Incompetence in Leadership

A couple of days ago the Harvard Business Review released a post on their blog that I thought, at first glance, I would likely approve of. The idea behind the article is this: while some people may argue that women are underrepresented in leadership because of disinterest, lack of talent, or an impenetrable glass ceiling (depending on one's political leanings), the actual reason is more to do with our culture attributing symptoms of "hubris" more commonly seen in men to good leadership, when this is often false in practice.

Obviously the topic of women at work continues to be something of a hot button issue. To me, the idea that we still need to have discussions on the skills and roles of men versus those of women is as ridiculous as suggesting that different skin tones or musical preference somehow impacts one's ability to be productive at work, but that's not the point being made here.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici
/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The article is very specific in targeting research that suggests that while the people who typically get promoted are consistent with people with personality disorders such as narcissism or psychopathy (in fact, there have been several articles over the years that state in no uncertain terms that high functioning psychopaths perform disproportionately well in business), those are not the best types of leaders. Of course, the author then makes the connection that women tend to exhibit these types of destructive personality traits less often than men and as a result are overlooked when promotion time comes around.

Here's my issue with the thesis of the article. If the article merely said that there are traits that get one promoted and traits that make one a good leader, that the two tended to be polar opposites, and that we as a culture need to shift away from overconfident, self promoting jerks as "leaders", I would be in complete agreement. But he doesn't. The author makes the next leap that women, naturally more sensitive and humble, therefore make better leaders.

As a feminist, the suggestion one sex is inherently better than the other immediately puts me on guard. No where in the article is it mentioned that there are certainly large amounts of sensitive, humble, well reasoned men who too are overlooked during promotion time.

We have a strange, somewhat warped view of what makes a good leader. This is absolutely true. The type of person that often reaches management levels are those that self promote and are in general more concerned with their personal success than that of the company they work at. However, and this is a substantial however, there are plenty of excellent managers out there, both men and women, and not all of them are the same because different traits will serve different people and different situations, you guessed it, differently.

Rather than making blanket statements about how one gender does outperforms the other in some way or another (and at least the author made sure to note that whether this is by nature or nurture is unknown), why don't we talk about what qualities we want in our leaders and how to best fill the seats with those people? Women and visible minorities (every culture has their own group of underrepresented people) are woefully lacking in management, yes.

The solution however, isn't to say that white men are simply worse leaders, it is to create holes in that ever present glass ceiling through mentorship programs, social programs that help fill the gaps in cultural expectations (such as child care or local experience), and moving, as a society, towards a culture where aggression or cockiness aren't considered a man's domain, just a jerk's, because they come in all shapes and sizes, and most should never be in charge of anything.