Is anyone tired of reading this crap??

Started by URnotmeRU, Sep 03, 2003, 03:37 AM

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URnotmeRU

This is yet another stupid article about how women are better at some mundane task than all men, based on what? Their plumbing. :roll:

Yea, there is a disclaimer in there about being able to accept widely accepted generalizations..DUUUHHH. :roll:

http://www.bcentral.com/articles/krotz/150.asp?LID=34660

Why women make better managers


Marketing Intelligence / Joanna L. Krotz

Before getting to the point of this provocative headline, here's a disclaimer: Prepare to consider widely accepted generalizations.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Translated, that means, "Included in this article are some sweeping statements presented as general truths but based on limited or incomplete evidence."

Let me add this: Remember, too, that being equal does not mean being the same. Now, let's proceed.

As women gained traction in the workforce, gender differences among senior and junior staffers turned up in every workplace, from offices to factory floors to fighter planes. Now that women are pulling up chairs at boardroom tables and launching their own companies -- the number of women-owned firms has increased by 103% in the past 10 years -- those differences are increasingly playing out in executive suites, too.

Studies show that both male and female styles of leadership can be effective. But when compared side by side, "female" has the edge.


Biology and upbringing

Gender differences stem from nurture and nature alike. It's not only socialization that shapes men and women. It's also biology.


Researchers are discovering physiological variations in the brains of men and women. For example, male brains are about 10% larger than female brains. But women have more nerve cells in certain areas. Women also tend to have a larger corpus collusum -- the group of nerve fibers that connects left and right hemispheres. That makes women faster at transferring data between the computational, verbal left half and the intuitive, visual right half. Men are usually left-brain oriented.

As girls and boys grow up, of course, they're also molded by differing sets of social rules and expectations. Gender obviously colors behavior, perception and just about everything else.


Gender matters

Typically, when comparing managers, the dialogue is framed as men's command-and-control style versus women's team-building or consensus approach.

"Women managers tend to have more of a desire to build than a desire to win," says Debra Burrell, regional training director of the Mars-Venus Institute in New York. "Women are more willing to explore compromise and to solicit other people's opinions." By contrast, she says, men often think if they ask other people for advice, they'll be perceived as unsure or as a leader who doesn't have answers.

Other female leadership strengths:

Women are better than men at empowering teams and staff.
Women encourage openness and are more accessible.
Women leaders respond more quickly to calls for assistance.
Women are more tolerant of differences, so they're more skilled at managing diversity.
Women identify problems more quickly and more accurately.
Women are better at defining job expectations and providing valuable feedback.
Men tend to be more speedy decision-makers, compared to women. Male managers are also more adept at forming what management psychologist Ken Siegel calls "navigational relationships," or temporary teams set up to achieve short-term goals.


Women are better communicators

Big deal and surprise, surprise, right? So women typically outperform men at communications and interpersonal skills. You're probably thinking: Those are "soft skills," not the hard tools and analysis demanded to grow a business into consistent profitability.

How do such "female" traits translate into better business management?

In today's lean workplace, when employees have multiple jobs and fleeting loyalty, when technology enables even tiny companies to compete in global marketplaces, the ability to make staff feel charged up, valued and individually recognized is a definite competitive edge.

"Some companies succeed while others don't," says Jeffrey Christian, CEO of Christian & Timbers, a well-known Cleveland search firm. "It's not about production, it's about talent. Whoever has the best team wins."

Money is not the primary reason talented people stay on the job or jump. Rather, they stay predominantly because of relationships. "Women get that," says Christian, whose firm placed Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard, among other high-level hires.

Generally, women delegate more readily and express their appreciation for hard work more often. "Women ask questions, men tend to give answers," says author, consultant and career coach Terri Levine. By communicating company goals more readily and expressing appreciation more often, women tend to be better at making staffers feel valued and rewarded. That translates into cost-effective recruiting and being able to operate with stable, loyal employees -- or, as Christian puts it, the best talent.


But no drop off in "hard skills"

Besides generally being credited with better communications and relationship skills, women are lately demonstrating higher levels of traditional "hard" or "male" skills as well. Some investigators suggest that many women workers had such skills all along, but that male bosses either overlooked or misperceived them. Others think that the cumulative years of experience for women are broadening their skills.

