Numerous investigations have analyzed the impact that sex roles have on leadership. The comparison between men and women, the study of their differences and similarities, has given rise to intense and frequent debates. On many occasions, the background of these debates is based on more or less extreme ideological positions. Far from wishing to influence this type of debate, we must defend an inclusive and constructive position.
The obviousness of biological differences should not make us overlook an increasingly addressed issue: the relationships between biological and psychological factors. More and more studies are trying to analyze the influence of differential biological facts on behavior. Thus, for example, it has been pointed out on some occasions that motherhood, the ability to create life, influences female behavior.
The differences between men and women on the psychological level constitute two different styles of thinking and acting. These styles will manifest, of course, in the behavior of men and women in companies. However, such styles should be understood as sets of capacities or trends, and in no case as factors that determine performance in one direction or the other.
To adequately understand the reasons for different styles of acting, it is convenient to first understand how reality is known. There are two fundamental ways of knowing: abstract knowledge and experimental knowledge. The first of these is the one that refers to what we know through others, from tradition, and includes what is normally understood by science, that is, models of reality that help us understand it better. Experimental knowledge, which includes the things that have happened to us, would be at its most basic level, memory: it is life, experience. In this case, the equivalent of science is understanding: knowing how to interpret what has been lived. Both forms of knowledge are "correct", that is, it is not appropriate to establish a hierarchy, considering one of them as superior to the other.
Most research has established the following assumption: the characteristic of femininity is the greater domain of experimental knowledge over the abstract, while in the case of masculinity, it is abstract knowledge that dominates. This does not mean at all that women lack the capacity for abstract knowledge and, vice versa, that men do not know experimentally. We speak only in terms of trends and the relative weight of each of these forms of knowledge in decisions.
In relation to the business world, the ability to abstract knowledge is especially useful when defining and presenting objectives, what is intended to achieve. Experimental knowledge, on the other hand, is more aimed at establishing policies, the conditions that must be respected on the way to achieving that objective. We can consider, by generalizing, that men are better at proposing objectives or alternatives, and women evaluate them more completely, that is, they establish the conditions that must be taken into account to choose one or the other alternative. It is, so to speak, a functional specialization.
We have characterized male leadership with the qualities of concrete structuring and construction, and defined female leadership by intuition and overall vision. Well, today we are immersed in an economy that is constantly changing and in which much importance is given to innovation and diversity. Management values have evolved in response to this trend: innovation and informal exchanges are sought, maximum value is given to the breadth of vision and the ability to think creatively.
Therefore, it seems clear that organizations need to integrate both poles in what we can define as the leader-person. Both poles must be preserved in this model, which is, in reality, an "overcoming", that is, something superior to the traditional male model or the strictly female model. In this improvement lies the progress of business management.
For many qualified women to be left out of management positions would simply be a waste of talent.
