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| Role of leadership and Covid-19 | | |
Dr. Rajkumar Singh
Leaders across the globe are looking at the same facts: An invisible and dangerous enemy was fast approaching. COVID-19 was highly contagious, unpredictable, and deadly, even with an aggressive public policy response and as such leaders of cities, states and countries faced an unprecedented test. In some ways, this moment in history offers a fascinating and real-time opportunity to understand the consequences of leadership decisions in a high-stakes situation. It all comes down to when governments enforced physical distancing. So many women acted first—and made the bold and unpopular call to shut down life as we knew it in the face of a truly invisible enemy—that I wanted to understand what we could all learn beyond the usual tropes of women being more emotionally intelligent and motherly. I didn’t think this could be entirely chalked up to their people skills, ability to engender trust and communicate empathetically. In a strange way the double standard for women, while unfair, also means they are more likely to be well-rounded leaders. Women have to cultivate “both the more ‘traditional male’ qualities and ‘traditional female’ qualities.” Having a diverse repertoire of leadership strategies has clearly served women well in leading through this current crisis. Men are, in fact, overconfident, and it creates blind spots in how they lead. They are also much more likely to lead by control and corrective action. Women are more likely to cultivate a diverse set of advisors and a wide network to help them succeed. Women are more likely to pay top-dollar for advice and to follow it.
Mixed qualities of men and women
If you really want to understand an apples-to-apples comparison of whether or not communities have been effective in slowing the spread, you have to look at three numbers- a healthcare executive with 25 years in infectious disease control and 19 years in supply chain and emergency management, the number of new cases per week, the number of cases per 100,000 people, and the rate at which number of cases per capita doubles. It turns out that when we look at the data that way, three factors emerge as having a significant impact on the spread of the disease, and ultimately deaths: population density, exposure to those who traveled, and the date when things were shut down. The first two cannot really be influenced by a leader, but the shut-down date is directly related to actions taken by leaders.
Because of the implicit biases that we’ve all developed due to the profound lack of women in charge, female CEOs experience “benevolent sexism” every day. For example, governing boards are more likely to give advice to female CEOs and the media is more prone to use derogatory language to describe their leadership moves even when they are identical to their male counterparts. We are accustomed to hearing that women are more other-directed and emotionally intelligent, which is actually proven in the research. But, it turns out women are just as good and sometimes better at some of what we think of as male qualities, like being decisive and making tough calls. But, several experts emphasized that we should not take such research findings to mean women are necessarily more other-directed or lacking in confidence than men. Female leaders are more likely to be blamed if decisions are unpopular or ineffective. They are also questioned and second-guessed more frequently. For these reasons, female leaders know they need more “cover” than men. The instinct to seek advice and listen isn’t entirely because of the need for input, it’s also because people are more likely to accept decisions from women when they don’t stand alone. .Regardless of the reason, the ability to know what you don’t know and to listen to people with expert knowledge has clearly served women well right now. Several trailblazing women have indeed explicitly mentioned listening to experts now and as they manage the next phase. The only way to save lives is to skillfully act upon the advice of those who truly know the evolving science.
Organisational qualities of women leadership
Female leaders rank higher not just on people-orientation, but also on vision-setting Many studies have shown that women are, indeed, more focused on building community and teams. A study report pinpointed the essential characteristics of leadership and set out to determine the tendencies of men and women under normal circumstances, and in times of crisis. One finding: In fact, women are indeed more “people-oriented”—and spend more time developing and coaching other leaders in their organization. Women struggle when it comes to negotiating for themselves on topics such as salary and career advancement. But, they excel when they negotiate on behalf of the “general welfare” or the “common good.” Several of the experts report pointed out that it is impossible to know if women are naturally more community-minded or if they have been socialized to know what society expects of them and what is required of them to lead. Either way, unleashing collective potential is a key leadership skill. And thus, public is more willing to accept women as leaders in the context of health and taking care of people. Women tended to display two things during and after a crisis. The first was “expectations and rewards”: defining roles, clarifying expectations, and rewarding achievement targets. The second was “inspiration”: offering a compelling vision of the future and an optimistic implementation plan.
Score of women in leadership
Women are also as decisive as men, “despite stereotypes otherwise.” Women also score higher than men on “task orientation” and in solving problems in creative and flexible ways. In short, women possess the qualities of transformational leaders—vision, inspiration, direction-setting and out-of-the-box thinking—though so much of even the recent press has focused on the softer skills of how they lead. Being other-directed and feeling a sense of commitment to the common good has likely been a key driver in women’s willingness to be out front during this crisis but people have also been impressed with the competence and courage so many female leaders have displayed. Female leaders see and manage risk differently than their male counterparts. A famous study in 1994 made waves by identifying what is now referred to as the “white male effect.” It turns out that white men perceive the risks of health and technology hazards as low compared to women and people of colour. In general, women, people of colour, the disabled wake up to risk everyday so they have to see it. Women are at risk everyday so we see it differently, assess it differently, and act in the face of it differently.
The ultimate irony in all of the research it was found that women are more likely to get their shot at being the big boss when there is a crisis. They are also more likely to be blamed for the crisis and to be criticized if there are negative consequences during a crisis. We also know from research that women are less driven by self-interest—but also maybe they know they have less to lose. It has me wondering if women, consciously or unconsciously, know they can’t win in the court of public opinion, and this frees them up to do the right thing. Even during the current pandemic, women are doing well during this crisis because what they are doing—negotiating for the common good—is aligned with what women do socially and what people expect from them. |
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