One influential study in 1996, conducted by management consultant Advanced Teamware (which has since merged with Consulting Tools), analyzed a database of 360-degree assessments for more than 6,000 managers. Such assessments include anonymous reviews from a manager's peers, supervisors and subordinates. The study by Michael R. Perrault and Janet K. Irwin looked at a range of managerial behavior, including problem solving, controlling, leading, managing self, managing relationships and communicating.

The results:

". . . Previous studies showed that women excelled in interpersonal skills (right brain), not in intellectual skills (left brain). Our study demonstrates that women are considered better performers in both right- and left-brain skill areas."
"Women received higher evaluations than men in 28 of the 31 individual behaviors, representing 90% of items."
"The most problematic factor for women is Managing Self . . . The worst rated of the 31 behaviors is Coping with one's own frustrations."

More glass ceilings to break

Obviously, there are still very few women running Fortune 500 companies and, in the corporate VP ranks, roughly three men to every woman. So if women have the managerial edge, how come you don't see more of them in positions of power?

Here's my speculation: Men are used to running the show and, for the most part, don't reward "female" style management because they see it as weak. Women have had to prove that their way of managing works, over and over again. Then, too, women have only gained the independence and skills to ascend in the latter half of the last century. No doubt, their rise will continue.

For owners of small and midsized businesses, being able to keep staffers and stakeholders enthusiastic as you steer the company forward may be the most important factor in building success. "You want to delegate outcomes, not tasks," says Ken Siegel, whose Los Angeles firm, the Impact Group, works with executives to develop leadership. "You must have the ability to let go. Women can do that better than men because their self-esteem is multifaceted," he says. "Men's self-esteem is based on what they do, it's uni-dimensional."

The upshot for chief executives should be to move over to the "female" side of management, whether you're a thoroughgoing left-brainer or a woman manager who may be trying to manage "male." Turns out, girls do it better.

 


I don't know about any of you, but I would have to say that moving to the "female" side of things is a tad bit "discriminatory" and makes whatever entity practicing these employment tactics nothing shy of ignorant.
nd the time will come when you'll see we're all one and life flows on, within you and without you. - George Harrison

SacredNaCl

A couple things.. Not all "female" owned businesses are genuinely female owned. Just as not all minority owned contracting companies are truly minority owned.  *(I can think of several that do highway work where they purposely stacked the boards with people without a vote based on their skin color. They get a check for letting them use their name, and as the highway fund mandates a certain percentage of the work has to go exclusively to minority owned contractors they will generally be the only one to bid on it, thus raking in a killing if they get the job.)  Many "female" owned companies are simply the husband switching the paperwork around to take advantage of loans, preferences in government contracts, grant programs, tax breaks...etc  There is a tremendous amount of pork out there in business subsidy only available to 'affirmative action' style ownership.  

This isn't to say there aren't quite a few genuinely female owned businesses, there are... There is usually a husband in the picture who paid the bills while she got it going and possibly put up the $$ for it. Nothing wrong with that either, your wife is supposed to be your partner and husband your partner. I just rarely see it work the other way around.

As far as women making better managers, I seem to recall a study done on women asking who they would rather work for, a male boss, or a femle boss. They overwhelmingly stated a male boss.   All female offices are some of the most hostile work environments I've come across. Clearly "peace" isn't reflected in the management scale.  

But if it came time to organize a huge conference -- I will tell you that kind of thing will generally go smoother if a woman is managing the details. They probably do better in situations where the job is constantly being interupted to attend to details.  Men lose their focus & consider it an interuption in what they are doing. Women seem to handle that a bit more gracefully.
reedom Is Merely Privilege Extended Unless Enjoyed By One & All.

D

I had a letter to the editor published in a local newspaper.  So I was in the laundry matt getting some clothes clean.  I showed the owner , a woman, my letter.

Now, my letter was a response to the 'Women in Politics' seminar they were having at the university.  The issue was their terms of describing how stupid men's politics are, how they've screwed everything up and are all basically "apes".  

