The war of the sexes will probably never end, but in the last years, we have witnessed major changes in social attitudes towards women in the workforce and management positions. Six decades ago, a Gallup study showed that 66% of working adults preferred to work for a male manager and only 5% preferred a female boss.
Come modern times and another Gallup study, and the numbers may take us by surprise: 33% of adult respondents said they preferred a male boss and 20% answered they most definitely preferred a female manager. If you take a superficial look at the results, you might say that an increase from 5% to 20% in over sixty years is too little to actually mean something.
But this is where science comes in, together with more advanced statistics: ladies do make better employees and better managers for that matter. Don’t pop up the champagne yet, as the war is far from being over, but we can all celebrate a well-deserved victory: science is on our side with this one. This is why today we will take a look at the top three reasons why women make the better employees in any given company (as they already are excellent business team leaders).
1. Women learn better
Based on common sense and daily experience alone, parents of girls will tell you that girls performed better in school environments since early ages than boys did.
A study conducted at the University of Georgia and Columbia University showed that girls possess a set of traits that go beyond the realm of cognitive performances (attention, memory, etc.) and the realm of what we commonly call “intelligence.” Girls perform better in school and become better learners because of their attitude towards the act of learning.
In other words, girls, young and mature women present higher levels of learning eagerness, task persistence, learning independence, better work organization, flexibility and engagement with the topics learned.
Having a pro-active approach towards learning and being better at organizing, women tend to become better employees as they understand the tasks at hand faster. However, if you were a child prodigy in school, this doesn’t mean your traits and natural skills will hold forever if you don’t keep your edge.
Tips to keep in mind
- Engage in work-related and free time-related activities that you find challenging and spark your curiosity
- Avoid burn-out at work
- Learn new transferable skills
There are many things women do better than men at their job and being better learners is just the tip of the iceberg.
2. Women communicate better
The key pillars of good business and conscious capitalism seem to be emotional intelligence, empathy and proved communication skills. Women do indeed show higher levels on each of these traits, making them not only better employees but better managers as well.
Womens’ emotional skills also make them stay on top of their game when going through a hiring interview process. A study published by the University of Western Ontario found that women can better handle interview stress – which is a good predictor for more efficient workplace stress management. Against common misconception that women tend to freak out more than men in crisis situations, science shows that we fare far better during the actual event.
Factor in our better stress management capabilities with the fact that we can better communicate in all given circumstances and with all people and you will understand why major companies already turn women in flag carriers when it comes to sales, negotiations, PR, inter-department relationships and so on. Kip Tindell, CEO of the Container Store, explains the company’s wild success on the fact that 70% of the employees are women.
Being better listeners than men, women can and do change the game when it comes to managing customers, co-workers, and bosses and today many companies put on women’s’ shoulders sensitive tasks which include customer service, sales, business pitches and so on.
Tips to keep in mind
- No matter if you are focused on completing the best Walmart job application in history or your interview for a Fortune 500 company job, you need to both keep your cool beforehand and make the best use of your communication skills.
- There are plenty of ways to expand and increase your emotional intelligence, and you should train to become a better employee, negotiator, and manager.
3. Women are more engaged as employees and leaders
The Gallup study we mentioned earlier showed that women (due to their higher communication and emotional intelligence skills) fare far better than men as promoters of workplace engagement. Women encourage the professional and personal development of their co-workers and even their bosses. Subsequently, women’s higher engagement levels often lead to higher performing teams.
Also, the same study found that female employees working for a female manager are the most engaged workers of all workforce groups. Despite common prejudice, companies dominated by female workforce do better in terms of growth both internally and externally. As it was pointed out before, women co-workers are assets and not liabilities.
Tips to keep in mind
- Working with passion and fully engaging with your job seems quite hard in today’s economy, but it is not impossible. There are plenty of ways to keep your passion for work burning and instill it in your co-workers and managers as well.
- Stay inspired by female entrepreneurs and leaders who were once employees just like everybody else and adapt their teachings on perseverance, passion and personal motivation to your own professional and personal context.
These are just the top three reasons why women make better employees than men. Other ones are the fact that women are more patient, better motivators, show stronger business ethics and are better community builders.