Thread by @bopinion

There are more top female leaders than ever before:

♀️In the U.S., about 25% of the legislature is female
♀️Kamala Harris just became the first woman vice president
♀️Half of the Biden-Harris cabinet is female trib.al/CoFV1qv

Women leaders are making gains in business as well.

For the first time in history, all S&P 500 firms have at least one female board member. The number of women CEOs in the S&P 500 hit an all-time high (though still only 7.8%) at the end of 2020 trib.al/CoFV1qv

For decades, we operated under a “think manager, think male” stereotype. Both men and leaders are expected to be:

✅Confident
✅Assertive
✅Independent

Women are expected to be:

☑️Relational
☑️Inclusive
☑️Communal

But that may be finally changing trib.al/CoFV1qv

The pandemic accelerated questions about whether a “female leadership style” is more effective than the stereotypical male style.

When crisis hits, research shows that the preference for autocratic leaders wanes and a need for relational leaders increases trib.al/CoFV1qv

Indeed, several countries led by men have bungled the public health effort, while female-led countries have fared better, such as

🇳🇿New Zealand
🇩🇪Germany
🇫🇮Finland
🇮🇸Iceland
🇩🇰Denmark
🇳🇴Norway
🇹🇼Taiwan trib.al/CoFV1qv

Woman-led countries have had fewer Covid-related deaths and a lower peak in daily deaths.

Within the U.S., research further showed that states with female governors had fewer Covid-related deaths than states with male governors trib.al/CoFV1qv

When analyzing the content of 251 briefings between April and May, researchers found that women showed greater support.

When people feel that leaders are taking care of them, they become more willing to comply with requests to socially distance trib.al/CoFV1qv

Speech analysis shows that male leaders used more war analogies and fear-based tactics during Covid-19.

In contrast, female leaders focused on people — families and vulnerable groups — with a message of compassion and social cohesion trib.al/CoFV1qv

It’s not that women are innately more communal. It’s that gender expectations have required women to be more empathetic in their approach to leadership.

It usually doesn’t work for women to adopt a “male” style as they’re unfairly seen as overly abrasive trib.al/CoFV1qv

But what if relational leadership became the new standard?

There would likely be more female leaders and leaders, regardless of their gender, who used a relational style would get better results trib.al/CoFV1qv

The preference for relational leadership has been growing for years. Even the U.S. Army announced a new plan to “put people first.”

“When we take care of our people... we will have a much stronger, and more committed Army,” said Gen. James McConville trib.al/CoFV1qv

Maybe the ever-mounting examples of how hyper-masculine leadership can go wrong precipitated the shift.

Seeing so many toxic male leaders brought down by the #MeToo movement caused some to feel that this style was hopelessly flawed trib.al/CoFV1qv

More relational leadership will benefit everyone.

For far too long, men have suffered because of the belief that they need to be able to “man up” when leaders behave abusively. As a result, men experience higher levels of depression and suicide trib.al/CoFV1qv

Leaders who have a more take-charge style just need to do one thing:

Put. People. First.

Lean into your empathy, sensitivity, warmth and understanding. Build relationships, cohesion, inclusion and collaboration trib.al/CoFV1qv