Mike Bell's Leadership Wisdom

Do Women Make Better Managers than Men?

"Women have for centuries been recognized as talented listeners, nurturers, motivators, excellent communicators. These very qualities that we once were told were unbusinesslike are precisely the qualities that business needs most to tap human potential." Mary Cunningham Agee

The new gender gap puts women in front of men, at least in school. So says Gary Becker, the Nobel Prize Winning economist, in a post on the blog he shares with Richard Posner. Ultimately, says Becker:

Whatever the explanation for the remarkable shift in college attendance rates of men and women during the past 40 years, this shift is likely to have major implications for future changes in the gender gap in average earnings, the fraction of heads of business that are women, and other measures of gender differences in achievement.

Here are four other reasons why the glass ceiling is breaking:

Where business meets jazz

“Born in a different time, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane and Miles Davis might have been known as the most successful corporate leaders in America instead of the most well-known jazz musicians. Why? Because of the incredible overlap between the worlds of jazz and business. The elements that make a jazz group phenomenal are similar to those that make companies great.” from CLO magazine

We think jazz is a great metaphor for jazz also - see jazzLEADERSHIP for information about our innovative leadership learning community.

New Studies Highlight Real Leadership Challenges

I’m a bit of a magpie. I collect interesting jigsaw pieces of information about leadership and performance and store them away until I get two or three pieces that seem to fit together and shed a little more light or provide more insight. So, here’s the latest:

Research by the Engineering Employers Federation says that more than half of Britain’s manufacturing companies have failed to implement any of the 12 most widely recognized modern production methods. The result is that our manufacturing productivity lags behind our international competitors; for example the gap between the UK and USA is estimated at 45%.

Does this gap apply just to manufacturing I wonder?



The study goes on to say “Coming fresh to the role, many were tempted or persuaded to do things in which they did not believe. They learned that this did not work, primarily because the people (who were) expected to follow could detect their lack of sincerity. The greatest mistake was trying to be something one was not: to claim to know more, do more, be more that one actually was.”

I think we need to ask what would make these Chief Executives behave in this way? And we only need to take an honest look at ourselves to find some of the answers!

Cyril Levicki of Reading University has come up with a researched answer. Based on a study among scores of directors of blue chip companies, Levicki concludes that Britain’s boardrooms are occupied by mummy’s boys, brimming with repressed anger and driven by an unconscious craving for affection. He goes on to say that many children who become chief executives are reared by dominant mothers who lavish them with tenderness when they are good and withdraw their love at the first sign of failure. This leaves them with a powerful need to achieve and a hunger for others approval.

The result is a leadership elite with high levels of resentment and anxiety, low levels of self esteem and an inability to motivate subordinates.

Does anyone recognize any of this in their bosses? In themselves?

If this is even partly true then we need to be seriously looking at our whole approach to leadership development.

At The Wisdom Meme we focus on the internal and the external, the being and the doing. For all of us, our behaviour in the world is structured by myriad beliefs, opinions, attitudes and images we have picked up during our life. Only when we take the time out and begin to examine this structuring, heal and discard that which robs us of our power to be a balanced leader and develop that which strengthens us, can we really begin to contribute to developing the potential and contribution of those we lead.

Integral Leadership

I am always interested in articles that give me another interpretation of new concepts that I find attractive and add value to my work. If you are interested in Spiral Dynamics , Wilber's Four Quadrants and Integral everthing, here is a useful piece on leadership...

"Kurt Lewin, considered by many to be the father of modern organization development practices, is famous for claiming that “there’s nothing so practical as a good theory.” And in 2003, the field of leadership and leadership development does not lack for theories and models. There’s the emotional intelligence model, the concept of the “self-differentiated leader” contributed by family systems theory, the notion of situational leadership, and the ever-popular model of the charismatic leader, to name a few. Whole leadership development programs tend to spring up around each new leadership theory, exist for a while, and then give way as another theory or model comes into favor. And yet, we are still plagued by organizational and leadership breakdowns, across sectors and industries. All of our theories seem to have accomplished little over the long term. Why is that?

