2021 is a tipping point for the female leaders

Will 2021 be the year that leadership becomes feminine? As the year begins, there are more top female leaders than ever before. In the US, about a quarter of the legislature is female. Kamala Harris just became the first woman Vice President. Half of the Biden-Harris administration’s cabinet is female — another first. 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.
For decades, even centuries, we operated under a stereotype that researchers called “think manager, think male.” Both men and leaders are expected to be confident, assertive and independent. Women are expected to be relational, inclusive and communal — traits more associated with motherhood than leadership. But that may be finally changing.
The most recent evidence suggests that women are now perceived to be equally or more effective leaders than men.
The pandemic accelerated questions about whether a “female leadership style”
is more effective than the traditionally autocratic male style. When crisis hits, research shows that
the preference for command-and-control leadership wanes and a need for relational leadership increases. And indeed, several countries led by men have bungled the public health
effort, while female-led countries like New Zealand, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Taiwan have fared better.
What if relational leadership became the new standard? There would likely be more female leaders. And I’d argue that leaders, regardless of their gender, who used a relational style would get better results.
The preference for relational leadership has been growing for years. Even the US Army, not known for being particularly empathetic, recently announced a new plan to “put people first.” Gen James McConville, the 40th Chief of Staff of the Army, explained in a statement that, “When we take care of our people and treat each other with dignity and respect, we will have a much stronger, and more committed Army.”
So what has changed? Stereotypes haven’t — in fact, research shows that stereotypes of women as relational have only increased between 1946 and 2018. The reality is that leadership, itself, is changing.
The change is that a smaller and smaller percentage of people prefer top-down leaders. That means stereotypes of leaders have become less “take charge” and more “take care.”
A meta-analysis on the topic concluded that leadership stereotypes now include more “feminine relational qualities, such as sensitivity, warmth, and understanding.”
Trump’s chest-thumping approach to beating the pandemic did not restore confidence. Urging people to not be afraid of Covid was very macho; it was not very effective. Woman-led countries have had fewer Covid-related deaths, a smaller number of days with confirmed deaths, and a lower peak in daily deaths. Within the US, research further showed that states with female governors had fewer Covid-related deaths than states with male governors.
What was the difference? Using a computer program to qualitatively analyse the content of 251 briefings between April 1, 2020 and May 5, 2020 the authors found that women showed greater empathy and support for followers’ welfare. When people feel that leaders are taking care of them, they become more willing to comply with requests to social distance and wear masks. It is basically the norm of reciprocity. A qualitative study in press at the journal BMJ Global Health found similar themes among female heads of countries. An analysis of 122 speeches made by heads of governments across the globe showed that male leaders used more war analogies and fear-based tactics in talking about the virus. In contrast, female leaders focused on people — families, children and vulnerable groups — with a message of compassion and social cohesion. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “These are not just
abstract numbers in statistics, but this is about a father or grandfather, a mother or grandmother, a partner — this is about people.”
Female leaders in the private sector have also gotten better ratings during the pandemic. One examined more than 800 employees’ preferences for male and female leaders between March and June of 2020.
Employees rated female leaders more positively than male leaders and those with female leaders reported greater levels of engagement. The researchers also asked employees which leadership competencies were particularly important to them during this time.
The highly important skills were all relational:
“inspires and motivates,” “communicates powerfully,” “collaboration/teamwork” and “relationship building.” Female leaders outperformed their male counterparts on all of them.
And it was not only female employees who wanted more relational leadership. There is no reason that men can’t adopt a more relational leadership style. Take a look at President Joe Biden — he oozes empathy when he talks about the pandemic.
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.

—Bloomberg

Stefanie K Johnson is an associate professor of management at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Leeds School of Business and academic director of its center for leadership. She is the author of “Inclusify: Harnessing the Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams”