Why Women Make Better Bosses

I believe we as women need to understand what makes the female brain unique and extraordinary. Equipped with a deeper understanding of its power, will empower and enable all of us to make a greater difference in business, politics, and community.

The tragedy is that we are not raised to have this knowledge or awareness about gender intelligence. It is not taught in schools, nor is it passed down from our elders.

From a young age, we are encouraged to push down our emotions and strengthen our logical thinking capacity. Ultimately, to deny our feminine nature and adopt a more masculine way of being.

I want you to be free to be yourself, to express yourself wholeheartedly, and to lead and live in the true expression of who you are. I want you to know the value that you bring and the true genius of your unique, female brain.

We need to create workplaces, communities, and cultures that deeply honor and value both the feminine and masculine nature. Awareness of the uniqueness of gender intelligence and the power each brings is the first step in transforming the inter-dynamics between men and women so they can play to their strengths and take our overall performance to new heights.

“To deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.”

Mouse in the Matrix

Appreciating The Uniqueness Of Your Female Brain

As a woman, when you understand the uniqueness of your female brain – and how to make the most of its strengths, how to overcome its challenges, how to optimize its performance and ultimately, how to unleash its full power – there will be no stopping you. In your personal development, at work, in your relationships, you can radiate your best self to your family, work, community, and the planet.

As a contrast, a woman who has not yet realized the potential of her brain’s capacity is squandering her most valuable resource. If you are not looking after your brain, you are most likely experiencing brain fog, memory problems, low energy, distractibility, and poor decision making. You simply won’t have the vitality you need to lead and live your optimal life.

Male Brains Work Linearly

Men and women aren’t completely different, of course, but we are different in some subtle ways that can have a big impact. These differences are often reflected in the way our two genders interact with each other, and maybe why we so often misunderstand one another. As John Gray suggests in his book, Men are from Mars, and women are from venus!

When a man communicates while being observed via a PET scan, the left side of his brain lights up. Men typically use the left hemisphere of their brains the majority of the time. This may account for the task-focused nature of the male brain and the strong orientation towards achieving goals. The unwavering, directional focus is the genius the male brain contributes to moving us forward.

Given their left brain orientation, men make more connections from the front to the back of this hemisphere, enabling them to solve problems directly but can make it harder for them to express their feelings.

Men have a larger amygdala which is the part of the brain responds to emotional stress and may account for their more physically aggressive way to deal with conflict.

The most interesting thing I’ve discovered is that men have stronger emotional reactions to life’s events than women but have learned to suppress them. When a man has a big problem they can’t solve, they will apply reason to the situation first and then check with their feelings.

By their very nature, men are progress-oriented. Like a ship on the ocean, they head in the direction of their goal with very little that would pull them off their course. What a beautiful gift men bring and a lovely compliment to the feminine nature.

Female Brains Work Circularly

On the other hand, when a woman communicates, both sides of our brain light up indicating the use of both sides of our brain to process information. We are more adept at multi-tasking and with a stronger connection between the left and right hemispheres, tend to combine logic and intuition in how we process our world.

We have verbal centers in both hemispheres and thus, use more words in our communications and may be better at expressing our emotions.

Women are more sensitive to threats. When we are under stress, we release cortisol which drives us to take control and solve problems. In our primal days, we were more vulnerable, so having strong social connections meant you had a higher chance of survival. This may account for women wanting to avoid conflict in meetings and seek consensus. When a woman’s adrenaline is up, that is when they will be compelled to speak up.

The female brain works in a cyclical manner. Like the earth’s rotation or her monthly menstrual cycle, women inherently know the cyclical nature of things. Rather than working in a linear fashion never re-tracing their steps, women work in a circular way coming full circle back to where they started to close out the loop.

The female brain has a great gift for contextual thinking. Because of our capacity to take in information using both hemispheres, we take into consideration a wide variety of factors such as work, family (children), community, wellbeing, and impact for future when making decisions. That is a whole lot to think about!

When we take a long term view of what the world needs in our future leaders – this more circular perspective is profoundly valuable and what we deeply need today.

Why Women Make Better Bosses

I should confess, I don’t actually think all women, make better bosses, all of the time. However, I wanted to explore some of the reasons that make women powerful, effective, and attuned leaders when they are fully aligned and utilizing their unique feminine gifts.

Adapted from: Unleash the power of the female brain by Daniel Amen M.D.

A key strength of the female brain is empathy or the ability to recognize and sense other people’s feelings. In other words, to be able to put yourself in someone else’s circumstance and feel what they are feeling. Both the male and female brains have neurons called ‘mirror’ neurons that are activated when we empathize or identify with another person.

Mirror neurons enable us to feel what another person is feeling, so if you’re anything like me, that’s why we get teary during sad movie scenes or cry at a funeral. Research demonstrates that women have stronger empathic skills than males, which is likely due to their larger frontal lobes.

Ideas for a Better Future

The truth is that every brain is different. No one has a totally male or female brain. Our brains are more like a blend of both. And let’s face it, the male and female brain are a great compliment to one another.

When both genders bring their unique strengths forward, and we leverage those strengths – the whole team, organization, and the community wins.

It’s time to put our patriarchal leadership model behind us and welcome a new dawn. We are desperately in need of a paradigm that’s built on inclusion, true acceptance of our differences, one of respect.

It’s time to build cultures that are human-centered and relational and shift the conversation from an ‘us and them,’ ‘do as I say’ culture to what can ‘we’ create together.

My vision is for a world that deeply honors and values both the male and female nature so we can bring forth our authentic selves and offer the full benefit of our unique gifts.

Wouldn’t that be amazing.