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 (Argentinas President), Julia Gillard (Australias Prime Minister), and Laura Chinchilla (Costa Ricas President). They are all female leaders holding some of the worlds 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 Americas 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...

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 mens 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...

…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, womens 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, womens 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.

This information should be a call to action for the young women, like yourselves, to begin exercising your leadership skills in your own small ways. Evidence has shown that women possess crucial leadership skills. It is up to all of us to put these skills into practice as we envision to occupy higher leadership positions in future.

You do not need…