Are Women Better Leaders than Men?

We’ve all heard the claims, the theories, and the speculation about the ways leadership styles vary between women and men. Our latest survey data puts some hard numbers into the mix.

Our data come from 360 evaluations, so what they are tracking is the judgment of a leader’s peers, bosses, and direct reports. We ask these individuals to rate each leader’s effectiveness overall and also to judge how strong he or she is on the 16 competencies that our 30 years of research shows are most important to overall leadership effectiveness. We ask, for instance, how good a leader is at taking the initiative, developing others, inspiring and motivating, and pursuing their own development…

Read the rest of this post on Harvard Business Review’s blog:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/a_study_in_leadership_women_do.html

Authors: Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman

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