Most things I have learned about good management, I have learned from women.

Over a period of 18 years, I have been exposed to almost every managerial style and I have to admit that women are better managers than men. In case you were wondering, I am a man.

The privilege of working as a consultant has allowed me to be involved in people-based facilitation and change processes in over sixty companies in this beautiful country. Exposure to almost every industry from forestry to clothing retail has taught me a great deal about management in a diverse range of environments.

When I walk into a meeting, as a specialist in change management, I mostly have the attention of the group of people I’m going to meet. The women who command my respect in these situations are not automatically those dressed in the “power” business suits! It is the woman who looks like a woman, is a woman and who is assertive and sure of herself and her competence who has my attention. If I had wanted to compete with a woman who believes she needs to imitate aggressive men, I would have gone to a woman’s wrestling match.

The major strength of good female managers (and women in general) is that they don’t need to be sent on EQ courses to “learn” effective appropriate communicative interactive skills – they have it already in great abundance. Men, when faced with a question, believe that a solution or answer has to be produced instantaneously. Men are destination oriented, and women (for the most part) are more journey focused and they listen far more effectively and interactively.

A good manager, according to John Maxwell, has empathy, is a leader, is people focused yet does not lose focus on the task at hand. A good leader understands that their people have a deep need for recognition, and how hard is it to use the two simple phrases “please” and “thank you”? Women, in general, are far more open to recognising the other person and to using these simple words, whilst men are more inclined to give instructions as imperatives and demands.

This does not mean that all women are natural leaders, I have met my fair share of ineffective dominant women managers. These women tend to behave like men and believe that the only way to get ahead is to repress the woman in themselves and dress instead in testosterone iron clad “chain-male” armour. It also comes down to personality too, and every facet of our lives have true leaders and unhappy controllers, and they can be men or women.

With the radically changing gender and racial demographics in business in South Africa today the face and faces in management have changed and will continue to change. Women have for many years been held back from roles in leadership and management particularly in bigger “old school tie” organisations and the glass ceiling has been far too evident and limiting. Things have changed, but the question that begs asking is, have men and women changed in their attitudes towards each other? I can answer that from experience and the answer is for the most part, no!

Women are dealing with cultural gender noise too as some men in some cultures do not take kindly to taking instructions from women - it has been like that for thousands of years, why change now. Men have found that they are now made to report to, and take instructions from women, and this becomes extremely difficult for both men bound by tradition. As South Africans, we are blessed with the most advanced Constitution in the world that is superbly culture and gender fair. As a nation, we are still unfortunately only learning to apply the principles and make it work effectively for all the people for whom it was designed to protect and develop. I have a specific rule when it comes to business, “I don’t mind where you come from, or what you believe - you have a job to do, now do it to the best of your ability for the benefit of the company, your colleagues and lastly yourself”.

More women have taught me what it means to lead than men, and when I was one of the permanently employed many years ago at the start of my career I had a number of female and male managers. I’ll rephrase that, I had men bosses and women leaders from whom to learn. I have taken and applied many of the principles of leadership that I learned from women, and I learned not what to do from many of those men. The factor that made the women different was a level of respect and trust that I did not experience from men. Men are born competitive, and competent work from other men can be threatening!

Men are feeling a general sense of loss of direction and control today, and this is as a result of rapid change socially, economically, politically and personally. Men can learn from women, and women from men, it is that simple. We have a nation to build, relationships to heal, past hurts to forgive and dreams that need to become realities. The battle of the sexes, if left to rage on, will not benefit anyone ultimately. I suppose the single message that I have is that we need to stop relying on our past insecurities and instead bank on a better future by working productively together daring to look beyond sex, race and culture.