Courageous Conversation for Leadership

Five simultaneous conversations are essential to the art and discipline of leadership…

The first courageous conversation is the conversation with the unknown future—what lies over the horizon…”

The second conversation is the courageous conversation you’re not having with a present customer, a patient, a vendor, who all represent the future as it’s lapping up against the side of your organization….”

The third conversation is the courageous conversation you’re not having between different divisions of the organization…”

The fourth courageous conversation is the conversation you’re not having in your work group, among your colleagues—people you see every day, or people you e-mail or talk to on your mobile every day…”

The fifth courageous conversation—the one on which I believe all others are predicated—is the courageous conversation you’re not having with that tricky moveable frontier called yourself.

-- David Whyte

Gentle Action - Surviving Chaos and Change

This is from an article by F David Peat, author of an excellent book called Blackfoot Physics. In this article he demonstrates how small actions can have powerful effects and gives many examples.

"How can policy makers, NGO, institutions, businesses and individuals achieve stability in a world of rapid change and engage in activities that are more appropriate to the situations that surround them? Issues of uncertainty have always existed; as have apparently intractable problems. Yet more recently these issues have been magnified and exacerbated by technologies that allow for rapid transfer of information, large scale economic speculation and fast implementation of policies and actions at a global level.

"Today they are also viewed from within the wider context of global insecurity and economic uncertainty. Gentle Action addresses such issues. It is an approach in which a subtle action operating in often unexpected ways can produce large effects." More ....

Five Generational Differences Shaping Leadership

Our youngest leaders matured in the glow of computer screens; our oldest in the shadow of the Depression and World War II. (Bennis & Thomas, 2002)

An interesting article that explains some of the reasons why our traditional approaches to leadership no longer work.

"For Generations X and Y, the old command and control leadership is passé. The top down leadership style that grew from a military model is not effective in today’s world of rapid change. Today’s young leaders act first and evaluate later, because a leader cannot afford to carefully evaluate first in the high-speed environment of today.

"This rapid response decision-making is a characteristic of today’s young people. They have been taught to act fast. Consider the video games young people have grown up with. They have played with simulations since they were very small, and have learned to act fast, watch what happens, and adapt. I remember a very early game my children played where a frog had to hop across the river without falling in the water or being eaten by the alligators. Do you remember Frogger?"

Lasting Leadership

A new book, Lasting Leadership, interviews 25 business leaders including

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com;
Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group;
Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway;
Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers;
Peter Drucker, the educator and author;
William (Bill?) Gates, chairman of Microsoft;
Louis Gerstner, former CEO of IBM;
and more of the usual suspects.

The book identifies eight attributes of leadership, each of which has its own chapter, that are evident to varying degrees in these individuals.


1. They are able to build a strong corporate culture.

2. They are truth-tellers.

3. They are able to find and cater to under-served markets.

The Great and the Good

Moving on from old-fashioned notions of the 'great man', new research suggests that Britain, unlike the US, may have developed a more sensitive view of leadership.

Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe and John Alban-Metcalfe report

As any HR or business student knows, there is no shortage of texts on the subject of leadership, but there are times when one wonders whether they are more dangerous than helpful.

The leadership landscape is dominated by notions of visionary and charismatic leaders. But just how relevant are they for modern organisations? Leadership writers are asking whether these "new paradigms" are anything more than an updated spin on the old notion of the heroic leader, which characterised the "great man" theories of the 1930s to 1950s.

12 Principles for The New Leaders

This is taken from an article called The New Leaders by one of my favourite and most authentic writers about leadership, self and organisation, Tom Heuerman.

.... New principles to live by emerge for us. My principles serve as lenses to experience life through:

1. I can only control my own choices,
2. I believe in something greater than myself,
3. I live my deepest authenticity,
4. I am honest with myself about myself,
5. I share myself with another person,
6. I take action,
7. I choose a life of service,
8. I am aware of my impact on others,
9. I revere all living things,
10. I reflect on my actions,
11. I communicate with that which is greater than I,
12. I share my learning with others.