This story points out that women’s softer leadership style is good leadership that succeeds. The male leadership style that purports a confrontational, dictatorial tone is best may not be correct. Here’s a researched list of the twelve characteristics of a good leader.
I see that most of the qualities listed are natural for women. Almost none of them apply to dictatorial leaders. So why do we gravitate to authoritarian leaders in the workplace and country governance?
Research indicates authoritarians have almost none of the qualities of good leadership—NONE. This problem mystifies me as I have resisted authoritarian leadership in corporate settings and now in the US.
I’m not alone in resisting, as some of us always recognize authoritarians for what they are. How many authoritarian disasters do we have to live through to learn to embrace female leadership and skip the authoritarian assholes? A lot, it seems.
We don’t teach the history of authoritarianism that emphasizes the problems it causes for a country. It’s a repeated failure, and we keep embracing the failure over and over. Education on the differences between good leadership and authoritarian leadership is something we must do to break the cycle.
I see many posts on LinkedIn about good leadership and its meaning. What I never see is anyone comparing it to the poor authoritarian leadership most of us experience at companies or even at the country level. Things will never change if we don’t call attention to this dichotomy.
That’s why my Substack page exists. To call attention to the problem so we can fix it. Will you join me?
