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Understanding Leadership Differences for Workplace Success

Featured Author:

Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith

Law Enforcement Career Expert Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith is a 29-year veteran of a large Chicago suburban police department and has held positions in patrol, investigations, narcotics, juvenile, crime prevention, hostage negotiation and field training. As a sergeant, she supervised her department’s K-9 Unit, served as a field training sergeant, recruitment team sergeant, bike patrol coordinator, and supervisor of the Community Education/Crime Prevention Unit. As a patrol sergeant, Betsy served on the Elderly Services Team, the Crisis Intervention Team, and as a supervisory member of the Honor Guard. Betsy served as a host and content expert for the Law Enforcement Television Network (LETN) from 1999 – 2003. A graduate of the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety’s School of Staff and Command, Betsy writes for numerous law enforcement and government publications and has been an instructor for the Calibre Press “Street Survival” seminar since 2003. She also manages and instructs for Dave Smith & Associates, a law enforcement training and consulting company based in Illinois and is featured in the Biography channel’s new reality show “Female Forces.” Together with her husband, Dave “JD Buck Savage” Smith, she trains law enforcement personnel throughout the United States and Canada.

More articles from this author:

• How to Survive a Male-Dominated Workplace
• In Defense of Armed Citizens

Here’s a shocker: men and women are different! This is something we all recognize (and maybe even revel in) when it comes to our personal lives, but at work, we’re not even supposed to talk about this obvious fact, much less admit it and try to do something about it.

As women continue to move into and maintain managerial positions in the workplace, we need to realize that true understanding of sex-based differences can make or break our success as a leader. Here are five facts to consider if you are (or want to become) a female manager:

• Sex Differences Start in the Brain. Scientists like Dr. Louann Brizendine (author of the Female Brain and the newly released The Male Brain) and researchers like Stephen E. Rhodes (author of Taking Sex Differences Seriously) are leading the charge when it comes to using fact-based brain function studies to understand why men and women may act differently in the workplace. Brain functions such as white/gray matter ratios, verbal-emotive brain centers, and task-based blood flow differences in male and female brains are just a few of the reasons men and women may approach a task, a project and maybe even a position so very differently.

• Female Leaders Tend to Be More Interactive. Because our brains are “hard-wired” to be connected to others and to try and gain consensus in various situations, female managers will engage in extended interactions with colleagues and subordinates alike, especially when working on an important project. This can be potentially frustrating for male managers involved in the same project because men tend to be more “transactional” in their interactions. In other words, a man may think “I’m working with these people toward a specific goal, let’s get to it.” Once that task is complete, male managers tend to go back to a more solitary task until the need for other people arises again, whereas the women will want to stay connected, especially if the project was a successful one.

• Male Leaders Tend to be “Prescriptive.” In my law enforcement career, one of the things I appreciated as a new employee was the direct nature of male supervision. As a young patrol officer, I had no problem with my boss issuing me specific orders; “we need to do this and do that.” Knowing exactly what was expected of me was somewhat comforting in the uncertain world of street police work. However, years later I became the supervisor of one of the largest units in the agency, Community Education and Crime Prevention, and I unknowingly used the more female management tendency of “descriptive leadership” to take a somewhat frustrated group of professionals and help them regain their sense of mission and control by describing to them what we needed to accomplish and allowing them to come up with the game plan. This was seen by some of my male counterparts as giving my employees “too much freedom,” which made me took weak in their eyes. Fortunately for me and my team, I’d been a supervisor long enough to trust my own instincts and our unit ended up becoming extremely successful.

• Female Leaders Tend Toward “Inductive” Problem Solving. Women like to hear differing viewpoints and ideas, even if those ideas do not mesh with their own. Because of the larger connection between the right and left hemispheres of the brain (this bridge is called the “corpus callosum”) women are not spending as much time guessing who is trying to help them and who may be trying to undermine them; they tend to trust their instincts when it comes to workplace relationships and they feel confident that if an idea “feels” right, it will probably work. On the contrary, men are more “deductive” in their problem solving. They like taking risks and have no problem doing so, but they also like to seek out solid data and proof that the idea being presented will absolutely work. Men expect to be challenged and they aren’t insulted by it; instead they arm themselves with the facts and move forward.

• There Are Exceptions to Every Rule! Neither gender thinks nor acts the same in every situation; if we did, think how boring and predictable life would be! In their breakthrough management book Leadership and the Sexes, Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis talk about using “gender intelligence” in the workplace to learn about differences, improve communication, and actually help each other succeed. If you’re a woman who likes to feel personally connected to your team or appreciates frequent group input then go for it! But if you’ve had real success with a more “male” style of management, then stick with what works best for you and your team.

Individual leaders (or future ones) need to examine their own style, see what’s been successful and what needs improvement, and then move forward to further their own skills as a true “leader,” not just as “the boss.” Gender plays a huge role in our work lives, and it’s time to admit, embrace, and study our differences (and our similarities!) to make the workplace more productive, more balanced and more enjoyable.

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