Last week’s column, “Are You an Alpha Male?” provoked responses from three female readers. One of them was particularly angry: “What about us females? Are you saying that unless we become like your Alpha Males, we have no place in the world of management?”, she asked.

Unfortunately, the research literature on Alpha Females is very scant. Whether we like it or not, if I were to ask you to identify typical Alpha Males in your organisation using the criteria depicted in last week’s article, you would probably experience few if any, difficulties in doing so. But Alpha Females? What are we talking about here? Would they be those really smart, intelligent and influential women you meet from time to time? Would they be the bossy ones that are best at getting things done? “In our work with (American) senior executives,” write Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson, “we’ve encountered many women who possess some of the traits of the Alpha Male – but none who possess all of them.” In short, the term “Alpha Female” simply does not exist.

What are we to conclude? Is it that females do not make it to the top in our male-dominated workplace because they cannot behave like their males counterparts i.e. control staff, take tough decisions, show interest in figures and cope with stress? Not at all, argue Ludeman and Erlandson. According to them, it’s simply that males and females manage differently – as per the following examples:

• Power. The vast majority of women place more value than men on interpersonal relationships and pay therefore more attention to people’s feelings than men do in general. They often rise to positions of power by excelling at collaboration. Consequently, they do not seek to dominate people and are less inclined to resort to intimidation when they want something – as Alpha Males do.

• Anger. Like their Alpha Males counterparts, some female executives and managers do resort to expressing their anger by bullying others. The problem here is that the corporate environment in which we operate is much less tolerant of a female “throwing her weight around” – as compared to a male. Consequently, the female employee prone to letting her anger flow is, on average, much less likely to reach an executive position.

• Fear-driven. Contrary to their Alpha Males counterparts, female executives in general do not buy into a fear-driven culture – they readily understand instead the importance of positive motivation and believe that inspiring and motivating others is just as important as pursuing the right vision.

• Criticism. Often because they have been stung early in their careers by critical feedback, many female leaders, in sharp contrast to their Alpha Males counterparts, avoid criticizing others in an effort to keep everyone’s spirits high. Consequently, they come across as more affirming and supporting than the Alpha Males – but pay the price of not being able to give frank and open feedback to their subordinates.

• Conflict. We saw it in last week’s article: your typical Alpha Male is driven, has high expectations and is not scared of conflict. In fact, he thrives on it. Female leaders on the other hand, are less comfortable with conflict. Being more interested in collaboration and compromise, they will often take part in the debate until they perceive that their opponents’ emotions are being triggered – at which point they will back down rather than press forward. Ludeman and Erlandson warn that this indirect style of communication is often misinterpreted by their male peers as lacking assertiveness or being political with hidden agendas.

I said so in this column last year and repeat it today: I don’t know about you but I believe that the time has arrived for us males, to study our successful female leaders more closely and perhaps, in the process, discover one thing or two about leadership.

<B>Prof E. Charoux

[email protected]</B>