Professor of CEIBS, Li Xiujuan, conducted a 360-degree analysis of leadership competency among 1,379 senior managers of Chinese companies over the past three years. The analysis found that "men seem to have greater leadership potential and competence than women" is a prejudice, and Chinese women have greater leadership than thought.

“Over the past three years, we invited 1379 senior managers of Chinese enterprises, as well as their supervisors, peers and subordinates, to conduct a comprehensive assessment of their leadership competency. The 360-leadership feedback can evaluate leaders from different perspectives. This assessment divides leadership competency into six dimensions of specific leadership skills, including: strategic decision-making ability, communication and coordination ability, promotion and execution ability, innovation ability, team leadership, integrity and responsibility, and self-management (table 1). The managers surveyed were EMBA students from a Chinese business school, most of whom were top management or heads of various functional departments. The respondents were distributed among various sectors, including manufacturing (22.8%), IT (19.8%), finance (13.6%), construction real estate (10.2%), retail (6.8%), etc. In terms of the sex ratio, male respondents accounted for 74% while female respondents were 26%”

Table 1. Six Dimensions of Specific Leadership Skills

Women are more honest and responsible, and men are more strategic

Female leaders have obvious advantages in the dimension of "integrity, responsibility and self-management". This is reflected in the fact that female leaders hold themselves to higher moral standards even under pressure. They don't make promises they can't keep easily, and when they make mistakes, women are good at summarizing themselves and taking responsibility. This is consistent with the physical and psychological characteristics of women, women born with the characteristics of maternal love and selfless. When this trait is brought to leadership work, women show a stronger sense of responsibility and a more conscientious work style. At the same time, women often have a stronger sense of honor and disgrace, which makes women more demanding of themselves, more cautious in their work, and constantly improve themselves.

Women also scored slightly higher than men on "team leadership" and "innovation". This means that female leaders can organize team work more effectively, motivate different types of team members more effectively, and provide reasonable feedback and coaching to subordinates. At the same time, female leaders are more willing to explore new working methods, and are good at seeking support and eliminating confrontation in the process of change. We attribute this strength of female leaders to their flexible leadership styles. Flexible leadership style enables women to pay more attention to employee development, have stronger empathy for team members and genuinely care about others' feelings. They are more willing to create a good team atmosphere, play the role of glue in the team. At the same time, this leadership style also makes women more tolerant of different ideas and novel things. During the process of change, female leaders will be more patient in communicating with the opponents, thus gaining their support.

But women are significantly less able than male leaders to make strategic decisions. Women pay more attention to day-to-day details than male leaders. To some extent, this limits women's attention to the macro environment and long-term goals. Analyzing macroeconomic policy environment, observing industrial opportunities and threats, and grasping the development direction of enterprises are the most important abilities for strategic decision makers. Men, by contrast, are more logical and competitive, and are better able to make high-quality decisions based on analysis of the macro environment and data.

Somewhat surprisingly, female leaders are slightly less skilled at communicating and coordinating than men. This may be because leaders must be strong communicators and sometimes have to fight back in a business environment. But when female leaders are strong, they are often perceived as aggressive, which goes against the traditional image of femininity. Whereas when male leaders show their tough side, it is generally seen as positive.

Women are better at risk control and men are better at strategic investing

Women are more likely considered as effective leaders in functional systems such as risk control and finance. This is inseparable from the integrity, responsibility and conscientiousness of female leaders. In addition, women's leadership competence in IT, research and development modules, which are generally considered to be more male-dominated, is also slightly higher than men's, which is consistent with women's stronger ability to encourage innovation and accept new things. When it comes to strategic investments, women leaders are slightly less competent than men. It also shows that women need to be more sensitive to changes in the industry and make strategic decisions. Surprisingly, in the human resources sector, where there are relatively more women, female leaders are less competent than men. This may be because the current human resources need to be closer to business units and production units, and they need to have stronger business knowledge and strategic talent layout perspective, while women engaged in human resources may lack strategic thoughts.

The lack of women in executive positions

While women and men have distinct strengths in key leadership competencies, the proportion of women on corporate boards or in top management remains small. According to the CS Gender 3000 report released by Credit Suisse in October 2019, the proportion of female board members in Chinese companies is only 11%, which is far below the global average of 20.6%. Only 6% of Chinese companies surveyed were with female CEOs. Women also make up only 15% in the core management.

