consensus reached on an all-male WhatsApp chat yesterday: That every male boss any of us ever worked for had something seriously wrong with them.
Sometimes they were self-absorbed or pompous. Sometimes they were bullies. Sometimes they had attention deficit disorder.
In all cases, a failure to listen or the fact that staff were too scared to challenge them led to unnecessary errors.
No female boss of ours had any of those traits. They tended to be practical. To say “thank you” a lot. Egos were hidden. They were interested in good outcomes and assumed those outcomes would be better evidence of their leadership skills than Churchill-like posturing.
They were not Boss Baby, in other words.
Our conclusion: Put women in charge of anything that actually matters.
Men can muck about running advertising agencies or, maybe, PR firms.
I’m not the first to note that countries with women leaders seem to be handling the Covid crisis best.
In the case of New Zealand or Iceland you can see those countries might have some geographic advantages, but still, when you hear the female PM’s talk, it is reassuring.
They have totally got this, you think. It is the very opposite of listening to Donald Trump or Boris Johnson.
It is too early to say that big businesses run by women have done better than those run by men, though GlaxoSmithKline looks in good shape.
Royal Bank of Scotland is also heading the right way.
Severn Trent is saying all the right things.
Perhaps in future, investors won’t let male led boards justify hiring another male CEO on the basis that there aren’t enough qualified women available.
There clearly are.
