...if you feel the need to put ethics in your set of values explicitly, it means you have ethical problems. Ethics is one of the fundamental and essential values for the healthy existence of the company. We need to talk about it and educate it constantly, providing positive examples from the top of the organization, but I would rather put the aspirational values in our set of values rather than the essential ones that we should deal with, daily".

It's kind of similar to diversity and inclusion... I feel like they need to be made explicit now in any company's set of values for the simple fact that they are still aspirational values and will remain aspirational for a long time to come because a company doesn't it is an isolated island that exists and operates in a society that is not inclusive anywhere... If it were so, absurd nationalism would no longer make sense and find no place, and people could look at each other from the perspective of the beauty of the diversity of cultures and customs and would accept themselves as they are by learning from each other as universal citizens.

But, the reality is different and this is not yet possible, therefore any movement that will support diversity will still have a lot of work and will need a lot of persuasive power and a lot of patience to educate the next generations to value themselves, more rather than looking down on each other... And this is true for any kind of diversity, because it's much easier and more comfortable to stay locked in your box and reinforce the reasons why you are special and the other is not, why you are more capable and superior and the other not.

So the theme of the qualities and benefits of female leadership is, in my opinion, only one aspect of a fundamental theme, that of diversity and acceptance of the meaning of humanity: each individual is unique and special. And it deserves to be valued. And every individual, woman or man, if he wants to be valued, to work responsibly at it constantly. The progress of a family, a team, an organization, and society, in general, comes from the progress of each individual.

With the profound transformation of work due to technology, advancing extremely rapidly and calling upon our ability to learn much faster and more intensively than in the past, the way we lead people to achieve performance and guide them to make their work easier has changed and requires a presence of the leader much closer to the people. Learning comes with the effort and confusion created by the elements of novelty, so understanding these difficulties is part of the leader's role, as is his ability to accompany and coach.

Traditionally, in the family, it is the mother who takes care of the growing and learning children and tries to alleviate their difficulties. This is what happened in the evolution of the human race and society. This model is also carried over into organizations, because people have deeply ingrained the idea that it is a woman's role and responsibility, and therefore the characteristics attached to female leadership are in the area of empathy and caring for people.

In addition to the need for rapid learning, the pandemic has revealed the need for empathy and care because of the tremendous negative impact this period has had on human evolution: fear for personal life and loved ones combined with forced isolation and very rapid change of work habits and where you used to mentally attach certain activities: at work, I work and put effort, and at home, I rest and enjoy life. Things have completely reversed in a context unfavorable to learning. The benefit of safety, because you are at home and you are not exposed, combined with the comfort given by the fact that you are no longer obliged to transport yourself in overcrowded metropolises or long distances, facilitated the acquisition of new work habits, but revealed and the extraordinary need for empathy and care that did not previously exist explicitly in organizational cultures.

So here's a new diversity criterion highlighted: the ability to lead with empathy. We are different in this way, and it seems that women in general have a greater capacity for empathy. From my perspective, it's just a stereotype. Another stereotype emphasizes differences rather than the possibility of being complementary or learning from each other. Another stereotype is that men in leadership roles are less vulnerable or unable to show vulnerability. It's another stereotype that my executive coaching practice counters. I work almost equally with female leaders and male leaders. If I were to make an inventory of the themes I come up with in the coaching development sessions, they are almost identical: care for people, the need to define and refine a leadership model that ensures unity in the team, and the possibility to maintain high motivation, concern for quality relationships and the desire to understand oneself.

So I think the hurdle to overcome is in society, in the place where we all come from, in our families where these various stereotypes about all kinds of aspects of human diversity and uniqueness are cultivated. Yes, organizations play a fundamental role in educating people to accept themselves as they are and to learn how to develop and how work and live harmoniously with each other. Therefore, in any program supporting diversity and inclusion and criteria that encourage all segments to assume leadership (women or men, young or mature people, people with very narrow expertise or generalists, analysts or people who find their resource in the relationship with other people, all these being diversity criteria and not only), an initiative like this is welcomed.

At this point, the themes of how we can use diversity to be able to learn and advance faster are probably cross-cutting themes of any personal development program and mandatory in any kind of leadership program. Because it's much more than about female or male leaders, about race or sexual orientation. It is about the fundamental principle of respect for every other human being.

Source: https://revistacariere.ro/leadership/organizational-development/valorile-aspirationale-si-nevoia-de-a-defini-si-rafina-un-nou-model-de-leadership/