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The following article was published in the Charleston Post & Courier's Business Major, a featured monthly column in the Business Review Section on May 25, 1998. Men, women managers wield power differentlyBy DOROTHY P. MOORE Special to the Post and Courier A considerable body of research suggests that managerially oriented men and women alike seek power. But they appear to go after power differently, want it for different reasons, and exercise it in different ways. There is some indication that this is because positions of authority in the organizational hierarchy, institutional power, have usually been more accessible to men. To compensate for insufficient positional power, many women develop interpersonal skills and come to rely not on the power that derives from holding a position but personal power. They project the ability to be credible, reliable, and trustworthy. They prefer to influence rather than command. They view power as a means to promote change by sharing information and empowering others through team-building. As managers and business owners, they try to create an environment that subordinates would find empowering and practice management techniques such as a participative approach in which the rules are made with the involvement and consent of those affected. Managers like these exercise authority carefully. Facing a crossroads with an opportunity to grow significantly, the owner of an investment advisory firm said to her people, "In the beginning I set up the goals, but tomorrow we're all going to sit down. I'm going to say, `We're getting more and more institutional clients. How are we going to do this, do it well, and make sure we meet the clients' needs as well as our own?'" Says another entrepreneur, "I see myself as a facilitator of my employees. They know exactly what they're doing. I've trained them. Now they are real good at it. And I'm not about to get in their way. I do call them out in the office about once every week and say, `Okay. I'm going to be boss for about two minutes and then I'm going back to my office and let you all do your work.' And we just laugh. And that's kind of the camaraderie we have built. Because they don't need me to boss them. They come to me when they have a decision to make." In the words of an entrepreneur who owns a clothing design business, my role is one of "creating an environment that encourages designers and artists to do something greater than they've ever done before." The notion for empowering others is not limited to employees. As Evelyn Eskin, an entrepreneur, who helps design more efficient medical offices, explains it, "I view my role as trying to empower other women. We work a lot with medical office managers and people who have never had an opportunity to think of themselves as change agents. This type of management approach is the exact opposite to motivation through fear. If the recent successes of female entrepreneurs are any measure, it works. And it is spreading. Says a Philadelphia entrepreneur, "I tend to have long term relationship with clients, so I am able to see an organization changing from being very hierarchical to being more team-oriented." This kind of managing is not easy. One challenge, says Lisa Adkinson, owner and former CEO, Inner Applications in Cincinnati, Ohio, is "learning to be able to get the big vision communicated and implemented. I am always repeating the same things over and over. You can't move on until you have the last person on the train or you are forced to leave them behind." Atlanta entrepreneur Renee Peyton said, "I empowered my employees to do what they need to do. I didn't sit there and say, `This is what we need you to do; you do it.'" A number of entrepreneurs sought to integrate the various dimensions of their lives. "I wanted a place where people could be appreciated, people would do the work they were supposed to, where I could rely on them, where everyone could be adult," says Honi Stempler, an Atlanta entrepreneur. An entrepreneur who now does strategic planning for large organizations stated, "I was looking for a life that I now call much more seamless. I mean I am working more than I have worked in a long time but it doesn't feel that way. Work felt like an intrusion to me in the corpo-rate world because it was just so different from the way I wanted to use my knowledge and present myself." Marilyn Sifford, the owner of an organizational development business, said, "I wanted to have a business that stood for my values." Another entrepreneur said, "I see parallels in growth and direction related to my own growth." "There is some feeling that we want to do this at a pace that feels whole and integrated with us. If we do it too fast, then we feel that we are back doing the same thing we did before," was the way Joan Holliday summed it up. There is considerable evidence that leaders who share power are quite effective. The female concern for an equitable outcome, which addresses the concerns of all involved, results in higher subordinate satisfaction with work and supervision and a positive evaluation of the leader's effectiveness. The "changemasters," those who will master accelerating change in the years to come will do so with skills like communicating a vision, working through teams, seeing the big picture, and coalition-building--it will be accomplished through the sharing of power. For Questions/Comments about this site, contact moored@citadel.edu. Site designed by Jackye Cocoros. |