Great article Sylvia,

I have studied leadership for years. Taking courses, reading everything possible about the subject, attending seminars, and picking the brains of business leaders. Your post touches upon everything I have learned.

There seems to be an intangible psychological bias that our emotions drive towards how we feel about male and female leaders actions. The origin of the bias is difficult to pinpoint. I would guess that it is a culmination of up-bringing, mass media, innate human behavioral responses, and other types of "Social Contamination". I believe emotional intelligence (EQ) training is critical in helping people realize, evaluate, and ponder the stimuli behind our emotions and the subsequent biases that drive them.

I just attended a seminar by a company called The Open Organization http://www.theopenorganization.com/ and they have developed a system based on emotional intelligence skills that today’s leaders and organizations must have. They do a great job at taking it one step further, by catering some of their seminars towards female executives and women in business.

I think their system provides a solid foundation to understanding and recognizing these biases and emotional triggers.

Thanks again Syliva

Yet another example of political correctness gone array. The author and others would lead us to believe that the problem is not with Hillary, but with us; the under educated masses. The truth is much simpler than what the author reports – we don’t like Hillary because she tries too hard to act like a man. The key word here is “act”. There are plenty of strong women out there who earn the respect of the masses, the best example that I can think of is Condoleezza Rice. She is strong minded, direct, intelligent and self confident without having to act masculine. Hillary has many of the same traits, but she is continually in acting mode – “close to tears (think New Hampshire) or on the brink of throwing in the towel (think the closing moments of the Texas debate)”. She is not genuine, whether she is acting diminutive or authoritive and this is what turns off the masses. We can see through her manipulative posturing and it bothers us.

I have personally experienced gender biases when it comes to leaders likeability. Yes, there are issues with the male stereotypes of leadership. But more recently I've come up against something even more sinister... female competition!

Whether it's jealousy, dislike or simply the sniff of a counterpart less inclined to bit back than the boys on the team, there's something that drives certain women to set against their female peers.

This of course will be nothing new to many women at the top. I've lived in denial of this phenomenon for years, only to recently have my first encounter of this kind and I now know it's a very real issue.

It seems, when it comes to likeability, the blokes are often easier to please than my female colleagues.

Denise Manka of NC spoke on this topic in a leadership conference held in Raleigh, NC, offered great motivation to today's young women, and had a ton of data to back up the growth in the state of NC on women in leadership roles. I wish she would write a motivational book.
Hats off!