She read my letter, said she never seen the advertisement for it in the paper so couldn't argue the point.  That was good I thought, she shows some objectivety.  But then, she describes her own life and how her father used to sit on his ass and do nothing.  That the world would be a better place if we ran the cities like a woman runs her home, keeping everything nice and tiddy.

I could hardly get a word in as she kept babbling nonsence.  But it does show that women and men do things differently and that both seem to think what they do is right.  

For these women who read these types of articles I say, anyone who tells you life is easy or you're somehow special is selling something.   Women are easily flattered.  

Men are easily distracted.

Bilbo

This article actually appeared on msn some time ago and they run it periodically.  It amazes me that this woman expects to be taken seriously when she starts out with the premise-
"Included in this article are some sweeping statements presented as general truths but based on limited or incomplete evidence."

duh.  She's also written such unbiased pieces as "Women are Smarter than Men about Money".  Think she's got an agenda?  Feminists are attempting to accomplish what they have been accusing the "patriarchy" of all along- change the discourse and get the notion out there that women are better than men, at everything.  Why men are required to endure the kind of discrimination that women howl about being unjust, no one can say.
NBC ran something on one of its programs a few weeks ago.  The misandry is appalling.  I was watching it with my mom and sister.  They didn't see what the big deal was until I pointed out that NBC would be picketed and forced to issue a public apology if they ran a similar story declaring men the better managers.  They couldn't argue with that.
The hypocrisy is astounding.
It is impossible to reason a man out of something he was never reasoned into in the first place- Swift

"The cardinal principle of judicial restraint--if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more."

Bilbo

Well, I decided to give ol' MSN a piece of my mind.  You can submit feedback here-

http://www.bcentral.com/help/feedback/default.aspx

Here's my entry:

"Why do the editors at MSN permit the publishing of such blatantly anti-male trash pieces such as that of Joanna Krotz's "Why women make better managers"?  Especially when Ms. Krotz, herself, bases the hypothesis on the premise,

"Included in this article are some sweeping statements presented as general truths but based on limited or incomplete evidence."

Can you imagine running a piece declaring men to be better managers(or better at *anything, for that matter), even if you had airtight, empirical evidence?  Redmond, WA would become a sea of picketers and Bill Gates, himself, would probably be forced to issue a public apology.  Why does MSN seek to foster such sexism?  Is this the best that MSN can do?  Fortunately, being a frequent visitor to Michael Kinsley's Slate.com, I know that not to be the case.  I'd appreciate an explanation substantiating your decision to run this piece, which you obviously feel is groundbreaking journalism, as I've seen it run on a number occasions over the past several months.  I look forward to your reply.
Thank you."
It is impossible to reason a man out of something he was never reasoned into in the first place- Swift

"The cardinal principle of judicial restraint--if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more."


AliciaGoMavs

Bilbo, let us know if you get a reply, and cut and paste what they say here.  I am always curious to see how such groups cover their collective asses over something like this.
Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye."  --Jesus Christ
NAB Matthew 7:5

Bilbo

I will certainly do that.  I was kinda hoping that posting the link to the feedback page would encourage others to do the same.
It is impossible to reason a man out of something he was never reasoned into in the first place- Swift

"The cardinal principle of judicial restraint--if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more."

URnotmeRU

I wrote also....same idea.

This broad knows she is an headcase, she just won't admit it. :P
nd the time will come when you'll see we're all one and life flows on, within you and without you. - George Harrison

SacredNaCl

If women are better managers of money....



How come the richest 40 list all men? And the richest under 40 list men in the top 10? ...and if you go down the list a little futher you find the richest woman on the list is Warren Buffets ex-wife (who got it through a divorce settlement)?


On a personal note, I've met Warren Buffet, and had a chance to talk with him for about 15 minutes Yes, I have met the 2nd richest man in the world. He seems like a pretty decent older guy to me, and I didn't have much to disagree about with him in the short conversation we had.  Allegedly Bill Gates was crawling around the same conference, but my invitation to the billionaires club was not formal and I was dicovered and escorted out by the secret service. ;-(   I slammed back some good food and drink before they kicked me out of WEF's evening party though!
reedom Is Merely Privilege Extended Unless Enjoyed By One & All.

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