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Centered leadership: How talented women thrive

This article published in The McKinsey Quarterly in September 2008 by Joanna Barsh, Susie Cranston, and Rebecca A. Craske presents a new approach to leadership can help women become more self-confident and effective business leaders. 

Read the Article - Centered leadership: How talented women thrive 

CLW Commentary:

The authors, Barsh, Cranston and Craske integrate through their Five Dimensions of Leadership Model facets of  experiences and undertakings of successful women leaders and offer these as the model to follow if women want to achieve leadership positions and/or thrive in them. Although the elements of the model are present in leadership literature and learning, the author's model succeeds to fine tune the categories and enhance their linkages, presenting an interesting perspective on  leadership development for women. 

Common to most practitioner-based leadership training/coaching and research pursuits in the area of women and leadership, what is implicitly evident is that if a woman wants to be a leader, then she needs to be doing something more than what a man would be doing to secure this aspiration.  Moreover, in this article, it is explicit that a woman needs to be different to what she normally would be if she is to get anywhere or excel in leadership as quoted below.

"One surprising thing we learned as a result of talking with female leaders was that they often fail to reciprocate and find expectations that they should do so distasteful. A senior partner at McKinsey noted that men naturally understand that you must “give before you get,” but women don’t...Yet women can learn reciprocity. To start, it’s important to assess your comfort level with the people you know through work, as well as how influential they are professionally. Most women we’ve worked with typically find that the colleagues they are close to are not influential—and vice versa. Explicit planning and some risk taking are needed to change this."

Whilst I am not disputing the outcomes of such undertakings as claimed by the authors, I do question how such suggestions when made do not take into consideration the ethics of asking women to change their overall orientation in the pursuit of what is hailed to be "leadership."  Should women be so easily asked to change and 'play the game' that appears to be the masculine way to attaining leadership?  What level of meaning do women need to have so that the inequitable numbers of women on boards can be overturned?  And are we to believe that all men leaders have acquired leadership and are better at it because they have found meaning in what they do and are  always very positive?  I can think of many men who are hailed as leaders whose objectives are inextricably linked to raising profit margins with their employees treated like  assets rather than human beings.

In my opinion, women need to be evaluating the implicit and explicit codes that pervade individual's perceptions of  leadership, its meaning, structures  and ascribed behaviours  that are entrenched in the corporate world and in society in general, if we are to advance from prescribing a pathway to questioning the validity of the pathway and the merits of the goal to be reached.

The authors' suggestions to engage, find meaning, be positive, connect and be in tune with one's energy can be challenged from the perspective of whether this guarantees for all women who try this, achievement of their leadership goals. The fact that only a few women make it to the top echelons on a global scale is a testament not to the fact that the majority of women have been oblivious to following such a prescribed formula, but because of inherent systemic prejudices against women. It is through overarching systemic changes that women will find the doors of leadership opening to them, regardless of how closely they follow this formula, but only if they remain authentic to themselves making leadership about integrity rather than masculinity.

I invite you to read this article and share your opinions about it and your own experiences of leadership. All comments will be published in this space. If you would like to remain anonymous, please say so and it will be respected. Your opinion is valuable to an ongoing and current exploration of leadership, much more so than what has been said and done, as it reflects current thinking and mindsets about leadership.

To comment, please Email Me.

Diann Rodgers-Healey

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