Women are generally more suited than men to manage modern corporations - Essay Example

? Aptness of Women Managers in Modern Corporations al Affiliation Traditionally in the American society, there werehardly any women in the top management of the countries’ large corporations. However, today, over half of America’s workforce comprises of women. Additionally, women headed at least 12 companies classified as Fortune 500 and 25 companies classified as Fortune 1000 by the year 2009. This accounts for an increase of approximately 4% in the number of women heading these classes of companies from the statistics of 1998, when the figure stood at 11.2%. While this growth rate seems sluggish at face value, it implicitly reveals the gradual acceptance of women into the realms of top management of large corporations in America. While this is noteworthy, the question of whether the workforce is really ready to be managed by women begs. If so, are women fit for the job? This paper proposes that women are better managers than men, hence their suitability to head modern corporations in America and the world over. Keywords: Top management, Women, Corporations, Workforce, Managers Introduction The boardrooms of many of the countries’ multi-faceted corporations dealing with information technology, publishing, and advertising among other industries have long been dominated majorly by males (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). However, in the contemporary American society, there has been a paradigm shift that has seen the absorption of women into the management of large corporations cutting across different industries. With this shift comes the dynamics of the different leadership and management styles employed by female managers, the attributes of personality, attitude, and nature that they employ in management of the workforce, and their suitability for modern corporations and the effectiveness of their implementation. To begin with is a list of attributes that make women managers more suited for management of modern corporations. Attributes that Highlight the Suitability of Women Managers According to Billing and Alvesson, while studies have revealed that there are no major differences between the behaviors and styles of management that distinctly set women and men managers apart, women and men managers are not entirely similar (1993). There are qualities of women that influence their management styles. For instance, women are viewed as being more encouraging and people-oriented (Billing & Alvesson, 1993). Due to the nature of women being more nurturing than men, it follows that when they are in positions of management, they relate better to their colleagues and subordinates. Women will often react by urging on employees as opposed to retribution, and this will often encourage employees to perform better, as well as being more motivated. By being more people-oriented, women managers are more in touch with the needs and personal well-being of their subordinates, rather than just their performance at work. They capitalize on their relations with other people at the work place and therefore often lead by setting examples, understand, and encourage employees to be more efficient by being more in touch with their needs. Women managers in this respect are also better listeners and build better relationships with people around them in the workforce. They are more concerned with the human aspects of different situations in the work environment (Rutherford, 2011). According to News Agencies, women are also better at decision making than men (2013). In many corporations that are headed by women, the decision making process has been found to be more efficient and organized. In situations where there is a conflict involved that needs to be resolved, women managers are found to make decisions that are more reasonable and fairer than their male counterparts. In the process of making decisions, women managers are more likely than men managers to take into account the implications of the decisions that they make on other parties. Such parties include those in both direct and indirect contact with the firm from shareholders, customers, suppliers, investors, to employees (News Agencies, 2013). This ensures that the firm maintains good relations with the immediate external environment. Additionally, women managers often involve different parties in the decision making process leading to increased teamwork and collaboration within organization (News Agencies, 2013). Women managers according to Rutherford are also considered to have more emotional intelligence than male managers, which helps their management styles (2011). As a result, women managers are better able to determine, evaluate, and control their emotions and those of other people in their work environment. This is an important attribute because while emotion may be regarded as a sign of weakness in the work environment, humans cannot be devoid of emotions. Every activity that a person is involved in within and away from the work environment, as well as the events that take place always elicits a particular emotion from them. As a result, emotions affect the performance of employees within the organization making it necessary for a manager to have the ability to identify these emotions and anticipate the reaction of their counterparts in the work environment. Additionally, the manager should be able to come up with mechanisms and an environment that will enable employees to cope better with their emotions. Managers should also be able to assess and control their own emotions in order to ensure that they do not stand in the way of fulfilling their obligations to the organizations. In retrospect, women are therefore better suited to head modern corporations, due to the advantage that they have of being more emotionally intelligent than men managers. According to Rutherford, women managers also have better administrative skills than men (2011). Women within the modern corporation have better organizational skills (Rutherford, 2011); this ensures that they are able to effectively organize tasks and resources to meet the objectives of the organization. Women are able to adapt more easily to changes than men and having women in management ensures that the organizational culture is better suited for adaptation to the dynamism of the business environment (Rutherford, 2011). Additionally, women managers are more flexible and open to creativity and innovative solutions to problems facing the organization (Rutherford, 2011). This attribute implies that women managers achieve better results than men managers with out-of-the-box solutions to problems in organizations. Despite being more empathetic to the feelings of other people, women