PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Leadership qualities required from a current raf leader
Old 4th Jul 2014, 21:43
  #43 (permalink)  
Fox3WheresMyBanana
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Canada
Posts: 2,895
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 2 Posts
One of the reasons nobody makes a decision these days is because the PC crowd have decided leadership is a pejorative term. Part of the problem is the feminisation of many professions (stay with me, this is not misogynist, quite the opposite).
Girls like to reach decisions by consensus, and for historical reasons they rarely receive any proper leadership training. Thus, through no fault of their own, they find it difficult to judge the point where trying for a consensus is not the best leadership option. Most women I know prefer a male boss. When questioned in depth, it normally boils down to their experience of men having a better idea of when to end discussion and make a decision - and not make that decision or reaction to it a condition of continued friendship.
When I started work in a mostly female environment, I asked how many men were on the staff. Two women immediately said "just enough to stop the place getting too bitchy."
Now (hope you're still listening in an unbiased frame of mind), when you provide girls with proper leadership training, including giving them exercises where they are forced to take decisions without consensus, they prove in the long run to be just as good as boys at being leaders. And they are still better than boys at getting consensus where this is possible.
So why the problem? Well, in professions where decisions don't routinely have clear daily evidence of performance (e.g. almost the whole of local Government, which as you've probably noticed is HQ PC Crowd) the mostly untrained women rail against any signs of 'Leadership' - it's a dirty word. They don't have to face the consequences of lack of leadership, but they do have to face the consequences of upsetting people by making decisions the majority don't like. Management is acceptable because it purports to be just the application of 'policy', which is the new word for holy. The worst crime you can commit these days is to ask "why?" about policy.

In summary, if we want more women making decisions (and we should), we need to train them properly. It does work, but it is nowhere near common enough. We should also fix the massive problem where so many managers have targets that don't match the effects of their decisions, but that's a massive can of worms.
Fox3WheresMyBanana is offline