WHY ARE WOMEN BETTER THAN MEN

INTRODUCTION

Good Morning Everyone! We are from the group 4. Barack Obama once said that " If women ran every
country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes."
According to a Pew Research Center report on what makes a good leader, qualities such as honesty,
intelligence, compassion and innovation rank quite high on the rating scale. When comparing these traits
between men and women, women scored higher in most of these categories. A study conducted by Dr.
Alice Eagly, a scholar on the topic of women's leadership found that women are better leaders as women
tend to be transformational leaders — meaning they seek to develop others and listen more effectively,
in addition women generally think more outside-the box. Thus making women better leaders than men.

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Compared to male leaders, female leaders are more likely to attend to followers’ personal needs, be open
to new ideas and others’ opinions, and reward the satisfactory performance of followers in a consistent
manner. On the other hand, male leaders are statistically more likely to only stress meeting the standards,
wait until problems become severe before attending to them, and/or withdraw or be absent during
critical junctures.

Furthermore, studies show females are less narcissistic than males. Thus, female leaders tend to adopt a
democratic or participative style and a less autocratic or directive style than men. This study also points
out that the traditional gender stereotype that female leaders tend to focus more on interpersonal
aspects than task-oriented aspects of leadership does not hold up in the analyses.

Simply put, female leaders don’t emphasize the completion of tasks less and more on interpersonal
relationships than their male counterparts do.

If females are such great leaders, why are there still fewer female leaders across all levels and fields?

In one study conducted by the author of this article, female leaders were found to tend to underestimate
their leadership abilities in many areas. Therefore, they may be less confident when it comes to asking
for a raise or a promotion. Other social and cultural factors can also lead to such an outcome.
There have been a series of studies done to compare how men and women handle stress in difficult
situations. Neuroscience and neurobiology prove that women make better decisions under stress, due to
the way that we are designed as females. A study by the University of Southern California found that
under normal circumstances, men and women make decisions very similarly but under high-stress
situations, men tend to behave riskier — often causing a negative impact and costly outcomes. Men and
women experience stress differently, both physiologically and psychologically.
When both men and women experience high levels of stress, their cortisol increases. Research shows
that a woman’s brain can manage cortisol levels more effectively, meaning that it does significantly
impact the decision-making process.

Over the past decades, scientific studies have consistently shown that women tend to outperform men on
most of the key traits that make leaders more effective. For example, humility, self-awareness, self-
control, moral sensitivity, social skills, emotional intelligence, kindness, and a prosocial and moral
orientation are more likely to be found in women than men. Men score higher than women on the dark
side such as aggression, narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, which account for much of
the toxic and destructive behaviors displayed by powerful men
Narcissistic leaders are too focused on themselves to care about others, psychopathic leaders are cruel
and immoral, lack empathy, and engage in reckless risk-taking, and Machiavellian leaders will engage in
callous manipulation and exploit their charisma and social skills to take advantage of their followers and
subordinates. And of course, research shows that men have bigger egos, which may be one of the least
counterintuitive findings in the history of science.
All this may explain meta-analytic studies showing that, on average, women are more likely to lead
democratically, show transformational leadership, be a role model, listen to others and develop their
subordinates’ potential, and score higher on measures of leadership effectiveness As, Avivah
Wittenberg-Cox recently noted, “The mountain of evidence keeps growing. Women leaders outperform.
Especially during a crisis. Companies with more of them do better. Countries led by women are managing
the Covid crisis better than their male counterparts.”
An obvious question therefore arises: if women have more leadership potential, then why are they still
the minority group among leaders? Well, the answer is rather obvious: we don’t select leaders based on
their actual potential, talent, or competence. If we did, then we wouldn’t just have more women leaders,
but more female than male leaders. And if we did, then the average performance of leaders would not be
as poor as it is today. The painful truth is that feminism is a data-driven bias, whereas sexism is self-
destructive. This is why, according to McKinsey, the world’s GDP is $12 trillion lower today than it would
be if we advanced toward gender equality. According to the World Bank, gender inequality is costing us
$23,620 per person in lost earnings, and $160 trillion in human capital loss (twice the global GDP).
Our preferences are based on style rather than substance, so we pick individuals for leadership based on
their confidence rather than competence, charisma rather than humility, and narcissism rather than
integrity. For every Angela Merkel, there are many Silvio Berlusconis, Jair Bolsonaros, and Donald
Trumps. Not just in politics, but also in business, the typical leader is not known for their humility or
competence, but for arrogance and incompetence.
And as Unilever’s CHRO, Leena Nair, rightly asked: “What about the business case for men?” Since most
leaders are men, we are awash in data to answer this question: the fact that 87% of employees are not
engaged or disengaged at work, and that the number one reason for this is their boss, with 65-75% of
employees reporting that the worst part of their job is their boss; that roughly 1 in 2 people distrust their
leaders, and at least 50% (but probably more like 75%) of leaders will end up disappointing; that 65% of
leaders stress or alienate their employees; or that 70% of the population of the employees would be
happy to take a pay cut if someone would fire their boss
What would happen if we spent less time telling women to be more confident, and more time picking
leaders on actual competence? We would not just improve leadership quality, but also gender equality.
And in the process, we would make it a lot harder for narcissistic and psychopathic men to thrive. As
Bloomberg’s Sarah Green Carmichael noted, equality isn’t exceptional for women getting ahead, it is
incompetent men falling behind.