A Hire Purpose

Kristyn haywood believes you shouldn’t hire women in leadership roles to balance the numbers. Instead, start appreciating the many benefits that feminine strengths bring to an organisation.

- Kristyn Haywood

According to ‘Women in the Workplace 2018’, the annual study undertaken by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey, more than 75 per cent of CEOs include gender equality in their top 10 business priorities. It’s not hard to work out why. For starters, women are the world’s most powerful consumers: EY states that women will control close to 75 per cent of worldwide discretionary spending by 2028. It makes good business sense to have leadership teams that reflect the consumers they sell their products and services to.

But do the women who make it through the glass ceiling actually resemble their female customer base, and if not, is gender balance in the C-suite a necessity?

Women and men are more alike than we first perceive; however, if we think about feminine and masculine traits on a continuum, men naturally exhibit more masculine traits and women more feminine ones. Each of us has a mix of both traits and when we balance them within ourselves – at home, work and in society – we achieve great things. Overplaying one set of traits over the other creates dysfunction.

In the workplace, men with stereotypically strong masculine traits (competitive, analytical, self-assured, authoritative) often rise to the top of the hierarchy. To an extent, their traits are associated with great leadership whereas feminine traits (collaborative, empathetic, humble, expressive) are typically not.