Gender Differences in Leadership

Persuasive Speech Outline

GENDER DIFFERENCES: WHY WOMEN ARE BETTER LEADERS THAN MEN

Attention Getter: Kamala Harris (US Vice President), Helle Thorning-Schmidt (Denmark Prime Minister), Angela Merkel (Chancelor of Germany), Cristina de Kirchner (Argentina’s President), Julia Gillard (Australia’s Prime Minister), and Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica’s President). They are all female leaders holding some of the world’s most influential positions, and providing direction to their countries. You and I can also be leaders, if only we understand and exercise the natural leadership skills we possess.

Introduce Yourself and State Your Credibility: I am XXX, an author and motivational speaker for the past five years. I work with diverse people, including entrepreneurs, high school students, college students, professionals, farmers, and basically, anyone who needs a boost. My message is simply to encourage people to keep going and be the best version of themselves. Most of my audience are young women in college, high school, and the professional setting, whom I mentor and encourage to rewrite the rules of success, break down barriers, and be their best.

Overview of Main Points/Thesis Statement: A 2022 survey by the World Economic Forum shows that in 2022, there were 74 women serving as Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in Fortune 500 companies (Buchholz, 2022). This translates to only 15 percent female leadership at America’s biggest companies (Buchholz, 2022). This is an indicator that society still prefers men for top leadership positions. However, this speech demonstrates that contrary to popular belief, women are better leaders for organizations than men (Hurley & Shumway, 2015). It advances three main points - the findings of leadership research indicate that female leaders are more transformational, socialization makes women less controlling and aggressive than men, and women have lower self-confidence levels, which enhances their resilience and feedback-acceptance in leadership.

I. Research has found that women are more effective leaders than men in competencies that support transformational leadership.

A. A 2015 leadership effectiveness survey by Zenger Folkman involving 7,280 leaders rated women more positively in 15 of 16 leadership competencies. These findings indicated that women were more transformational leaders than men (Hurley & Shumway, 2015).

a. Women reported an overall leadership effectiveness of 53 percent as compared to men’s 49 percent (Hurley & Shumway, 2015). Women ranked significantly higher than men in the areas of nurturing employees’ competencies, taking initiative, practicing self-development, displaying honesty and integrity at work, building relationships, fostering collaboration and teamwork, solving problems, and inspiring/motivating followers (Hurley & Shumway, 2015). Men only beat women in the area of developing strategic perspective (Hurley & Shumway, 2015). The researchers attribute this to biological differences between men and women that make the latter more nurturing and hence, more effective in building and sustaining relationships (Hurley & Shumway, 2015).

B. Similar findings were reported in a more recent leadership effectiveness survey carried out in 2019 (Zenger & Folkman, 2019).

a. Women scored higher than men in 17 of the 19 leadership competencies assessed to differentiate good leaders from poor ones. Men outdid women in the areas of professional expertise and developing strategic perspective (Zenger & Folkman, 2019). However, women performed better in the areas of solving problems, effective communication, teamwork and collaboration, building relationships, inspiring change, developing others, displaying honesty and integrity, practicing self-development, and driving for results (Zenger & Folkman, 2019). This supports the idea that women are more transformational in their leadership, differently from men, who are mostly, goal-oriented and directional. Supporting these research findings is the socialization argument, which is the second main point.

II. Due to the socialization process, women’s characteristics and values help them display less-controlling and less-aggressive leadership behaviors.

A. Women have higher capacities for prioritization in leadership

a. Women are traditionally involved in managing the household, child rearing, and at times juggling between career and household chores. Most women have to balance between taking care of the home and working to ensure that both their jobs and families move smoothly. This ensures they can prioritize in leadership better than men.

B. Women are more democratic and people-oriented than men

a. Owing to their child-rearing role, women are naturally more nurturing, caring, and tender-minded than men (Weisberg et al., 2011). For this reason, they are more people-oriented and hence, more likely to foster democracy as well as nurture and encourage followers through positive feedback. Further, due to their meek and caring nature, women are more likely to develop and maintain strong work relationships with subordinates, which is crucial for team cohesiveness (Weisberg et al., 2011). Generally, women are more likely to be democratic and inspirational leaders, differently from men, who are more authoritative and goal-oriented (Mamadou, 2019).

This leads us to the final argument, which also revolves around biological differences between men and women.

III. According to Zenger and Folkman (2019), women exhibit lower levels of self-confidence than men of comparable age, which makes them more effective leaders

A. Women are more likely than men to demonstrate resilience in leadership

a. Owing to differences in self-confidence, women and men who both lack the experience necessary to perform in a leadership role will handle the role differently. Since men are more confident about their abilities, they are more willing to step up and will usually give themselves less time to learn. On the other hand, women are likely to be more wary, taking more time to learn and persisting until they can learn what they are missing. Such resilience is passed on to the followers, thus making them more effective leaders.

B. Women are more receptive to feedback than men, which enhances their leadership capacity

a. Women’s relatively low confidence levels, make them more willing to take initiative and accept feedback from others as they seek to enhance their confidence. Both of these are crucial leadership qualities. According to Mamadou (2019), taking initiative makes them more likely to model the way for followers or to lead by example, while openness to feedback helps in building collaboration and cohesiveness in the team.

Thus, women’s low self-confidence relative to men makes them more effective leaders in the long-run.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, women are better organizational leaders than men. Research has shown that women score higher than men on key leadership competencies of transformational leadership. Further, women’s characteristics and values place them in a position to display less-controlling and less-aggressive leadership behaviors, which promotes inspirational leadership. Women have higher capacities for prioritization and are more people-oriented and democratic than men. Finally, women exhibit lower levels of self-confidence than men of comparable age, which makes them more resilient in learning and more receptive to feedback from followers.