Naked in the Leadership Classroom

Greetings readers.  Inflexion’s recent post about Robin Wolaner’s book, Naked in the Boardroom, reminded me that there are not only differences in the way that men and women lead, but that there are some differences in the way that men and women learn to lead.  Using Wolaner’s metaphor, let’s think of this as Naked in the Leadership Classroom—a look at preferred learning behaviors, based on gender, used in ANY type of learning experience.

While it is somewhat complicated to understand how one learns to lead (because it is measured by personal, tacit and subconscious acts), identifying gender differences may enrich talent management initiatives and leadership development programs.  Currently, there is not much information about the differences in gender-based leadership learning preferences.  If more was known, it would be possible to address gender differences more intelligently.

I recently conducted a study of aspiring leaders, males and females, and asked them which leadership learning behaviors were used most frequently.  Of the thirty behaviors offered, nineteen showed no differences between males and females.  However, there were eleven behaviors which were selected by females as being highly important in their leadership development.  These include:

1. Learning about leadership from a mentor.
2. Performing self-directed leadership development activities.
3. Contemplating what is expected of a leader by planning how leadership concepts, decision making processes and strategies can be used.
4. Using new language, new strategies, and new ideas to solve problems, mediate conflict, manage change or connect leadership theory to generalized situations.

While this study was not large enough to generalize from, these four leadership learning behaviors describe an approach used by females that ranges from self-reliance to co-dependence on a trusted confidant, and from deep thinking about strategizing/decision making to saying what you mean precisely.   Peeling the onion on leadership learning differences by gender holds promise for creating bias-free pathways for leadership development…all the way to the boardroom. 

Let’s keep the conversation going.

Did we mention she has a PhD?  Any questions for “Dr. Shannon” can be emailed to shannon.flumerfelt@inflexionadvisors.com.