Do Women Make Better Thought Leaders?

via Sam Lawrence

I came across an interesting article this weekend from Management-Issues Ltd on women and leadership that made me wonder how gender roles play out in thought leadership marketing. It’s never enough to have just one leader at the top of an organization in the role of thought leadership, but rather to build the culture of the entire team to be thought leaders. That said, there were a few interesting quotes based on some recent research from the UK division of Hudson Global Resources.

An analysis of assessments and psychometric testing of more than 65,000 people by management consultancy Hudson has concluded that the innate ability of many women to be altruistic, people-oriented, co-operative and open lends themselves much better to leading modern-day organisations.

Wow! Sounds to me like some of the key personal criteria that make up the modern thought leader Transparency, ability to cooperate, openness and of course, my favorite and most sought after trait – altruism!

There were a couple of additional zingers that got me thinking about women vs. men as thought leaders.  Namely, the long term vs. short term view of things.  In the short term, companies go with what they know, often with compete disregard for what could be a better long term option.  Thought leadership is a long-term strategy, but it’s hard to see the path for a long term strategy when we’re so mired in the short-term issues of the day.  

Karen Scott, managing director of Hudson UK, said: “We are concerned that companies might adopt a short-term view that reinforces the hierarchy of men over women in their efforts to succeed during a recession.

Exactly.  Even if women are the better thought leaders, their male counterparts may likely get the nod in the belt-tightening economy where we’re all scrambling for short-term answers and forgoing the long-term growth & sustainability of the enterprise.  Say nothing for ethics, altruism and the other durable factors that make up the greatest companies.

However, I see hope, and it’s in the next generation of thought leaders.  In fact, I’ve always maintained that thought leadership marketing is never an ‘at the top’ thing but a ‘complete culture’ thing.  You need to have the entire organization involved at some level, or the leading thoughts, point of view and uniqueness leave when the execs shut the door on the way out.  It’s encouraging then to see that from the aforementioned study, that younger women are focused, albeit unknowingly (maybe, or maybe not?) on the building blocks of thought leadership while more experienced female employees have graduated to leveraging their openness and thought leadership.

Younger female leaders appeared to focus much more on altruism, people orientation and cooperation, while more experienced female leaders tended to concentrate on openness and thought leadership.

All that said, this is some very encouraging news.  In fact, I came across a great post on some of the most revered thought leaders in the social media space from Sam Lawrence that might interest you.

What’s your take?  Where do women fit in the landscape of thougth leadership marketing?