Do women
make decisions differently from men?
By Rajiv Naithani
(Head HR & L&D, GlobalLogic India Limited)
Email: rajiv.naithani@globallogic.com
Email: rajiv.naithani@globallogic.com
Most of the studies
and research carried out in western world indicate that women make better
decisions than men. Chris Bart (http://www.boarddiversity.ca/sites/default/files/IJBGE8-Paper5-Why-Women-Make-Better-Directors.pdf)
published a survey result in which he mentioned that more than 600 Board
Directors showed that women are more likely to consider the rights of others
and to take a cooperative approach to decision making. This approach translates into better performance
for their company.
There has been very little
written on this topic in the Indian context. To understand the perspective of
leaders in various corporates including both men and women in Indian scenario,
I conducted a dipstick. This article
will cover my key observations and findings from the dipstick study I had
carried out.
Positioning of Women: Gender equality with respect to men and women in
India is still seen to be an issue. In most
parts of India, women are still considered homemakers irrespective of their
contribution to the family income. Male
dominance exists in most parts of the country.
It becomes a societal and ego issue if a husband earns less than his
wife. The Indian Parliament’s debate on reservation for women in Parliament has
been met with stiff opposition from the male dominated elected members.
Women in the Corporate World: However, despite their low ratio in the corporate
workforce, women have emerged strongly in corporate world. In a dipstick I
carried out to understand different opinions from both men and women working in
different corporates at senior positions, it consistently came up that Business Priority plays a vital role in
decision making for both the genders.
Both men and women appreciate and understand that their decisions must
have business alignment.
In a question “Do you
feel women make decisions different from men”, it was observed that women
surely think differently than men. While
there were some neutral to conflicting views observed too primarily because of
situations and circumstances under which a decision has to be taken. The
overall environment around women influences their decision as well. For example, a people friendly women leader
may be averse in taking strong decisions. The views in support can be reviewed
in line with below –
1. In the area of their specialization, women are more
focused at decision making than their male counterparts
2. Women tend to be concerned about building
relationships and actively look from the other person’s perspective.
3. Women tend to be more interactive and cooperative,
thereby inspiring a higher degree of commitment towards business goals
4. Fairness is observed to be high in women’s decisions
as they take the interests of multiple stakeholders into account in order to
arrive at a fair and moral decision. Men generally end up taking decisions
purely based on financial implications
5. In difficult situation like laying off, men may end
up favouring their friends while women will look at the good of the company.
6. A thoroughbred woman
professional is no different than her male counterpart. She will go with her
understanding of what is best for the health of the organization given the
circumstances.
While
most of the people believe that women take decisions differently but when it
comes to choosing the decision between men and women, people from both the
genders expressed their views that they won’t look at decision from a gender
perspective but rather they would look for rationale and logic on the
decision.
This
was found to be an interesting observation as at the thought level both men and
women felt that women’s decisions are better than men and are expected to be
fair but when it comes to picking, they want to evaluate it in line with
circumstances, situations or context.
Women as Talented Leaders: Women,
like in the rest of the world, have had to struggle harder to make their voices
heard, acknowledged and appreciated. In general, the Indian male still
struggles with ego issues when accepting decisions made by women that are
contrary to his own beliefs.
One
important observation found in the study was that in Industry like IT, women
are considered as talented leaders whereas the picture is completely opposite in
the manufacturing segment. Besides, it
has been a consistent observation that Corporate world in India has not matured
enough to accept the importance of women as decision makers. In almost all areas or verticals, women have
to outperform men to get the same rewards.
Women have to struggle to make their opinion heard. They also have to
work twice as hard to prove themselves. Their importance is understood but the
struggle is too long.
Despite
of these odds, there has been a sea change in the perspective of corporate
world in recent times and women have started drawing a lot of respect as
talented leaders and decision makers in all fields in India. We have examples
of Dr. Kiran Mazumdar, Chanda Kochhar, Ekta Kapoor, Neelam Dawan, Naina Lal
Kidwai, Indu Jain etc who have proved their metal to entire world. These
Talented women leaders have proven that Indian women are no longer to be
treated as show pieces to be kept at home. In my own case, I have worked under
multiple women leaders and I have always been inspired with their decision
making.
Challenges before Women Leaders: I believe that that
the main challenge a woman leader faces is dealing with the ego of her
subordinates, peers and colleagues. Other than that, the challenges of women in
managerial positions aren’t any different than the challenges of women in other
positions in the company (work-life balance, sexual advances, late night
shifts, partying, and so on).
When
compared to men, men are given leadership roles based simply on their
performance and potential while with women many other factors are looked at –
whether she has children, can she travel, can she work late hours, how will the
team react to her, will she be authoritative enough to handle a team, is she
emotional, amongst many others.
When
male leaders say that they have to be home for a child’s function or look after
the parents it’s looked at with pride and the man is made out to be a
sensitive, responsible person while a woman taking the same decisions under
such circumstances is felt to ignore her work at office.
Men
in leadership roles are taken seriously based on the position they occupy while
a woman has to constantly prove that she is capable of occupying the position.
From
an Indian context, the most challenging aspect for a woman is balancing her
professional and home life. Life after
maternity, support form extended family to succeed in professional life etc do
have impact on the professional growth of the women employee.
Women
certainly require a conducive and enabling environment to work and prosper in
any organization. This includes right set of people around who accept woman as
a leader, and the other important aspect is security where woman can think and
work with no fear.
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