What You Can Learn From Your Male Co-workers

It’s 2017 and women are still getting the short end of the stick. Is there something the men we share an office with know that we don’t?

- Gaby Ignacio

Quick Question: What qualities or traits do you associate with great leaders? I’ll give you a minute. Here’s a follow up: When you imagine these things, who do you picture? Chances are you rattled off a list that includes qualities like intelligence, drive, ambition, strength and confidence, and that you pictured a man.

Don’t turn your feminist card in just because you thought those things, though. You are far from alone. For decades, if not centuries, we’ve been told that men make better leaders for possessing, and sometimes even supposedly having a monopoly on, these qualities. This is despite several studies proving that women are just as — if not more — capable than their male peers. With all that conditioning, we’re inclined to believe the myths of commanding men and timid women that we’re fed.

A sweeping generalization, for sure, and not the gospel truth in any case. The time of “Think Manager, Think Male,” is coming to an end, with companies shifting to a more transformational style of leadership and putting more stock in more traditionally “feminine” traits like compassion, warmth and gentleness. How to be an effective, successful leader, after all, is acquired, not something you were born with, and it is most definitely not dependent on your gender. However, every great leader knows there’s always more to learn, so we’ve run down some traits commonly associated with men at work, and the steps you can take in integrating them into your own working style…assuming you’d want to. Because who’s to say that one person, regardless of gender, can’t be all of these and more?