I am grieved by the news of another terrorist attack in Europe. I believe this is a symptom of a serious imbalance. It is a product of a culture that represses and covers its women – and so represses and dishonors all that is feminine. My commitment is redoubled – to do my small part in having people value both masculine and feminine, in themselves, in others, in our organizations and in our culture.
Recently at the end of a workshop, a participant said he understood that people, women particularly, need to shift to a masculine style to succeed. Than he asked, “We want workplace culture itself to shift and become more balanced, right?” He had summed up the purpose of my work. I want a world where masculine and feminine ways are modeled in leadership and valued in business cultures.
The topic of gender diversity has lots of facets – many sub-topics and applications. I am willing to put in the work to design many different workshops and speeches. All forward my mission – to help create a world where both masculine and feminine strengths are valued and leveraged – and my vision – a world where gender diversity is the norm and organizations thrive as men and women succeed and lead together.
In this guest blog, Rich Grenhart looks at the evolution of attitudes about gender relations. As we better understand the value of masculine and feminine approaches for both genders, we can observe and even affect the evolution of thinking. There are vestiges of the “might makes right” world of the caveman in businesses that value competition over collaboration. John Gerzema thinks it is time to have a balance of masculine and feminine ways of thinking and leading. Understanding that masculine and feminine qualities arise in both genders frees men to demonstrate feminine strengths and women to demonstrate masculine strengths. The pace of reaching gender equality has been too slow. We need to contribute to the evolution toward gender equity!
I recently read about a theory called “stereotype incongruity.” It means that stereotypes of leaders “match” stereotypes of men more closely than they do stereotypes of women. This kind of thinking is real; it is behind the gendered view of leadership. The thinking is flawed, first, because stereotypes are not true; many women fit masculine stereotypes. Second, it is flawed because the stereotype of leadership fails to recognize the value of feminine leadership strengths. I agree with John Gerzema that leaders today need to have both masculine and feminine strengths!
Fritjof Capra wrote in 1975 about the importance of valuing and balancing masculine and feminine ways. This year John Gerzema published The Athena Doctrine, demonstrating that business today needs leaders who balance both feminine and masculine forms of leadership. Gender diversity is good for the bottom line because it enables businesses to have a balance of both masculine and feminine strengths.
