Integrated Leadership: Building on the Benefits

There are many reasons to foster an Integrated Leadership culture—one that values, leverages, and blends the strengths of both women and men—in your organization. Gender-balanced leadership perspectives can lead to a wide range of benefits at the organizational, team, and individual levels.

The latest research published at the end of 2015 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tells us that men and women are not always different when it comes to thinking, communications, and problem-solving. However, studies have found that the diversity of strategies and approaches often seen between men and women go beyond gender and genetics.

What’s The Brain Got To Do With Leadership

Recently I met with an executive from one of our client organizations who heads up Global Talent Management and we spoke about the topic of whole-brain thinking and balanced leadership. As you may recall, in December’s blog, "The Brain Science Behind The Integrated Leadership Model," I shared the concept of whole-brain thinking and how the physiological differences between men and women’s brains explain the considerable differences in how they operate in the workplace.

In my conversation the executive shared with me that she understands what other highly successful senior executives know – differences are at the heart of a balanced leadership approach: “Our customers are diverse, with different likes and needs. If we only had one type of executive – whether that was all men, all women or all one personality type – we would be limited, only recognizing that narrow slice of the world. We would miss all kinds of opportunities and conversations that are crucial to our success. And as a result, we would miss a critical chance for the continuous learning that will keep us at the top of our industry today and give us the competitive advantage we need to stay there in the future.”

Are Your Employees Engaged?

A frown appeared on Jim’s face as he relayed how employee morale was down four points year-to-year. Surveyed respondents’ scores were consistently lower in the areas of inclusiveness and diversity, opportunities to improve skills with challenging assignments, and developing innovative solutions to solve pressing customer issues. What really concerned Jim was a common theme emerging from the write-in comments – a systemic lack of what’s being labeled as “Employee Engagement”.