Is the weaker sex actually weak?!!?

Why do women consistently outperform men at management? What makes women more successful when it comes to handling managerial activities?

Well, even though I believe that the success strategies are not different for women or men, I also believe that women do have traits that help them in any walk of life. Granted both men and women cannot taste success until they slog, put in late hours, constantly show a marked improvement in their career but the way these two halves of our society are reared makes them two different kind of individuals’ altogether. From a very early age, a woman is gifted with dolls. She is told to take care of them, attend to them, and care for them. From that stage, she assumes the role of a caretaker a giver. It builds in her the requisite characteristics that can help her work better. She learns to care, make friends and use her intuition to protect them from danger.

Multi-tasking

Women are known for juggling many tasks at the same time and still producing excellent results. Indeed Mom could make curry, listen to what Dad had to say about his day at work, call out Raghu to stop playing and come over and finish his homework while listening to me reciting the 11-table(11 ones are 11, 11 twos are twenty two…) – all at the same time. Without frowning without making it all seem like a tough job. Men usually have more trouble with this multitasking thing; missing many opportunities coz they are busy pursuing something else. A man going through a break-up is far more likely to mess up his appraisal than his ex-girl friend who can miraculously come out with a better grading in spite of crying through it all…

The Gut Factor

The most powerful advantage that women have is the development of the "intuition muscle" - following their gut instinct. Woman’s instinct. As Dan Brown put in reverence of the Sacred Feminine. Someone who doesn't listen to his inner voice and waits for perfect timing or a logical explanation of why he should start a business usually will never make that start.

The ability to connect

Women love to have a support group at work and at their personal lives. As a result she finds it easier to ask for help in her businesses. Actually, she focuses a lot on activities that can find the appropriate resources to help her out. (See Networking) Men, in contrast, sometimes wait too long before asking for help and this can often cost them heavily. Help delayed is often help denied. And no help is forthcoming if one doesn’t explicitly seek it. Especially in a corporate environment where everyone has his/her hands full anyways.

Patience/Endurance

This is an extremely important attribute for being successful. Women know naturally that you must wait in order to receive positive outcomes. Basic life processes like the menstruation cycle, pregnancy etc teach her the virtue of being able to bear it all coz it is needed. Whatever must be must be!

Branding and marketing

With all the people telling them all the time about how simple life is if they take care of how they look or how well groomed they are – Well, life is all about branding as far as women are concerned. They are told that is how it works and maybe that is true as well. Women are natural marketers. They are so passionate and enthusiastic about what they choose to do that they just do not stop talking about it. They don't forget to emphasize the benefits of their services to their potential customers. They understand how to accentuate the positive.

Networking

Women are real professionals at using their contacts. They tend to create new contacts and friendships that get them wherever they will to go. Older contacts are not erased from memory neither from phone books. Many of the women I know have maintained contacts with their friends’ right from their kindergarten to colleges. Imagine the connections and the bonds that are forged in that case. Chances of finding a successful friend – someone who can pull you and your business up will automatically shoot up if the people pool of yours is voluminous. Period!

But nothing in life can be perfect, right? If women are endowed with so many biological and psychological advantages a few disadvantages too have to exist. Well, they do!

The struggle to balance one's personal life, marriage and child-rearing with a busy work schedule, being in the center of attraction for all the wrong reasons(Men will be men after all!), the inherent feeling of guilt for having neglected the family in course of attending to the career pursuits, struggle for recognition as an individual and an independent person in a male dominated corporate world, the fight to get the right further education and a career to name a few. Women, still today, get paid less and comprise a disproportionately small percentage of managerial and executive positions coz the men (who are also the bosses) feel that when the stand - off between the family and work does come, women will still choose to attend to her family, etc.

As far as I have seen life, with a few exceptions, most of the men at my workplace are ok. But some chauvinists will always be around. For them women are and will always be the weaker sex. Fragile, demure, incapable of handling responsibilities in the big bad jungle that is the corporate world. One example at IDRBT comes to my mind on this occasion. We had this paper presentation and this gentleman was giving a dissertation on Capital Markets, which by and large is considered as men’s business. When the Q&A session happened and I asked questions that kind of put the man in question in kind of a tight spot. I remember at one particular point of contention he blurted out "You do not understand. Girls don’t know how exactly the financial institutions work"

Sigh! Men will be men after all…