Ways Women Lead. Women in Management
Introduction
Women managers have now successfully opened a new era in managerial administration challenging the traditional “rules of conduct” often opted by men. Sharing of work-oriented experiences between women employees made successful uplifts in their skills and knowledge to attain a better top management skill. Women proved their caliber, skill and result oriented ability to husband any fast changing and growing organizations. The success behind women’s contribution for a successful organizational working condition is their deviation in the thought of ‘traditional’ leadership style moreover than their ‘feminine’ character. Contrary to the report of many earlier studies, according to Judy B. Rosener’s observation, the assessment conducted by International Women’s Forum revealed a number of unforeseen similar traits that can be seen in both men and women leaders in spite of some differences.
Interactive Leadership
The main diversity between men and women leadership quality is that the men use their supremacy in the working environment thereby opting ‘transactional’ leadership. But women get involved with subordinates and encourages them to attain a broader organizational goal by ascribing their personal powerful traits in their areas of interest thereby opting a ‘transformational’ leadership. The women with ‘transformational’ leadership skill will find time to make interactions with subordinates. This in turn creates a positive belief among the employees towards the organization. This makes employees also to contribute their thoughts thus making them feel powerful and important in the organization. The result of this way of ‘transformational’ leadership is a win-win situation for employee as well as management. This new leadership style made Judy B Rosener to name it as ‘interactive leadership’. This leadership style involves accelerating situations that can make the employee think and feels good about their own work, which in turn make them perform best in the organization. Employees and subordinates will be encouraged to make suggestions regarding the work, thereby creating a feel of their role of importance in the organization in this ‘interactive’ leadership style of management.
IWF Survey
International Women’s Forum has created a leadership foundation among the IWF members to perform a study on men and women leaders of the same age, occupation and education. The study shows that the income of women is high compared to men on adding up the household income even if both are earning same salary. Always female employee will be paid less than the male in the same grade. Women leaders prefer ‘transformational’ leadership style identifying them as feminine and enjoy more followership among their female subordinates. Conflict in both work and home will be complicated in case of women with children when compared to men leading a family life. Women always used to interact with people like asking their employees before taking a decision and looks forward for others suggestions before getting into a conclusion. This sort of participation in decision-making also ensures increasing support there by avoiding future oppositions. Group decision-making will avoid the risk of a single person managing a project as others can continue work even in his absence without wasting time. Women leaders are also conscious of the disadvantages related with the ‘participatory’ management style.
More time will take to reach a solution in an organization of workers without co-operation, which shows the inefficiency of the management. The views of sharing powers make co-workers believe that they are trusted and their ideas are respected. The frankness and open-mindedness of employers towards employees will make them more efficient workers. Employees want themselves to be treated as individuals capable of knowing company related matters that would make them to be more responsible. This interaction method helps leaders to hear about problems earlier than before it burst out. Sharing information can build a feeling of self-worth in co-workers that in turn does not develop inferiority in them. Good work should always be uplifted in front of others and is the true recognition for their good work. By this method, employees can be infused with energy and even make boring jobs contribute lot in a celebrity business.
Women as Interactive Leader
Mostly, women have been found to be cooperative, emotional, supportive and vulnerable in any organization. This is a good explanation on why women today are more accepted to be interactive leaders than men. Women developed their skills and styles taking long years. Socialization is the root of ‘interactive’ leadership in which women are on top is beneficial to all organizations. Women leaders believe that allowing employees to get actively involved in work is a way of using their utmost contributions and human resources most effectively. Young talented professionals should be encouraged in the organization minding the fact that good performers have many employment options. Interactive leadership that wins co-operation has proved to be more effective and advantageous in many organizations. ‘Interactive’ leadership quality on being a female is not a fact anyway. The point is that women can very well adhere to the traditional corporate model as well. Now, large established organizations should have to develop their definition of effective leadership and newly recognized interactive leadership style for reaching their goal rather than the command-and-control style has been for decades.