What Women Want!
In the movie by that name, Mel Gibson never seemed to answer that question. Here, we are more interested in what women want at work and as Women in leadership positions. If you peruse a lot of articles, you’ll see many of them offering reasons why women are different or better leaders, or more equipped to be a leader, etc. Unfortunately those views are mistaken. Women want the same thing from work and leading people any man wants, success and results!
Like their male colleague’s they are no more or less equipped to lead. Leading people is a set of skills and none of us are born with them. Some of us are fortunate enough to be raised by people who pass us good interpersonal communication skills and even some good leadership techniques. However, even these fortunate few still must learn the missing skills to be able to lead any group to any goals while expending the least resources for the greatest return on investment. Leadership is about results not gender.
People are emotional creatures who can think logically not logical creatures who can think emotionally. Have you ever seen anyone get upset and what they were upset about made no sense to you and didn’t really matter one way other the other in their life either? This irrational emotion that research shows all people operate through 95% of the time is why some people come to the conclusion it’s better to off their spouse than divorce them. Not the wisest move most would agree. But people do dumb stuff like that every day! Emotions are no gender specific!
To really master leadership and become powerful people dost take a specific anatomical part, it requires learning and gaining an understanding of human beliefs and the human mind! That dramatically increase the abilities and results of any leader, male or female. We like to think women are this… and men are that… We love to generalize and frame differences. While there are many differences one of the things we do share is emotions and for most a lack of emotional control as well!
Marketing messages telling you what to think and believe.
In fact our society though media and marketing tries its best to tell both men and women what they are supposed to think, feel, like dislike, love, be mad at, etc. The truth is all people really just want to be happy. We go the places we go, are with the people we are with, and desire the material things we desire all because we think it will make us happy (an emotion). Whether at work or not both men and women just want to be happy! So, what does a woman want at work… Happiness! What does a man want at work…Happiness! Even though their version of the environment may differ to deliver their specific idea of happiness.
There are some things we all have in common and want at work:
- Success
- Cooperation
- No conflict
- Commitment of others
- Assistance of others
- Personal achievement
- Personal reward
- Adequate compensation
- Recognition
- Inclusion
- Safe environment
- Equality
- Treated with dignity, respect and honesty
It’s safe to say both men and women want these things. We may all benefit if we focus less on the differences of men and women, and focus more on what we share and how to create it for all of us! After all, as human beings we are a whole lot more alike than we are different! At the Team-builder Leadership Institute, we believe people are people. Only what they individually believe is really the only major difference. We design our training and certification courses to benefit all people because we believe the only true limitation a person has is the ones they believe they have!
