What Makes Women Great Leaders
The unique traits that are inherent to the gender, can actually make women exceptional leaders.
The challenge for some is finding the opportunities and confidence to lead a group, whether in the workforce or in their personal life. Understanding what makes women excellent leaders can help to instill this self-assuredness that will enable you to lead with conviction.
Work-life balance. Women are often challenged with finding that perfect work-life balance, juggling their career and family at the same time. As a leader, this helps in balancing the skillset and responsibilities of a team.
Empathy. Often both born and raised to consider the feelings of others, women leaders do a great job understanding what drives and motivates their team. This understanding can help to deliver peak performance, while leaving others feeling great.
Nurturing. Similar to empathy, women tend to be nurturers. This can work well when dealing with team members that have their own unique skillsets and may need a little extra encouragement.
Communication skills. This is an important aspect when it comes to leading a group. From motivating the team to clearly assigning job tasks and responsibilities, a woman’s strong communication skills can be particularly useful.
Listening skills. A team can only perform well when each member of the group feels recognized and heard. Women do a great job listening to concerns, issues and making a decision based on this.
Multi-tasking. This goes hand-in-hand with the work-life balance. Women are adept at handling a variety of tasks and responsibilities at once. This is a great skill for a leader to have, and can improve the likelihood of the entire team’s success.
In a society where we are sometimes taught that emotions in the workplace are to be stifled, too often women don’t realize these important skills that make them great leaders. However, in reality these are the very traits that make women strong and successful leading a team.