It’s no surprise that this gender stereotype has been widely held throughout society. Men have traditionally held most of the leadership roles all the way up to the President of the United States. It has been a cultural norm for men to take the leadership role in many circumstances. As a result, an assumption has emerged that men are just natural leaders and women were born to be followers.

Some “experts” have perpetuated this myth by claiming a variety of factors that contribute to women not having a natural ability to lead. These include:

o    Women are not as ambitious as men
o    Women are not risk takers so they don’t make good leaders
o    Women tend to avoid confrontation because of their hormones and they try to keep peace (all of the men reading this are laughing and thinking “WOW! You have obviously never met my woman!”)
o    Women are not as motivated as men
o    Women go against their own feminine nature when they try to lead
o    Women are too introverted to lead

Many of the reasons given for certain stereotypes contradict each other. For example, one stereotype asserts that women are too introverted, acquiescing, and apathetic to be leaders. They just aren’t as assertive as men. Yet another gender stereotype (by some of the same people who claim the first) will state that women advance in conflict (assertiveness) and men retreat to their caves (introversion). And we wonder why people are still confused about “gender issues.”

Take a look at the list of reasons above that have been attributed to women not being suited for leadership. Each one of them is attributable to social style, not gender. Let’s take a look at each one:

Ambition
A natural tendency towards ambition exists in Driver and Expressive social styles. Analyticals and Amiables tend to gravitate more toward stability and security.

Risk-Taking
This aspect of leadership follows ambition. Most people who are ambitious are willing to take risks. The risk-taking social styles are the Drivers and Expressives. Again, the Analyticals and Amiables tend to gravitate toward safety, not risk.
 
Dealing with Confrontation
This gender myth about women has to be the biggest joke of them all. The idea that women can’t excel in leadership positions because they don’t like to deal with conflict is laughable. Yes, there are some women (just as there are some men) who hate conflict, but it is not a gender issue—it’s a social style issue.

Amiables and Analyticals avoid conflict. It makes them feel uncomfortable and they would rather not deal with it. Amiables will give in to keep the peace and Analyticals will withdrawal to save face. You can easily see this tendency in both men and women who fall into these social style categories.

Drivers and Expressives do not mind confrontation. In fact, sometimes they look for it. They are assertive in nature, opinionated, and they do not have a problem telling people what they think.

Motivation
Motivation is similar to ambition. Some people view motivation as the desire to get things done and get them done quickly. All four social styles are motivated by different things and to different levels. When it comes to getting things done quickly, the Driver and Expressive tend to dominate that category (to the point of rash decisions at times). Analyticals and Amiables are more methodical and tend to take longer to get things done. Drivers are considered highly motivated people who are usually the most productive of the four social styles (often accused of being “work-a-holics”).

Nature
The idea that women will go against their own feminine nature if they try to lead is absurd. If a woman is born a Driver or an Expressive, her nature will gravitate towards taking the lead in many situations. She may choose not to take on a leadership role for a variety of reasons, but that doesn’t mean she is void of the desire to lead.

Introversion
Studies have indicated that people who are overly introverted and asocial do not excel in leadership roles. The connection is then made to women with the assumption that women are more introverted than men and therefore will not do as well in a leadership role.

Those who embrace the idea that women, by and large, are introverted have never had a conversation with the countless Expressive and Driver women in the world.

Assertiveness, extroversion and introversion are all attributable to social style, not gender. There are plenty of introverted men who do not do as well in social situations or certain leadership roles as someone who is social and extroverted would.

Drivers and Expressives are the extroverts while Amiables and Analyticals are the introverts. It’s not about gender, it’s about social style.

So does all of this mean Analyticals and Amiables can’t be great leaders? Not at all. Many of the qualities of great leaders can be attributable to behaviors. Even with the natural traits that your social style ingrained within you, there is still free choice in regards to behavior. All four social styles can be in leadership roles and each style brings different traits to the table. “Experts” have often made the mistake of claiming that your leadership style is dictated by your gender.


SURVEY SAYS
In our gender survey, we asked people if they tend to lead or follow. More men than women said they tend to lead. If we left it there, we could just reaffirm that men are natural leaders and women are natural followers. But once again, we need to dig deeper into the social style of the respondents. As stated earlier, more Drivers and Expressives filled out the survey than Amiables or Analyticals. Additionally, there were more male Drivers and Expressives than female.

The vast majority of people who said they tend to lead were Drivers and Expressives, regardless of gender. The majority of those who said they tend to follow turned out to be Amiable or Analytical in social style. While you will find all four social styles in leadership positions, Drivers and Expressives tend to want to take the lead more naturally while Analyticals and Amiables don’t mind surrendering the lead to others.

Most of the respondents who fell outside the norm had a secondary social style of Driver or Expressive. For example, if an Analytical answered that they tend to lead, the secondary social style was either Driver or Expressive, not Amiable.


IT MORE ABOUT SOCIAL STYLE
As you can see, leadership is not about gender, it’s about social style. All four styles can be in a leadership position and they each bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table. Some of the very traits that have been attributable to women can be found in the different social styles and manifest themselves in males as well. Conversely, some of the traits that have been attributable to just men can be found in the different social styles and seen in women who possess those social styles. So as you can see, your style of leadership is not dictated by your gender—it’s dictated by your social style. And even then, you can choose behavior that does not come naturally to you. It just takes a little practice. Okay… it takes a lot of practice. See the chart below for a summary of the social style leadership attributes.


-Excerpt from Kimberly Alyn's book titled Men Are Slobs Women Are Neat... and Other Gender Lies that Damage Relationships (co-author Bob Phillips)