managers generally have stronger characters and are tougher than men managers. They therefore are able to create a work environment that is more austere and result-oriented. This also means that they are more demanding than their male counterparts. This will often spur employees to work harder in meeting deadlines and achieving organizational objectives. Lastly, women as administrators are better able to multi-task and achieve results from more than one task at a time. This means that it takes women managers a shorter time to complete a set of tasks compared to men managers. The above assertions can be backed by the upsurge in the number of women who are successfully and effectively heading multinational corporations in the world over. Their unmatched success and problem-solving in instances of corporate messes, proves beyond doubt that women are better suited for management of modern corporations than men managers. The following is a list of some of the successful women managers and presidents in some of America’s largest corporations that demonstrate this fact. Women who are Successful in Management of Modern Corporations According to Gettings, Johnson, Brunner and Frantz, one such woman manager is Sheryl Sanderbag, who currently holds the position of Chief Operating Officer at Facebook (n.d.). Sanderbarg was appointed to this position in 2008, and was selected as the first woman to work on the Board of Directors of Facebook (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Sanderbarg has a number of accolades under her belt, among them appearing on the list of the World’s Most Influential 100 People compiled every year by Time magazine (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Second is Marissa Mayer, the Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo! Having been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo! in 2012, Mayer became the youngest person to be appointed CEO of a company classified as Fortune 500. She was 37 years old and has also been listed among America’s Most Powerful Women in Business by Fortune magazine where she was positioned as the fourteenth (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). She has previously worked at Google and was instrumental in the creation and launch of Google products and services such as Search, Gmail, Google maps, and also iGoogle (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). A third successful woman manager of a modern corporation is the late Mary Kay Ash, a business executive and creator of the cosmetic range by the name Mary Kay Cosmetics. Mary Kay Cosmetics is one of the biggest companies dealing with beauty products in the United States (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). While she passed on in November 2001, Mary Kay had turned her business from a small start-up worth $5,000 to a multi-million dollar enterprise, which at the time of her demise, was worth $2 billion and employing over 800,000 sales and marketing representatives (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Andrea Jung the president and Chief Executive Officer of Avon products is also another example of the successful women in the management of modern corporations (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Jung seats at the top of the company dubbed as the largest direct seller of products and services in America. Prior to being appointed CEO, Jung worked as a consultant for the firm that currently makes sales worth more than $8 billion, and has maintained its status as a Fortune 500 company invigorating the firm with her expertise in marketing and proficiency in retail (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Lastly is Brenda Barnes, the Chief Executive Officer of Sara Lee. Barnes resigned from her job at PepsiCo to attend to her family, but later got a job at Sara Lee where she rose to the position of CEO (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Her story is mostly remarkable since she was appointed to head the company at a time when the firm was in a corporate muddle. She was tasked with the duty of restructuring the corporation with the aim of bringing about centralization. She took up the obligation of reviving marketing and innovation within the firm, which had previously been neglected, sending the firm on a downhill spin (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Her plans for the conglomerate include growing operations to over 12% of the current rate (Gettings, Johnson, Brunner & Frantz, n.d.). Conclusion According to Rutherford, management style is an imperative component of the culture within an organization (2011). In determining the effectiveness of a management style, it is important to consider the hierarchy of authority within the organization, the manner in which managers relate to their subordinates, the process involved in making of decisions, the attributes that are most praised at work, and the systems of reward that are put in place within an organization (Rutherford, 2011). In retrospect, women can be deemed to be better managers of the modern corporations than men. This is because women have intrinsic skills such as being people-oriented, which ensures that they have a better understanding of the employees and subordinates working for them. As a result, they are better able to handle their human capital, which is the key element in the success of many modern corporations. Women managers are also more supporting than men managers. They have a greater wealth of emotional intelligence and are better at making fair decisions. Women managers are overall better administrators than men managers. These assertions are backed by the evidence of women successfully leading some of the largest modern corporations in America such as Yahoo! Mary Kay, Facebook, Sara Lee, and Avon. The effectiveness and efficiency of these women managers, as well as their handling of corporate concerns and upheavals proves beyond doubt that women are better suited to be managers of modern corporations than men. Reference List Billing, Y. D. & Alvesson, M. (1993). Gender, managers and organizations. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter & Co. Gettings, J., Johnson, D., Brunner, B. & Frantz, C. (n.d.). Wonder Women: Profiles of Leading Female CEOs and Business Executives. Retrieved from: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenceo1.html#ixzz2l4jTxC86 News Agencies. (2013, March 27). Women 'Make Better Bosses than Men'. The Telegraph. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/9957262/Women-make-better-bosses-than-men.html Rutherford, S. (2011). Women's Work, Men's Cultures: Overcoming Resistance and Changing Organizational Cultures. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Read More