We turned therefore to the experts who were living this reality every day: the women participating in our executive education programs. When we asked how they would interpret our data, we heard three explanations. First, several women noted that they tended to set strategy via processes that differed from those used by their male counterparts. One executive put it like this: ‘Many women tend to be quite collaborative in forming their vision. They take into account the input of many and then describe the result as the group’s vision rather than their own.’ This suggests that what may in fact be visionary leadership is not perceived that way because it takes a different path.
Second, we heard that women often find it risky to stray away from concrete facts, analyses, and details. Some women responded to our findings by noting that they need to base their orders on concrete facts, not unprovable assertions about how the future will take shape. One management consultant observed that ‘Men speak more confidently and boldly on an issue, with very little data to back it up. Women want to have a lot of data and feel confident that they can back up what they are saying.’
And third, many women betrayed negative attitudes towards visionary leadership. Because they thought of themselves as grounded and concrete and had seen many so-called visionary ideas come unstuck in execution, they tended to eye envisioning behaviour with some suspicion. Our interviews with female executives highlighted one potential difference in attitude between the genders that could explain women’s lower ratings on envisioning. We suspect women may not regard envisioning as a critical leadership competency to the same extent that men do. Over and over again in our discussions with women, we heard them take pride in their concrete no-nonsense attitude towards everyday work problems.
Questions
1. The first explanation of the writers’ data suggests that female leaders
2. The second explanation for the data reveals that female leaders
3. One management consultant is quoted as saying that male leaders
4. The third explanation for the data tells us that female leaders