leading ladies of Grey and Bruce County,

I haven’t been in local politics long, but I’ve noticed that while some women succeed quite gracefully in leadership roles, others seem to take a hard turn and don’t get re-elected. I wish to see you all succeed so I wanted to share a book you may find of interest, called ”Leadership and the Sexes” by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis. It speaks about the neurobiology of gender differences, and optimal leadership styles to take best advantage of them.

”Barbara and her team were able to help IBM recognize that one of the things that mattered most was underlying brain differences between women and men. Women ’ s ways of being, working, and leading were not understood or valued at IBM. Women did not feel needed. ”For instance, men in the company would see a woman negotiating differently and perceive that the woman lacked negotiation skills. ”Women, on the other hand, would see men pushing to get a decision without talking about the context and valuing women ’ s opinions, and they would conclude that the men were dismissing their input. ”A constant stream of misinterpretations, based on differences in how men and women perceive and act in the workplace, were a core problem, and IBM decided to deal with it head-on. The company ran a series of workshops to transform the mind-set of their managers. Men and women came to see brain - based gender differences not as a hindrance or something to be accommodated, but as an advantage the team could use.” ”Through this process — which began as a two - year training program —the misconceptions and assumptions that had been driving men and women apart were gradually removed. Over the two - year period, turnover of women professionals in sales was greatly reduced. Not only did this work address the problem of retaining female talent, but it was also great for the company ’ s reputation. IBM was recognized in Working Mother maga zine and received a number of accolades and awards. Most important, IBM ’ s focus on creating a woman - friendly environment helped them make money.”

While there are many amazing aspects to the book, for me what still resonates years after reading it, is the main difference in leadership styles. Men have a lot of grey matter in their brains, and women have a lot of white matter. So Men tend to get stuck on various ideas and pursue them doggedly, wheras Women are able to hear a wide variety of inputs and come up with a cohesive middle ground that works for the majority. This is also aided by the fact that female brains have a larger cingulate gyrus, allowing women to be much better at keeping track of the emotional state of the other people in the room.

The issues in leadership I’ve seen typically stem from when people with female brains attempt to lead in a masculine away, it often doesn’t work as well, since they are not playing to their strengths. But when people with female brains do work with their strengths, they make for powerful leaders that benefit multitudes. Indeed the book mentions that organizations with more than 5,000 members are best led by females, as they are able to manage the wide variety of inputs and stake holders, wheras a male leader make have too narrow a focus due to how they are wired. I do apologize if as a male brained individual I ”can’t read the room”, and am prone to repeating myself and the best ideas I can find oscillating in my head, it’s unfortunately/fortunately the best I can do.

Really the female way of leading is very powerful, as many stake holders and providers of input are invested, and ”get something out of it”, which helps to strengthen the leadership role.

I’ve attached a copy of the book to this email just in case, though certainly you can get your own in whatever format you prefer. Once again the title is ”Leadership and the Sexes: Using gender science to create success in business” by Michael Gurian with Barbara Annis.

From a more spiritual perspective it is similar I think to the soft vs hard heart dichotomy, in that having a warm, soft, supple and compassionate heart seems to go hand in hand with playing to ones strengths, especially for female leadership styles, as they are so interactive.

Or as the Confederation of Planets states:

L/L 2020/01/18 ”Thus, entities who wish to reform the patriarchal situation that may be predominantly of a male nature but also contain those of the female gender as well, are attempting at this time to enhance the type of expression that is more matriarchal, that which is feminine, that which awaits the reaching, that which does not have the temptation or the desire or the ability to be aggressive. ”The awaiting the reaching is that which is comforting, that which is cooperative, that which is generative of the expression of love that accepts all that are within the realm of influence and nurtures each within that realm of influence. ”Thus, the matriarchal type of expression of energies, is that which is seeing the entire picture, the, shall we say, grander view, the overview, and is patiently awaiting the discovery of each entity within the illusion, be the entity biological male or female, that the old ways of patriarchy have served their purpose and have, perhaps, been in dominance overlong, needing to be balanced by the nurturing nature of the feminine principle that awaits the reaching.” https://www.llresearch.org/channeling/2020/0118

May you be blessed,