The Sunday Mail
Women & Leadership
Maggie Mzumara
POST Covid-19, it is going to be critical for organisations to make deliberate efforts to include, acknowledge and harness the components, qualities and strengths that women leaders bring to the table.
Recovering from the economic as well as social impacts of the coronavirus pandemic is going to be a mammoth task for many, if not all organisations. Covid-19 represents a threat to companies.
The economic costs of the pandemic, including the lockdown initiatives and protocols contained therein, for most entities, could leave them on the brink of collapse.
Some may actually not be able to survive beyond the pandemic.
Those that do, will need intensive rescue and recovery measures in order to get back on their feet.
An intricate maze
Navigating that post Covid-19 terrain is going to be an intricate maze of losses, challenges and risks, which can only benefit from the harnessing of inclusive and transformative leadership.
The kind that takes into account all competent leadership from both sides of the gender divide. Both male and female leadership can and will put organisations in better stead. Those companies that will exclude and preclude women leaders in their midst will do themselves a disservice.
Female leader advantage post Covid-19
What do female leaders bring to the post Covid-19 table?
The ability by women, as established in several researches including the McKinsey & Company survey of 2009, whose findings are clearly captured in their publication Women Matter, to present an inspiring vision of the future and to create optimism around its implementation, is going to be a crucial requisite in navigating the depressed operating environment.
As part of stimulating their businesses and attendant processes, organisations will need to review their visions and missions, as well as their business models and strategies, and weigh all of that against their resource base and re-rally a workforce around the same.
Re-motivation will be needed. So will re-engineering of certain processes and calibrating certain critical areas including targets and key result areas.
All that will be necessary among many other needs and efforts at rebuilding and restoring company morale, productivity and profitability, while at the same time making up, where possible, for losses incurred during lockdowns.
Keen sense and ability to inspire
To regain momentum while addressing all of that, organisations will need a keen sense of inspiring the workforce and other stakeholders.
If this is a forte of women leaders, as research has proven, why not engage them fully, where that leadership is available. Where it is not, why not co-opt it? Women give a competitive edge to organisations they are a part of. Results of the 2009 McKinsey & Company global survey of almost 800 business leaders showed that those companies with at least three female executives performed better in a number of indicators than those without.
Leadership behaviours more frequently adopted by women leaders are critical to navigating through crises and beyond.
By and large, research has found that such lauded behaviours include but are not limited to the following: inspiring leadership, intellectually-stimulating, participative decision-making, people development, role modelling and high emotional intelligence in so far as they demonstrate more empathy with others.
Transformational dimension of leadership
The transformational dimension of leadership, as noted earlier, will be quite key going forth.
A 2003 study by Alice Eagly, Mary Johannesen-Schmidt and Marloes van Engen on meta-analysis of 45 studies of transformational, transactional and laissez faire leadership styles, found that female leaders were more transformational than male leaders.
In 2004, another scholar, Powell, added his weight to the above, saying: “When female leaders use transformational leadership they will be evaluated more favourably than male leaders.”
The reason behind this is that transformational leadership is more associated with feminine than masculine gender stereotypes.
Descriptive statistics
According to Bernard Bass, transformational leaders demonstrate four factors, which are: individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and idealised influence.
Repeatedly, descriptive statistics have revealed that women have high idealised influence, inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation.
Stereotypically speaking, women are the caregivers, supporters, nurturers, mentors of others — in this case the workforce, all of which is congruent to factors discussed above.
These characteristics place women in good stead to help empower, encourage and develop staff and have them drawing from the potential and contributing more effectively to their organisations.
Which is what this article is underlining as critical in the business arena post Covid-19.
Makes business sense
If this is not a speciality for women, then I do not know what is. And post Covid-19, the same can be harnessed at executive tables for the stimulation of business and recovery of organisations all around us. It makes business sense to take advantage of this. Why? Because it is evidence-based!
Maggie Mzumara is a leadership, communication and media strategist as well as corporate trainer. She is a strong advocate for women leadership and is founder of Success in Stilettos (SiS), a leadership development platform for women. She can be reached on [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> or followed on Twitter @magsmzumara
