The Female Leader. Sonja Becker
entry of female paradigms in business
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hat is more promising for success today – showing off or team spirit? Dominance or empathy? To command or to entice? Power or networking? How do you get further in the long term: with marching orders or through knowledge of people?
During evolution particular capabilities have been gradually developed by each respective sex. Evolution has trained men to win and to display strength because they had to be responsible for protecting their existence through war, reproduction or the husbandry of the farm, the Greek “oikos”, from which the earliest “economy” sprang. Men were automatically the “rulers”, and had to live up to this role, for which they were accepted by both men and women. Likewise women wanted to be “understood”.
Today we benefit from both male and female capabilities: understanding, discretion and sexual intelligence on the female part; approval, dealing with problems, and assertion on the male.
“Children, church and kitchen” was significantly the domain for women’s self-development in earlier times. “Clothes, cosmetics and chatter” mocked a political satirist later. The truth lies in between: women can do two things at the same time. They can manage children as well as a career. Therefore they earn their own money and can spend it on what they want: clothes, cosmetics… and they are unbeatable in the art of communication.
Power and success is no longer the domain of men. The myth of the Porsche driving “top dog” who is in control of everything and everybody is over - now that women can afford and drive one themselves.
That goes for industry too. “Images” enhance the status of products artificially, and often without legitimacy. Companies “cut into” the market with new products, stage “hostile takeovers” and lose their position within the social situation or social responsibility through unrealistic and no longer comprehensible strategies of acquisition of capital.
Men have learned to assert themselves. Women look for consensus. Men know what they want. Women also know what others want. Men wield power. Women have power – often more than they show. And sometimes it is the other way round.
There are women who gain power by using men’s weapons: Angela Merkel, for example. Conversely men want to “conquer” women, and sometimes that doesn’t work at all. At least, not with the means they commonly use. They will conquer the market of the future when they are able to bring their laboriously learned arts of seduction to the business world. They will have to be able to arouse women’s curiosity. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Men and women are a magnet for each other. Every time they meet, a game begins. They ensnare one another. They are always discovering new perspectives. They are always open to new things. They can continually surprise one another. They are curious about each other. And not only in a sexual way. In business too. Because, for the first time in the history of the human race, women have the chance of winning, the modern business game is definitely one of the phenomena of our time. The new economy no longer follows the rules of war. Increasingly the rules of a free game are dominating: the business game.
In this game, certain capabilities are required, such as being able to put oneself in the position of others and to recognize their desires and needs.
This is the idea of the new “service economy”. It works not only through tactics but also through charm. Entertainment rather than dictatorship dominates: you can no longer “conquer” the public, for example; you can only “win them over” – through entertainment, not propaganda. A product sells increasingly badly through advertising and brainwashing, through the pressures of boosted value and status symbols.
Enticement is a better means. A service is most convincing when personal recognition or satisfaction, if not complete satisfaction, can be expected of it. Entertainment, appreciation and sex are the insignia of the new service economy. And the difference lies in the fact that women are able to participate on the same level. They don’t have to adapt male strengths, in which they appear as an example of the dominant “career woman”, but can use their own.
Cooperation with men brings out a new, unexpected energy. We can see that in our daily work, especially of course in our businesswomen’s and power couples’ seminars. Often it even happens that couples who have discovered their strengths during training hit upon the idea of capitalizing on them and go on to found a successful business together.
Before, a model. Now, a role model.
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hereas before women were assigned careers which were confined to the domestic sphere, today every women can do want she wants. Where women decide, the “feminine” principles are more sought after and more successful.
Their historical roles as muse or geisha, who serves men while influencing them, are still to be seen in politics for example. Behind successful men often stand thoughtful and guiding women like Napoleon’s Josephine or Jackie Kennedy. Increasingly they are coming out from under the shadow of great men to hold high office themselves: Condoleezza Rice or Angela Merkel. Whether through more masculine means or through feminine intuition, cunning and malice. But in the end with success. And that also provides an incentive for women.
Female leaders are examples. If successful women were before almost exclusively “models”, today they are “role models”. They wield influence over methods, approaches and ways of doing business, and are turning businesses and branches of trade inside out. Women can achieve great success in business through their personality. From Anita Roddick (The Body Shop) to Carly Fiorino (HP) there are more and more women who don’t pretend to be men but are successful women as women: Christiane zu Salm, who turned the “women’s channel” TM3 into the despised game channel 9Live, in which nobody invested a cent, and out of which she made millions. She became successful and rich. Or there is Friede Springer, formerly a nanny in Axel Springer’s household, who led his financially stricken concern back to being one of the biggest publishing houses in Europe.
Or Joanne K. Rowling, who before “Harry Potter”, lived on welfare. And many other women whom we would like to introduce to you.
What applies to individuals also applies to organizations. The teams that have the greatest energy have the greatest success. Infinitely more energy is let loose through emotional intelligence, empathy, love and other “feminine” characteristics than through authority, pressure, and commands. “Male” bosses are affected by methods of dominance. They are calibrated to gain respect by authoritarian means. They make sure that they are unbearable. Which “boss” really wants to be like that?
Female bosses in the modern sense are people whom one simply doesn’t want to let down: more coach than manager. Their goals are defined more through satisfaction than through numbers.
Then the numbers will add up by themselves. Coaches approach their goal with humility, gratitude and a sense of responsibility, and set the team a good example. The female boss is in business what the trainer is in sport: the leader and the mover and shaker.
She is respected and loved and as a result has paved the way to success. “Power requires natural authority,” says Christiane zu Salm. “Women know that. And because they know that, power is in good hands when it is in their hands.”
This book shows you how to become a female leader and how to use your abilities to deal with the business of tomorrow. Never in the history of evolution has it been possible for women to achieve success, lead teams and build a successful career to such an extent as it is today.
What happens when business is no longer war, but play? It is the beginning of your career. From the beginnings, the vision and the ideas, to the daily grind, up to the highest level of inspiration, innovation and creativity. This is what this book is about: a handbook for “the female leader”. For you.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.
Sources:
Pease, Allan & Barbara. Why Men Don’t Listen & Women Can’t Read Maps.
Pease,