Do women make the best CEOs?

Health Progress, May/Jun 2001

A growing body of evidence indicates that companies recruit their leaders from the wrong gender. Women, not men, make better CEOs, these studies say.

"Women are scoring higher on almost everything we look at," says Shirley Ross, a psychologist who helped supervise a study run by the Hagberg Consulting Group of Foster City, CA. Hagberg evaluates senior managers for client corporations, including health care companies. Of the 425 executives it examined, women did better than men on 42 of the 52 skills measured.

Janet Irwin, a California management consultant, conducted studies in which women outperformed men in producing high-quality work, recognizing trends, and generating new ideas and acting on them. What's more, says Irwin, "women's strengths are stronger than men's and their weaknesses are not as pronounced."

Why, then, do so few women run big corporations? Among the reasons are these:

* Traditionally, women have been shunted into "people skills" jobs-such as human resources or public relations-- that companies view as relatively unimportant. Only recently have such skills come to be seen as vital in, for example, inspiring productivity and resolving conflict.

* Because women tend to be less egotistic and more collegial than men, they are also less likely to stand out in a field of CEO candidates.

* Women are less likely than men to have company mentors and informal communications networks.

* Because women tend to focus on results rather than process, they often spend too little time thinking about strategy and vision.

But the traditional role of women in business is changing. Given a choice between equally qualified male and female job candidates, executives increasingly say that they frequently pick the latter. "I would rather hire a woman," maintains Ann Shukla, the founder of a software company. "I know I'm going to get a certain quality of work; I know I'm going to get a certain dedication."

From Rochelle Share, As Leaders, Women Rule," Business Week, November 20, 2000, pp. 75-84.