Being a project manager is really being a good listener and mediator. More accurately, it feels like baby sitting a bunch of loud and hyper kids. Making sure feelings and egos are not hurt, no one picks a fight, and everyone feels appreciated and encouraged to play nice. Everyone knows they have a safe shoulder to cry on, share their fears and problems without worrying it can be used against them later on!
As I immerse into this new role of mine, I realize how much more important it is to have females in such roles, especially in male dominant fields. Projects need managers who do not see communication as a burden or pressure but as a necessity and a tool, someone who is good at feeling and recognizing tensions, future issues, and problems before they are communicated and before they come to the surface. Someone whose ego does not stand on the way of achieving goals.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
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Hi Nargess, are you sure that these gender specific differences are "carved in stone"? from my own experience, the so-called "emotional intelligence" or "social competence" is definitely very important and more female-specifc in a family environment. But as soon as you look in hierarchical, highly competetive social groups, one can observe other characteristics. You see envy, jalousy, dishonesty (gender independent). But what would be important is honesty, a degree of cooleness and stability and of course HUMOR to master the many obstacles. But for this, I have little indications that either men or woman are better or worse.
regards, Michael
Hi there,
You are right that these are not gender specific differences rather more stereotypical attributes associated to each gender. There is no doubt the world is full of successful and great male managers and leaders, and the qualities you mentioned are all very important and valuable, especially honesty above all. I guess I meant to say how much more I appreciate diversity and how important it is to bring different perspectives and experiences, especially to environment that the majority is of one gender, or one professional or ethnic background. ... and how important it is to see more successful female leaders in society, maybe as much as 50% of them?
Sure, everybody should get the chance to develop according to his/her talents, independent on gender, ethnicity, religion, political orientation. A colleague of mine is turkish here in Germany. She is the first generation born in Germany from Turkish parents. When she went to school in the late 80s/early 90s, the teacher recommended her to learn a profession, instead of attending college. She always dreamed of becoming a medic, but there were so many prejudies against kids from Turkish families, that her parents did not pushed hard enough. And of course her parents were not so insisting in plan a higher education for her, since she was a daughter, not a son. So the entire circumstances were against her. She could not go to university, but became a very skilled medical technician. She now works with me and very often I recognise that she has a better scientific understanding than some medical or biology graduates. Sometimes I make a joke and ask her if she is secretely working on her own PhD project. But in fact it is nothing to laugh about, because it shows how much the chance to follow your talent depends on the society and circumstances. And not everyone might stay as relaxed as my colleague with this experience. But she has drawn her conclusions from this, and very much supports her two daughters now to make sure they will never sacrifice their talents to old-fashioned cultural or social stereotypes. Her eldest daughter has better marks in school now than any of the other kids in her class, and I am sure that she will follow her dreams against any odds.
About the general issue of gender specific personality: I am very convinced that a lot of desasters in history (terror, wars, political oppression, dictatorships etc) are sublimations of unsatisfied male personalities, which maybe sometime in their life were suffering from neglectance or disrespect. I think without this male tendency to transform personal problems into violence, the history of mankind would have been much more peaceful. But if one can "heal" our current society from all its problems and inherent conflicts by just replacing male with female leaders, I am not sure. Simply considering the case of Germany: Our female chancelor Mr. Merkel is perhaps the most hated and feared politican at the moment if you talk to people in southern-Europe. And the late Maggie Thatcher was also not neccesarily the person whom the British people will remember as one who introduced equal rights, economic justice and social care. May concern is that females who enter the established political or economic structures very soon adopt the same habits and behaviour which we always considered male-specific.
That is a sad story about your colleague. Maybe she can go back to graduate school and work indeed on a dissertation and get a graduate degree. That would be a great story for herself and her kids can have an even better role model.
The point you raised about males and wars, I tend to agree with it. I think that is what I referred to as "ego". Many men have huge egos and they let that get in the way of their well-being, their loved ones well-being, their project's goals and milestones, and in short lose sight of what matters most. I have not seen this as much in females.
Similarly, females have to go through trainings, experiences, their own mistakes to learn from, before they can settle into their leading roles. They deserve to have the chance and the room to grow, and it is ok if they do not get it right the first few times.
I do not know much about the record of leaders you mentioned, but data suggests that successful women are liked less by both males and females*, maybe because we are not used to see them at such roles or expect them to be there.
*
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/173740524/lean-in-facebooks-sheryl-sandberg-explains-whats-holding-women-back
Hi Nargess, a quick comment to Sheryl Sandbergs speach: As everybody was expecting from her, she highlighted the problem of how to get to the top, and I fully agree that this is more difficult in predominantly male-dominated hierarchies. But my own experience is more like a pyramide game, with alternating male/female layers. Because males like to employ females as directly subordinate colleagues, and female leaders also like to employ males as directly subordinate colleagues (although as peers, everybody has a preference for persons of the same sex). The real problem, however arises at the very top layer: This is for sure usually male dominated.
My general concern, however (and this Sheryl Sandberg wisely avoided to touch) is if a position at the very top is really a dream-job, or rather a Pyrrhic-victory (Wikipedia: "A Pyrrhic victory is a victory with such a devastating cost that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately lead to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit.")
My prototype of this issue are always the James-Bond movies: O.k., Bond is a bit macho-type, but he is generous, witty, polite. And what so are the "Bond-girls", who - don't ask me why - always come from other countries. And Bond is intelligent enough to resist all temptations to change his "free-lance" job for a safe position on the very top level bureaucracy. If he would ever reach for the higher position of "M" or "Q" or any other of the likes, this would be the end of the Bond myth.
This is an exaggeration, of course, but I think the average differences between males and females in top-level positions are much smaller, than between average characters in top-level and in lower-level positions. I remember that in marxism this is paraphrased as "gender inequality (or racial inequality) in a society is only a manifestation of socio-economic inequality"). But how this will be overcome: Don't ask me please. Law makers try it with more and more rules, which at the end press the entire society into a rigid net of restrictions. Also not neccessarily what everybody dreams of.
best regards, Michael
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