As discussed in the previous blog entry, the importance of soft skills in managerial careers is increasing. More and more people come to the conclusion that hard skills are not the only skills managers should have, but soft skills should complement these hard skills. In the previous blog entry we discussed what soft skills are, I will give a short summary:
Soft skills concern about how people relate to each other, via communicating, listening, engaging in dialogue, giving feedback, cooperating as a team member, solving problems, contributing in meetings and resolving conflict (Coates, 2006).
There is a prevailing belief embedded in our society that women are more emotional than are men. Several studies have investigated the way in which female managers differ from male managers. A considerable body of research concludes that there are differences between female and male managers, and that female managers demonstrate emotional intelligence to a greater degree than male leaders. Below you find some examples of research I found concerning this topic.
A study by Rutherford asked 97 respondents in an airline company if women manage differently from men. Below you find the outcome.
Do women manage differently from men? (Rutherford, 2001)
Furthermore Rutherford asked the respondents that answered “yes” to the previous question in what ways women differ from men. The most interesting outcome was that women have better people skills than men; women are better listeners, more relationship-oriented, more empathetic, more likely to other people’s feeling into account and women give higher priority to human aspects of any situation. Furthermore she found that women are expected to bring certain caring and communication skills to their work which are naturalized, in the same way that mothering is considered a natural skill (Rutherford, 2001).
When I read these different skills I refer to them as the soft skills we discussed in the previous blog entry.
Soft skills concern about how people relate to each other, via communicating, listening, engaging in dialogue, giving feedback, cooperating as a team member, solving problems, contributing in meetings and resolving conflict (Coates, 2006).
There is a prevailing belief embedded in our society that women are more emotional than are men. Several studies have investigated the way in which female managers differ from male managers. A considerable body of research concludes that there are differences between female and male managers, and that female managers demonstrate emotional intelligence to a greater degree than male leaders. Below you find some examples of research I found concerning this topic.
A study by Rutherford asked 97 respondents in an airline company if women manage differently from men. Below you find the outcome.
Do women manage differently from men? (Rutherford, 2001)
Furthermore Rutherford asked the respondents that answered “yes” to the previous question in what ways women differ from men. The most interesting outcome was that women have better people skills than men; women are better listeners, more relationship-oriented, more empathetic, more likely to other people’s feeling into account and women give higher priority to human aspects of any situation. Furthermore she found that women are expected to bring certain caring and communication skills to their work which are naturalized, in the same way that mothering is considered a natural skill (Rutherford, 2001).
When I read these different skills I refer to them as the soft skills we discussed in the previous blog entry.
Furthermore, I found an article from professor Weiss in which he summarizes the outcomes from Brizendine’s book The Female Brain. In this article by Weiss is stated how men and women see and respond differently in their work environments.
1. The female brain and the male brain: Female babies spend much more time scanning the faces around them, while male babies spend more time scanning the environment. This difference emerges in the adult phase. When a woman scans another person’s face, she has the ability to feel the emotion the other person is experiencing. This process is called “mirroring”. Brain scans show that women can mirror the feelings of another person better than men.
2. Intuition: Brain scan studies indicate that a woman’s brain has larger areas of sensitivity to track gut feelings, also referred to as intuition.
3. Feelings: Brizendine indicates that for men, feelings do not trigger gut sensations, but instead increases rational thought. Scientists have found that it usually takes the male brain longer to decode and process emotions than women.
4. Communication goals: The communication goal for a man is to create status, hierarchy, and power. For most women, the communication goal is to create intimacy and connection by establishing empathy and where everyone in the conversation is viewed as an equal.
The 4 dimensions mentioned above show that there is a difference in the way men and women communicate and threat each other. These differences elaborate on the soft skill abilities and this research shows that women are better than men in soft skill abilities.
Below you find some other findings, which represent that women have better soft skills:
- A substantial number of studies have shown that women are more aware of emotions in both themselves and others (Barret et al., 2000; Carriochi et al., 2003; Lane et al., 1990; Carriochi, 2005)
- “With few exceptions, results indicate that women are more emotionally expressive than men” (Kring et al., 1998, p. 688).
- Women are more accurate at recognizing the emotional expressions of others (Hall, 1984).
- According to commonly held beliefs, women are more emotionally responsive, experiencing and expressing most emotions more intensely than do men; men, if they are emotional at all, are believed to experience and express more anger (Barret et al., 2000).
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