Feminine Traits Can Lead to Success : Studies Show Executive Women Avoiding Earlier Advice

During the ‘50s and early ‘60s, a common buzz phrase for career women was: “You’ve got to be better than a man to get ahead.” Many times, that also meant women executives thought they also had to be more hard-nosed, tougher and more tight-lipped than men to get the job done.

But newer research reveals a woman’s softness and natural femininity can actually help her get ahead. Trudi Ferguson, president of a Southern California management firm that deals with women in organizations, studied 50 successful young women in law, medicine, the arts, business and entertainment.

Ferguson, also an adjunct professor in the graduate school of business at the University of Southern California, found her 50 subjects attributed their achievements, and six-figure salaries, to feminine personality traits.

One of Ferguson’s subjects was the first woman captain to fly a 747. That pilot performed her job much differently than a male pilot, who usually operates as the classic leader, issuing orders down the chain of command to the crew.

However, the female pilot relies more on cooperation and asks her crew for their input by disclosing everything she can about the plane, route, weather conditions and so on.

“Clearly, women have a different biology,” Ferguson says, “and from that flows behavior which has more to do with nurturing, cooperation and maintaining pleasant relationships. Most men, however, cope with the world of work through increased independence.

“My subjects reported that feminine skills that are so useful in marriage and family carry over into the corporate realm and are the key to their successes,” Ferguson says.

Older business women had adopted masculine models and believed that they had to stow away their femininity while climbing the career ladder. Those women attributed their success to technical skills, competence and independence.

But the younger women reported that they did well by getting along with people, being sensitive, understanding and “just being female.”

Most patients know their male surgeons as the epitome of authority. But a female surgeon in the study quickly recognized that major surgery is high on the list of life’s disquieting experiences. So she concentrated more on soothing the nerves of her patients and being sympathetic and supportive.

As executive women relax more and behave more naturally, Ferguson believes that men will feel less threatened and confused in the workplace. Much of the stridence, bitchiness and aggressiveness ascribed to career women resulted when females acted unnaturally, she thinks.

Ferguson’s younger subjects were 30 to 40 years old and earned an average of $100,000. One made more than $350,000 yearly. Ferguson is now turning her thesis into a book for general readers.

Carol Watson, associate professor of management at Rider College in Lawrenceville, N.J., looked at 47 mixed sex groups in a role play study designed to find if “sex appropriate,” or a considerate, style helps women to be more influential and effective leaders. Her findings suggest women managers only work against themselves when they are pushy, aggressive and bossy, especially when their subordinates are exclusively men.

“Earlier advice said women should act more like men if they wanted to be successful,” Watson says. “But newer studies show there’s no need for a man or a woman to manage as if it were Gen. Patton in charge.”

At Rutgers, John Aiello, area chair of social psychology, and some of his colleagues studied men and women at work. The study was triggered largely because many female students aiming for managerial jobs reported that they were constantly told, if they wanted to get ahead, they should act more like “one of the boys.” That included talking with the typically colder styles of communication used by many men.

That colder style includes less eye contact, standing farther apart, smiling and nodding less, folding arms across the chest, forgoing handshaking and disclosing less personal information. So the question for the Rutgers researchers became: “Do women need to adopt a different communication style to be effective managers?”