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Gender & Presence in Leadership 011205
Imagine a short woman. Now imagine a tall man. They have equal skills, qualifications and experience. Which of the two would you choose to be the leader if you have no other criteria on which to make a choice?
One of the leadership workshop exercises I did at the London School of Economics (LSC) involved making such decisions based merely on non-verbal communication.
Only 2 women were chosen to be leaders in a group of 15. In other words, the likelihood of a man being chosen for a leadership role was almost 7 to 1 in favour of men.
Traditionally, those of us that instinctively know that the odds are against us, have tried to compensate & compete by acquiring better skills, qualifications and developing stronger character traits for example determination, perseverance and feistiness.
However, there is that non-verbal, intangible level of energy around us called "presence" and at the LSE, many of the participants chose their leader because of that person’s PRESENCE. In the discussion that followed this exercise, it was agreed that, all other things being equal, sometimes a person's PRESENCE can overcome the biases against them.
How would you define this intangible quality of “presence” and how would you enhance your own “presence” to overcome the barriers of prejudice and invisibility, to achieve the results you desire?
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