According to the data of 360 leadership competency, one of the reasons why women are less likely to join the board of directors and the core management may be that women lack the ability to make strategic decisions. The top management team of an enterprise needs to have a strong holistic view, grasp the development direction and make effective strategic decisions by analyzing the internal and external environment and logical reasoning of the enterprise. However, women tend to be less focused on macroeconomic policy, less competitive and more emotional in making decisions.

Gender biases also influence women's representation on boards or core management teams

Women are more likely to be considered as "facilitators". For a long time, society has had different expectations of gender roles for men and women. The soft qualities that women possess, including nurturing, kindness, obedience and humility, are generally considered to be the attributes of followers or helpers. The rigid qualities of men, such as independence, ambition, self-confidence and decisiveness, are the characteristics of a leader. Different social expectations of male and female roles also lead to different social activities of male and female.

Humility brings a psychological ceiling. Women tend to be humble and cautious, which can also make them appear less confident in the workplace. Women have lower levels of confidence in the workplace than men, according to research by the Harvard business review. Moreover, the difference in confidence level between men and women is obvious in the early stage of their careers. This low level of confidence and humility also makes women more "stable" in their promotion. Women rarely seek to advance to higher leadership positions if they are not fully equipped to do so. Men, in contrast, sometimes show overconfidence that they can quickly learn and improve in a new role and acquire skills they lack to qualify for higher leadership positions.

There is still a bias when it comes to choosing leaders: since most of the top management are still male, the criteria and power to move up the corporate ladder are often in the hands of male executives. For personal and social reasons, companies are more likely to choose men when choosing successors or promoting subordinates. Moreover, most companies still seem oblivious to the benefits of female leadership. Although many studies have confirmed that gender-neutral differentiation among executive teams is beneficial to a company's business performance. But according to the women, leadership, and the paradox of priorities survey released in March by the IBM institute for business value, only 12% of organizations surveyed now make equal promotion for women a formal corporate policy and work hard to implement it.

The advantages of females` leadership

In fact, numerous researches have shown that when women leaders join executive teams can bring real value to the organization. Companies with a high proportion of female leaders in the executive team perform better than those with a low proportion of female leaders. For example, according to Credit Suisse's CS Gender 3000 report, companies where female leaders make up a larger portion of the executive team also perform better in the stock market. Moreover, data over the past decade show that the positive relationship is becoming increasingly clear. In other words, companies with a low proportion of female leaders in their executive teams have a growing gap in their performance in the capital markets compared with those with a high proportion of female leaders.

In addition, the IBM value institute report refers to companies that value female leadership and have implemented equal promotion as "first mover". These companies have a greater proportion of female managers or leaders at all levels of management and tend to have greater profitability and faster revenue growth.

According to our findings, there are several areas where women leaders who want to move into the top management team can make more efforts

Female managers should consciously strengthen their strategic decision-making ability to make up for the shortcomings of leadership competence. As shown by 360 leadership competency analysis, women are weaker than men in strategic decision-making, which is the most indispensable ability of top leaders. To be specific, women should pay attention to developing their own concept of the big picture and insight, pay attention to the changes in the economic policy situation, and learn to see the development of enterprises in a more macro and long-term perspective. At the same time, women should exercise their ability of rational analysis and logical reasoning, learn how to overcome the emotional impulse when making decisions, and ensure the quality of decisions.

Women should show more confidence and work to overcome their limitations. Fear and lack of confidence are among the main reasons why women managers struggle to make it to the top. Sheryl Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and the world's most prominent business woman. In her book "lean in" she encourages women to "sit at the table" to express themselves more actively, to engage in conversations and discussions, and to learn to push for higher positions and salaries. When women recognize their own potential and are more confident in their abilities, they are more likely to be part of the company's core management team.

The organization should also actively establish a gender-equal career environment, create equal promotion opportunities for men and women, encourage female leaders to pursue higher career development, and provide corresponding career guidance. When women enter and play their strengths and roles on top management teams, organizations will naturally reap the rewards they deserve.