In all the analysis and speculation about political leaders over recent weeks there’s been a fascinating theme about the style of leadership Australians now expect.
Many clearly believed that while Tony Abbott was not personally very popular with the electorate, he would at least bring back some sort of ‘traditional’ leadership. Likewise, when former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman was elected in a landslide there was a sense of relief in some of the commentary.
A return to a trusted model, a white middle-aged man taking over from a woman, was seen by many as a return to ‘normality’ in Queensland. This was also a factor when Julia Gillard lost the Prime Ministership to Kevin Rudd before the last federal election.
Of course what is meant by ‘normal’ or good leadership is pretty hard to pin down. There’s no formula and harking back to some good old traditional model is more about nostalgia and comfort than reality.
What has started to become clearer in the last few weeks is the resemblance between the Abbott and Newman approach to the top job. Poor listening skills, unilateral decision making, lack of diversity in their top teams and a failure to consult are some of the criticisms to emerge.
In management literature, this model is virtually the antithesis of what is now considered the ideal approach for leaders of all kinds. In fact, the very qualities extolled for effective and sustainable leadership – collaboration, listening, building relationships, team work, flexibility – have a familiar ring to them.
They are exactly the virtues that women are repeatedly told they possess in spades. There are lots of views about whether women are hard wired to have them, or if they are simply forced to develop them to survive as members of a marginalised group (the latter makes most sense to me).
Consulting firm McKinsey published research a few years ago arguing that women use five of the nine “leadership behaviours” that lead to corporate success more frequently than men. Plenty of similar analysis has emerged and often concluded that because these female characteristics are essential to the knowledge workers of today, women will soon automatically surge into leadership.
That doesn’t seem to be happening. More recent research shows a different picture.
Men ‘promote’ – speak up at meetings, sell their ideas and skills – and women collaborate, was the finding from a 2011 survey of men and women in Australian management by Chief Executive Women and Bain (“What stops women from reaching the top? Confronting the tough issues”).
While both men and women agreed there were different strengths for each gender, they had very different views of the effect this had on career progression. Unlike some of the more optimistic predictions about how women’s skills would deliver them access to the C suite, the CEW/Bain study found that the majority of women believe their style of operating has a negative impact on perceptions of their ability to lead.
It seems those crucial ‘feminine’ skills are not always valued highly or associated with leadership potential when women exhibit them in their workplace, the study found. Women were expected to be good team players and collaborative, but usually didn’t get very far as a result.
At the same time, as the recent political ructions show, many of us seem to want our male leaders to start showing they have those exact skills these days.
All of which would indicate that the recent soul searching about what a leader needs to do to keep their job in today’s tricky political environment doesn’t seem likely to dramatically change the prospects for more women in politics, particularly in powerful decision-making roles.
The same goes in the business world. Even though women are now more likely to be encouraged to put their hand up for leadership roles, they are stepping into a minefield of stereotypes and assumptions about how to be effective. Act like a man and you are labelled aggressive, act like a woman and you aren’t seen as leadership material.
And so it goes on. Until there’s a real shift in the expectations about the kind of packaging we expect our leaders to come in, along with a deeper understanding of the real value of the so-called ‘soft’ skills, nothing much will change.
The recent welcome discussion about the need for a new leadership style will not automatically favour the very group considered to be more skilled collaborators – women – to the top jobs.
At the moment, displaying some genuine ‘female’ skills could quickly work wonders and reap rewards for many of our current politicians – as long as they are men.