Do Men and Women Lead Differently?

The above was the theme of a 5 day TCI (Theme Centred Interaction) workshop, I attended a few years ago. The workshop was led by an elderly TCI practicing couple from Switzerland.  

TCI workshops are slow paced, open model workshop with no fixed agenda and no planned input. The workshop evolves by itself,  based on a theme of discussion and fully engages the participants. There is no other workshop of this kind, where the participant plays such a big role in shaping the outcome of the programme. There were some valuable experiential learnings in the workshop and I would like to share one vital learning.

In the workshop, the facilitator asked us to pen down the list of women, who have made a personal positive impact in our life. It was not about some external person, but people with whom we have personally interacted. It could be our mother, our spouse, our sister, our grandmother, our aunt , our teacher , our friend who so ever. Once we had done it, he asked each of us to identify and isolate the quality from each person, which impressed us a lot and list it separately.

Once we were done with it, he brought together the qualities listed by all of us, after striking out the common ones and the ones which had similar meaning, into a chart under the heading “Admirable Women Qualities”.

He repeated the same exercise, by asking us to write the list of men, who have made a personal positive impact in our life and the same process was continued and we also arrived at another chart of “Admirable Men Qualities”.

After this was over, the male participants were asked to identify the qualities from this list of “Admirable Men Qualities”, which we thought were essential qualities, needed to be a good leader. And similarly female participants were asked to identify the qualities from this list of “Admirable Women Qualities”, which they thought were essential qualities, needed to be a good leader.

At the end of the activity, we were asked to figure out individually, how much of those qualities we had in us. We found that each one of us had many of our gender specific qualities.

Then the facilitator asked, “Are you happy with the leadership qualities, that you possess or would you like to take some qualities from the opposite gender?”

Seeing the list of qualities displayed in the chart, we realised that if we had some qualities of the opposite gender, it would be a great value add to us. We found that many male participants; needed some female qualities and many female participants needed the male qualities.

He then asked us, “What is stopping you from not acquiring the qualities, of the opposite gender?” It was a point of deep reflection and awakening for many of us. We realised that it was our gender bias that was preventing us from acquiring the quality of the opposite gender. He highlighted how some generalisations, such as men are brave and women are emotional, can have an adverse impact on our leadership styles. He also pointed out, how we need a healthy mix of both the qualities to be an effective leader.

So we were now asked to go ahead, to choose and make a comprehensive list from both the male qualities and female qualities that we thought were valuable to be a good leader.

What he tried to bring out was, irrespective of being a man or a woman, there is no need to stick to gender boundaries. Men should strive to imbibe the good qualities from women and women should strive to imbibe the good qualities from men, in order to be a good leader.

Now it is time to ask yourself, “Are you a wholesome leader or a leader with gender limitations?” 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com