Co-Essential Leadership – Two sides of the same coin!
Have you ever seen a female leader being in flow and leading from her authentic self? It is inspiring to observe and see. Have you ever seen a male leader in flow and leading from his authentic self? It is equally inspiring to see.
Being married to an incredible lady that have both the gifting and the competency to lead, I can sometimes come across as bias. The reality is, the more my wife and I talk about male and female leadership, a 14-year conversation at this stage, the more we come to the conclusion that the economy need both. There are beauty and strength in both. Leadership is a topic that both men and women can and should contribute to. There are unique and compelling viewpoints that both bring to the conversation.
I truly believe that without the viewpoint of both, the topic can be very lob-sided. This results in the dialogue staying one-sided, which can result in a strong partiality. Even in neuroscience, evidence abound to the different ways in which men and women think. And both have strong parts to it, and limitations. When we allow a person gifted in leadership to lead, irrespective of their gender, everyone benefits.
Here are a few tips whether you are a male or female leader.
- Be your authentic self. You are unique with your specific talents, personality and values. Focus on growing your own style of leadership, rather than trying to be someone you are not. It will just take unnecessary energy and lead to dissatisfaction on many levels.
- Appreciate different opinions. The beauty about male and female leadership working together, is that we get the opportunity to see different sides of the same coin. This results in better decision making.
- Remember, leadership is about others. At the end the focus of leadership is on creating value for both internal and external customers. As Paul mentioned in the first blog in the series, healthy leadership uses their power to serve others.
As the qoute said in the beginning of the last blog “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” – Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook)
Enjoy the journey of living your authentic leadership style. In the next blog we will dive a little deeper into discovering your authentic leadership style.
This blog in the series was written by Cias Ferreira.
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