There is a lot of scientific research in this area. What do we prefer for leaders and what does the evolution have to do with this. Are women better leaders than men and why? And why are there not many women at the top of business and politics?
A small experiment has been done. The picture below was shown to a group of people. Both men and women and different ages.
The following was said with this pictures:
Suppose there are presidential elections. You can choose from two leaders. Leader A or Leader B. Those scenarios have been given to the people, but something has been said.
Situation 1: Your country is at war with another country. Who do you choose as a leader now? Leader A or Leader B? The majority chose leader A.
Situation 2: Your country wants a peaceful relationship with the neighboring country. Who do you choose as a leader now? Leader A or Leader B? The majority chose leader B.
This experiment was carried out in the Netherlands, England, China, Indonesia and America. The same picture always appears. We have a preference for a male leader in time of war and a female leader in time of peace.
Professor Mark van Vugt is an evolutionary psychologist and he looks at our primeval brain how it was formed millions of years ago and how it looks at leaders and followers. Then you see that those preferences are already quite old. It can be seen in ancient tribe cultures, hunters and collectors. We humans have spent 99% of our time on earth in that culture. There you already see peace leaders and war leaders.
For example, in Indian tribes, the war leaders are young aggressive men. These men form a group and go out to rob other tribes. The leaders of peace are the old wise leaders and they are in charge at the moment when there is no war. Sometimes they are women too.
If we go further in our evolution, we also see the same distinction in animal species. For example, with the chimpanzees. You see groups of males under the guidance of the alpha male, who is going to wage war with the neighboring community and sometimes also kill other chimpanzees there. We see that females and especially the oldest female have a role in conflict control in the group. So if two males are fighting together, the oldest female can get in between them. Frans de Waal has written many books about it, how he has observed their behavior.
We can go back a step further to the elephants. Because who is the boss of the elephants? It depends on. If the group is attacked and must be protected then the male elephant takes over, but if a water spot has to be found on the Savannah, they eventually follow the one who knows the most. Who still knows if there is ever a place with water and that is the oldest female.
So we see those prototypes coming forward in the animal kingdom. And the question is, do we see that today? We can see this, for example, by looking at the defense ministers. It is very striking that if you look at the defense ministers in north and west European countries, they are all women. What if we had called the ministers of war? Were these women still in the picture? That will always be a question ..
How old these prototypes can be viewed in a different way. Namely by asking preschoolers about their preference for leaders. Professor Mark van Vugt recently did that in the Netherlands. He and his team have been to a number of schools in various places and have conducted an experiment. In this experiment, the toddlers had to assess the four list leaders of the Dutch second chamber elections.
The question to the toddlers was, imagine you are sailing on a boat, who do you want as captain of your boat? Most preschoolers preferred Buma and Rutten.
The interesting thing about this research was that Buma and Rutten emerged as the best leaders. Theirs also have the most to face a leadership. Interestingly, Klaver was preferred when, at the time of being asked, who would you like to be a captain of your boat if you should work well together with your friends and girlfriends. While if asked, imagine your boat is attacked by pirates, who would you like to be a captain of your boat. Wilders preferred this question.
So we have certain preferences for leaders, peacetime woman, wartime man. Now the question is, do men and women also lead in a different way? A lot of research has been done on this. You can do measurement analyzes about this. Then you join all the investigations together and then you look at the conclusions. The important conclusion is, of course, there are many similarities, but in general, men in their leadership are somewhat more authoritarian, slightly more dominant, somewhat more assertive. They just say faster, you have to do this. Whereas, on the other hand, when you look at women, they lead in a somewhat more egalitarian way. They involve the group more, participative leadership, democratic and are also warmer.
So if you expect a flower from your superior if you are sick. Then your leader can best be a woman.
The next question is then, are women good leaders? There is increasing research that shows this, for example, research in the boardrooms of the large companies shows a certain pattern. The more diverse the boardroom is, the more women there are, the better it goes with the company. On small-scale research. Research into self-managing teams, of which there are increasing numbers in the companies, also shows that female team leaders are actually more competent than men.
All indications are that women are good leaders especially in certain circumstances and if you look at the modern working environment where there must be a lot of connecting leadership, where people have to work together a lot, you would say that is the territory for women.
And yet there is the glass ceiling. Why do not more women push the top of politics or business? Professor Mark van Vugt tries to answer that.
To be continued...