Women are some of the world’s most effective, yet underrepresented leaders. From the international level to the corporate to the humanitarian, women make up only a minority of leadership positions, yet they consistently show results that are stronger than their male counterparts. Studies into whether women have a different leadership style and what those leadership traits consist of are more important than ever as we watch leaders grapple with pressing issues like the pandemic in addition to longstanding issues like climate change. The people we look up to today to solve the world’s problems are the same people who will inspire tomorrow’s leaders—girls ready to do everything their role models, both women and men, are doing, but better.
According to a UN study, women are the heads of state in only 21 countries worldwide, make up only a quarter of members of national parliaments, and represent 36.3% of elected officials in local deliberative bodies. Women are also just 30% of executives in health organizations, and 24.7% of the world’s health ministers, despite the fact that 70% of health workers are women. These statistics show that few women are in the position to make decisions that represent the interests of other women. Despite the small number of women in charge, the women who are, particularly as heads of state, have been in the headlines this year for being the most effective, reactive, and decisive leaders in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
Women lead Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand and Slovakia—some of the countries that most effectively implemented confinement measures, testing, and social distancing. The same UN study found that “in countries such as Canada, Ethiopia, India and Madagascar, women medical and health experts are increasingly found in leadership positions and taking the lead in daily press briefings and public service announcements. Women mayors across the world, from Banjul (the Gambia) to Barcelona (Spain), have been highly visible in responding to the pandemic and are sharing their experiences in online forums.” So, what qualities do these and other women leaders share?
Another study found that in countries with comparable GDP per capita, population, population density, and population over 65 years of age, in addition to other equalizing factors, female-led countries had fewer deaths, locked down earlier, and were more communicative with the public about their policies. Leaders whose countries suffered lower death rates shared a few goals: inclusion of the population in planning, authenticity in terms of lowering the barrier between the professional and personal, truthfulness that built trust, decisiveness as the crisis unfolded, and the capable adaptation to technology to combat the virus, including using testing, contact tracing apps, social media knowledge-spreading, and online reporting systems, among other measures. From Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who created a robust stimulus package for economic recovery, to New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who used Facebook Live to hold an informal Q&A to reassure her populace, women have been reinventing the way that leaders react to and solve global issues as they unfold. Of course, proactive measures might be what define the most successful leaders of all: those who foresee and prevent problems before they burden society. Despite scientific appeals to leaders regarding the possibility of pandemics, it seems that most of the world was ill-prepared on this particular issue.
The pandemic might have highlighted the work of a few particularly successful women, but women have been leading movements for progress and recovery in other areas long before this year, and have made a particular impact in the climate movement. Multiple studies indicate “female policy-makers are better at working in a bipartisan way and collaborating across the aisle to drive change; they are more attuned to community needs; and, according the World Economic Forum, female leaders more effectively advance a populations’ overall health.” It’s well-established that climate change effects women in unique ways, especially among the world’s poor; therefore, it’s crucial that these women find themselves represented by women or are themselves in the position to make decisions impacting our global future. Women tend to perceive climate change as a risk more readily than men. Interestingly, men and women also have different emissions patterns, and in places like Sweden, men are responsible for almost twice as high emissions as women due to behavioral differences related to car use. Looking at statistics, with women in charge, the knowledge they bring in terms of care work, consumption, and behavioral patterns, in addition to their particular leadership styles, results in better-run, cleaner, and safer societies. It’s no wonder that climate activists like Greta Thunberg are regarded as saviors, their every word canonized and reprinted on a thousand activists’ posters.
Women are powerful, competent, and yes, in some ways, different than men because of their experiences and the knowledge that comes with these experiences, but they are not one conglomerate of do-gooding guardians who will save the world from the men who seek to dominate it. Women have always been part of the problem too, and powerful women have as varied opinions and approaches as powerful men: to write about them otherwise is a disservice. There’s something vaguely sexist, I think, about expecting “good” women, and especially girls, to solve the world’s problems—especially because in some capacity or another, with more or less visibility, they always have been doing just that. Behind Angela Merkel stand thousands of other women who might agree or disagree with her, but are still working to solve climate change, to stop the spread of the virus, to mitigate the impacts that both have had on vulnerable people, both male and female, across the world. Acknowledging the power of women in the climate movement is important—othering them is reductive. Nevertheless, they persist.
Featured image from Forbes