The Hindu Business Line : Women in power

Studies have shown that while men take promotions, increments, incentives etc; in their stride as though they were long overdue, women tend to be more self-effacing or circumspect on whether they really deserve such recognition.

The Fortune 2003 list of the 50 most powerful women in international business has an interesting section called: "Power: Do women really want it?"

It comes as no surprise that this article is accompanied by a full-page picture of the US National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice — who has nothing to do with international business, at least not directly — with the Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who has topped successive issues of Fortune featuring America's most powerful women in business.

The underlying message in bringing together `private sector power' and `public sector power' comes through... err... rather powerfully. Big bucks do matter, but so does clout in the government. And power comes from both.

As far as women politicians are concerned, after the exit of the former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Condoleeza is considered to be the most important symbol of power in the US. Not too far behind is the New York Senator Hillary Rhodam Clinton. The magazine quotes her saying that she is no longer surprised when told by women that they were getting out of politics or corporate life because they were not willing to pay the price in personal relationships. "I don't think it's a good thing — but I don't want a society where people are turning their backs on the fundamental requirements for personal relationships. The economy is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end — so people can have better lives."

Reminds one of the famous words of Gloria Steinem, one of the most radical feminists of our times: "I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career." And also the wonderful book by Terri Apter titled, `Working women don't have wives', in which the author says that the primary reason for women's tardy progress in their careers is that they don't have wives to take charge of domestic details! Even though that book was based on studies done between 1982 and 1992, one wonders if anything has changed at all after a whole decade. Women, particularly in India, continue to be largely responsible for the nitty-gritty of running a home, bringing up children, and ensuring that not only nutritious but also interesting fare is put up on the table day after day.

Reverting to how women handle power, the question needs to be examined from a deeper perspective. Or, perhaps, we need a new definition of "power" as several top professional women pointed out in the Fortune issue. Should a powerful woman be determined by the billions of dollars she manages in a company, like Carly Fiorina; the political clout she wields, like female heads of state; or the massive, and often hysterical, following they have across countries and communities, like entertainment icons? Or should other criteria, very different from those mentioned above, be applied to define `power'?

As women advance into management roles, they sometimes spend too much time and energy worrying about whether they're competent, says Gail Evans author of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman.

"The higher up you get, the more it is about making good judgments, having vision, figuring out a strategy and leading a team, and the less it is about getting it right."

Studies have shown that while men take promotions, increments, incentives, etc, in their stride as though they were long overdue, women tend to be more self-effacing or circumspect on whether they really deserve the promotion/increment/bonus.

Laura Liswood, Secretary General of the Council of Women World Leaders and former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group, US, feels that women have "not been socialised to see themselves as leaders. You think about the major fairytales and legends that young girls grow up with."

Giving the example of Cinderella, she says, "She's waiting for her prince to come and rescue her. He's the hero, he's the leader and she's sitting at home talking to the mice. There's not a sense that she can be a leader, or she should be a leader."

And yet a study done last August at the Northwestern University in Chicago claims that more than men, women apply leadership styles that encourage better worker performance and effectiveness in `Generation Yes'. It found that women are more likely to serve as role models, help mentor and empower workers and encourage innovations in organisations. "The meta-analysis revealed relatively small sex differences, which is to be expected since the men and women compared are in equivalent roles with relatively similar responsibilities," said Alice Eagly, Professor of Psychology at the University and lead author of the study that was titled `Transformational, Transactional and Laissez Faire Leadership Styles: a Meta-Analysis Comparing Women and Men'.

Eagly admitted that even though managers, irrespective of their gender, had to carry on the basic tasks given to them, "still, the implications of our findings are encouraging for female leadership when you consider that all aspects of leadership style on which women exceed men relate positively to effectiveness." . The study found women managers scoring higher than the men on the point of rewarding employees for good performance.

If anybody is wondering why all this fuss about women in management and their managerial skills/style, it should come as a surprise to him/her that according to research done by BusinessWeek magazine and Gallup, by 2010, women are expected to control $1 trillion of wealth in the US.

Even when it comes to marketing upper end products such as cars or homes, the bimbo-on-the - bonnet cliché became passé long, long ago.

Consider for instance, that it was more than a decade ago that General Motors rolled out the Saturn model specifically for women buyers, making sure also to hire women sales staff to sell the cars, says a report on msn.com, adding, "Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab and Fidelity, among others, now market financial services to women, including such lures as life-stage retirement advice and investing seminars."

Team players

Ask any manager worth his/her salt and they'll tell you that women work better in teams, and tend to have more respect for team members' points of view. Believe it or not, they tend to listen, more than men do. A Fortune power-pack regular, Debby Hopkins, chief operations and technology officer and head of corporate strategy at Citigroup, told the magazine, "The most powerful thing you can do is listen. You don't have to have the last word. You don't have to get credit for anything. I've always led in groups - get people around the table to discuss an issue. But now I hold back what I think, and say to myself: `Not now, not now! Wait, wait!' This new approach has changed my life."

On "managing powerful men", Condoleeza thinks along similar lines, when she says that she believes that pushing her personal opinion on the US President is not fair. So, she always says to him, "This is what I think, but let me tell you what the others think."

Just because she lives a few doors away from the Oval office, she is always conscious that this should not give her an undue advantage over others, whose opinions also need to reach the top boss.

So, put simply, does it mean that women leaders don't roughshod over others?

While it may be dangerous to generalise, it would be safe to surmise that women tend to use the `colleagual' approach more than men. And, however high they might reach in their profession, for a majority of them the family and the home continue to be very important.

Somebody as high profile as Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, once said, "I do think it's very important for me that my family remains as close as we have always been. It has been a very determined wish on all sides, a wish on my children's part, my husband and myself, is to keep them out of the limelight and to be as private as possible and to let them lead as ordinary lives as they always did with their friends."

Coming to the perception that many women in power tend to be as brash, aggressive and arrogant, as the worst of the male bosses, the crucial thing is to make a difference between brashness or arrogance and assertiveness or the courage to stand up and speak out.

On this aspect, former prime minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, has this to say: "I don't think you can be a leader without being forceful. If you don't have a determination, if you don't have a perspective and a direction in your mind about what is your vision, what do you want to try to get support to be able to do, then you are not a leader."

On how the family life of a powerful politician take a beating, this mother of four adds, "There simply isn't enough time to be a mother a wife and a politician at the same time. My husband and children have to take a back seat."

Well, you can't have it all... as a woman in power. Perhaps it is different in a man's world...

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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