Fox Small Business has an article detailing this conundrum and the research behind it online.

Without a doubt, these women and men represent a resiliency in the face of systems and situations that could wear anyone down.

During this week as the nation salutes the nursing profession, we’d all be well served if we took a few lessons from these professionals.

Speaking to 300 Directors of Nursing (DONs) from LifeCare Centers of America, I listened to their passion and concern for their patients. They tackled operational challenges, laughed with abandon at the Medical Director’s expense, and cheered wildly for winners of service awards.

The Strengths:

• Passion for the work
• Concern and care for the “customer”
• Ability to laugh at themselves and each other
• Support and celebration for the team.

With our hospice nurses, I observed the same thing. Their sensitivity, compassion, and unfailing spirits were hallmarked by the exact same strengths.

Here’s the point: if passion for your work has died – find something to rekindle it somewhere.  If customers and team members fill you with disdain or indifference, find a place where you can truly care about these two groups.  And if the last laugh you had was watching your handsome brother slip on a banana peel in front of the Homecoming queen, you might consider a SERIOUS attitude implant.  Humor remains a critical resiliency skill. And in this week, all strong nurses have it in abundance.

Recently Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, frequent contributors to the “Harvard Business Review”, released findings of an impressive research study focusing on men and women as leaders. Using 360-degree evaluations, they tracked the judgments of a leader’s peers, bosses, and direct reports. They asked participants to rate each leader’s effectiveness overall and to judge how strong s/he was in each of their 16 competency areas.

Of course, as we all know, the majority of leaders (64 percent) are still men. Also not surprising, the higher the level, the greater the percentage of men: 78 percent of the top managers surveyed were men, 67 percent at the next level down (that is, senior executives reporting directly to the top managers), and 60 percent at the manager level below that.

Likewise, our stereotypes tell us that female leaders are good at “nurturing” competencies such as “developing others and building relationships”. Many people place “exhibiting integrity” and “engaging in self-development” in that category, too.

However, the advantages women demonstrated were not just the traditional strengths. “In fact, at every level, more women were rated as better overall leaders than their male counterparts by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates.”

Nevertheless, the results get even more interesting: the higher the level in the organization, the wider the discrepancy between male and female leaders. Therefore, at the highest level, women scored ten percentiles better 67.7 versus 57.7 than their male counterparts—and that represents a 17.3 percent difference!

The rest of the results were fascinating: more specifically, women at all levels received higher ratings in 12 of the 16 competencies that go into outstanding leadership. Moreover, two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree—taking initiative and driving for results—have long been considered particularly male strengths.

With the increases in women graduating from colleges and universities*, employers will eventually put the profit motive ahead of stereotypes. However, as long as the majority of male C-Players (as opposed to A- or B-) (you, dear reader excepted, of course) keep choosing non-threatening male leaders for their direct reports, we will continue to see a proliferation of the status quo.

*Over 60percent of college and university graduates are women.

Posted with permission: Herman Trend Alerts are written by Joyce Gioia, a strategic
business futurist, Certified Management Consultant, author, and
professional speaker. Archived editions are posted at http://www.hermangroup.com/archive.html

THEN do something!!!  Here’s what Jennifer Siebel Newsom, director of Miss Representation suggests:

1. Tell 5 people about the film and share one thing you learned from watching it.

2. Parents:  watch TV and films with your children.  Raise questions like “What if that character had been a girl instead?”

3. Remember your actions influence others. Mothers, aunts and loved ones—don’t downgrade or judge yourself by your looks. Fathers, uncles and loved ones—treat women around you with respect. Remember children in your life are watching and learning from you.

4. Use your consumer power. Stop buying tabloid magazines and watching shows that degrade women. Go see movies that are written and directed by women (especially on opening weekend to boost the box office ratings). Avoid products that resort to sexism in their advertising.

5. Mentor others! It’s as easy as taking a young woman to lunch. Start by having open and honest conversations with a young person in your life.

Here are my suggestions:

Use Twitter and blog posts to raise awareness about ad campaigns , news images, and films that use women (or men for that matter) in dehumanizing, violent and sexual ways.

Stop buying the products of companies that support such campaigns. And let them know WHY you are not buying it!  My precious granddaughters (all three) and I will thank you.