The case for gender-specific leadership development

In a Training Zone article, Emma Jones, director of private sector business at change management and leadership consultancy SFL, explains why she believes women and men benefit from different development styles.

According to Emma: “In my experience, the needs of female executives are different to those of men. This is because of the variation in self-awareness and emotional intelligence between the genders.”

To support her argument, she cites research by Harvard Business School into the emotional intelligence levels of both female and male leaders which found that women have a higher level of emotional intelligence. According to Jones: “This alone would support the argument that development should be different for female employees.”

Another reason she gives is that: “Arguably, many female executives also have emotional issues to deal with such as parenting, as well as professional challenges”. To deal with this, she recommends open courses or workshops which will give female executives the opportunity to share their experiences of dealing with these challenges and a chance to build supportive networks.

Source: Training Zone