Men, women & leadership - management styles - includes related articles - Cover Story

Nation's Business, May, 1991 by Sharon Nelton

Men, Women & Leadership

When Kay Unger and Jon Levy joined forces 18 years ago to form Gilliam, a women's clothing company in New York, they weren't out to prove anything about leadership.

"I'm interested in making a lot of money but having a lot of fun at the same time," Levy recalls telling Unger. "If that's what you want to do, then let's go into business."

They've met those two goals. Their annual revenues exceed $125 million, they employ 300, and they sell chic career fashions throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. And they seem to be having a good time doing it.

But in the process, they've also unwittingly made some points about leadership: that men and women managers can work comfortably together at the top and that their differing styles of leadership can be complementary, producing a synergism that gives the company benefits it would not receive if two men or two women were in those jobs.

Unger and Levy and two other male-female partnerships included inthis article symbolize some of the questions that businesses are raising about leadership these days:

Are women's leadership styles different from men's? Are women's ways of leading more effective than the traditional "command-and-control" style? As women continue to start and grow their own businesses and to advance to senior corporate levels, what changes will they bring to American business?

Until very recently, the general perception of business management was a structure dominated by males whose leadership style was hierarchical, action-oriented, and even quasi-military. The ideal leader was seen as an independent, tough, individualistic hero--like a John Wayne character or the real-life Lee Iacocca.

But now a new generation of women is bringing to business a style often described as more consensus-building, more open and inclusive, more likely to encourage participation by others, and even more caring than that of many males.

Smart companies are making room for a diversity of styles, encouraging the development of women leaders along with the men.

The fortunate businesses are those in which these differing styles become complementary rather than confrontational. Men and women are learning the strengths of each other's approach. Many women are incorporating the best of the traditional styles, such as focus on performance, into their leadership portfolios, while more men are adopting the so-called "soft" approaches that women use effectively.

The timing may be just right. Recent studies show--and an increasing number of business people are expressing agreement--that women are especially suited to leadership. Moreover, according to the studies, leadership based on greater openness and interaction with people is especially suited to a contemporary work force whose members identify with such traits far more than previous generations did. That is particularly true, the experts say, of today's better-educated work force.

Edward M. Moldt, managing director of the Snider Entrepreneurial Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says that the women's approach is "one that is right for the times." Today's companies, he says,s require leaders who not only are risk takers and visionaries but also are "sront enough people that they're capable of hearing the ideas of others and really empowering them to use some of those ideas in changing businesses and in making them successful."

Women can meet this challenge very well, he suggests, because they are "very comfortable with having to persuade people, to encourage, to motivate," while men are "used to giving orders and having them followed."

Judith Hoy of Learning Systems, a New York consulting firm specializing in management effectiveness, notes that female leadership traits can help companies solve three major problems--the need for better customer service, the demand for higher quality, and the need for leadership itself. All require the relationship-building skills at which women excel, Hoy says.

Dealing with these problems alsos requires the ability to build networks, to listen, to resolve conflict, and to get people to works together, says Hoy. "While these skills are not the sole property of women," she says, "research and experience suggest that women are more likely to have them."

In addition, women can help companies be more competitive because they see business opportunities as a result of their own experience. Gillian has achieved its success in part because its female co-leader, Kay Unger, had the sense to cater to career women like herself. She believes she understands the needs of workisng women all over the world. "I think we can grow very well in an international market," she says.

As never before, the United States is seeidng the emergence of the female leader. It's happening most quickly on the entrepreneurial side, where women start at the top by launching their own companies--more than 4 million of them in the U.S. now.

However, the female leader cannot help but emerge also on the corporate side in this decade and the next as a lower percentage of white males in the workplace forces companies to dip into the growing pool of women and minorities for executive talent.