The Pain of Gender-Imbalanced Leadership
In reading Samuel Chand’s book, Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth, I discovered the following story shared by Lisa Bevere of Messenger International at the beginning of chapter 8. After you read it you’ll know why I had to make it the focus of my blog…
“Recently I found myself traveling on a plane alongside a brilliant gentleman in his eighties. For many decades he consulted organizations as diverse as Johns Hopkins Hospital and the US Department of Defense. Even at his advanced age he was still in high demand, speaking at leadership summits and retaining seats on prestigious boards. It wasn’t long before I found myself caught up in stories from a long, successful career.
I asked the man what were some of the most essential elements to growth and success. He answered, without any hesitation, the involvement of women.
He explained that if a company he was consulting did not have women on their board, or had not enrolled any women in his seminar, he gave them two options. He invited them to choose a few of their brightest females, and he would consult them for free. If they declined, he refused to consult the company altogether.
When I asked why he was so adamant on this point, he assured me that women have innate talent for things many organizations lack, yet need to move confidently into the future—three of them being intuition, communication, and compassion. Far too many women are not involved in areas of leadership that desperately need them.
My experiences in church leadership have been quite the opposite of this man’s experiences in the corporate world. I remember an incident when my husband, John, invited me to be part of a meeting with a number of church leaders. When I arrived, I discovered I was the only female present.
Even though the group knew I would be joining them, my presence was met with almost open hostility by the host. From the onset he did his best to invalidate my input with condescending comments, heavy sighs, and the rolling of his eyes.
Any communication that involved our organization was singularly directed to John. John kept encouraging my involvement, saying, “I would like Lisa to weigh in on this.” But if I spoke, I was completely ignored.
A very clear signal was sent to those present: Lisa may be in this room, but she will not be acknowledged. John tried to include me, but I was not going to jump into the mix again.
After the meeting, another leader attempted to comfort me: “Hey, he just doesn’t like processing things with women.”
What do you say to that? “I’m sorry for being female”?
John was uncomfortable with what had transpired as well, but I wanted to avoid further conflict. When John raised his concerns, I echoed the input of the associate. “It’s okay. He just doesn’t process things with women…but I am glad you do.”
I decided then and there that John would go to all future meetings alone. I was just a hindrance to the process. But though I was not willing to pursue the issue further, the meeting had set off an alarm within my spirit.”[1]
This is not only incredible support for my research into the need for more gender-balanced leadership opportunities, but also it addresses some of the “why” behind the need to include women at the leadership table. Female leaders are not unfamiliar with leadership pain. I challenge you to find a female leader who has not experienced some type of discrimination or marginalization in almost every type of organization. Many give up under the pressure and get tired of fighting the uphill battle, while others resort to looking the other way and taking what they can get when it comes to leadership opportunities. I can only imagine how inspired Lisa Bevere was when the seasoned consultant she had the conversation with indicated that he would not do leadership with any organization without women alongside men. I hear many men say they would not mind having women hold certain leadership positions (if they are the most qualified), but do not go so far as to believe they need to have women balance out any staff team. God has created men and women uniquely different and male and female complete the image of God we were created in.
As I interview leaders for my field research, I have the opportunity to ask them what they feel each gender brings to the leadership table. Although most agree that some men and women are gifted in leadership and others are not, they also agree that the men and women bring very different qualities to leadership. As the gentleman in the story shared, many people feel women bring the qualities of intuition, communication, and compassion to a leadership role more often than men. Also, since females have 4,000 more neurons connecting the left and right side of their brain than men, they can process emotion and function creatively much faster and more efficient than men.[2] Also, studies show that men put a higher priority on winning and women put a higher priority on relationships. As Lisa shared in her story, women are tired of apologizing for being female and are fed up with trying to behave as male-like as possible to get promoted to higher leadership positions.
The #metoo movement has also brought the leadership pain of women to the forefront in almost every sector of society, with most recent allegations coming against Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church.[3] He has stepped down earlier than expected as well as many others in prominent leadership roles. Then we have men like Tony Robbins ripping on the movement, accusing abuse victims of trying to make themselves significant, and telling people it’s too dangerous to hire attractive women.[4] He has since apologized for his remarks, but not before 5 million people tweeted reprimands at him. The
#metoo and #timesup movements are definitely bringing sexual harassment in the workplace to the forefront and giving thousands of women the courage to come forward. It is my hope that I can make a difference in helping to provide a safer, more effective venue for men and women to lead together in order to make a significant difference on this planet.
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[1] Samuel Chand, Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth, Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition, 171-173.
[2] http://bravetheworld.com/2016/08/09/50-real-differences-men-women/
[3] https://apnews.com/1ab44774a82f4d689cb7d4222fdfadb0
[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tony-robbins-asks-for-forgiveness-about-metoo-comments/
About the Author
Jake Dean-Hill
Currently a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice. Ordained minister with 10 years of prior full-time church ministry experience and currently volunteering with a local church plant. Also working with companies as a Corporate Leadership Coach.6 responses to “The Pain of Gender-Imbalanced Leadership”
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Jake good job. That was a very powerful part of the book. I appreciated your sharing the Tony Robbins video. I was not aware of that interaction.
I’m even less of a fan of Tony Robbins now. 🙂
Chand talked about the pain one has to shoulder to see growth and change. To see change on the level you are talking about will cause a lot of pain for a lot of people. are we willing to pay the price? Many are I’m sure. Others are not.
Many women, I see your point, probably avoid leadership because they are not willing to pay the pirce of the extra pain their leadership will entail.
is this accurate to say?
Definitely my friend, and I echo your sentiments about Mr Robbins!
Hi Jake,
I believe your research will indeed make a difference! And I loved the statement, “…since females have 4,000 more neurons connecting the left and right side of their brain than men”. I have told the important women in my life they are way smarter than me, now I have the data to back it up (grin).
How do we encourage more gender balanced leadership, while not letting men off the hook for leading as God has uniquely wired them?pewforum.org/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/
Thank you for dialoging with me, and please let me know when I am bugging you…
You are definitely not bugging me and I enjoy these type of dialogues. I agree that men are not stepping up in the church as much as women and are shirking their leadership role, but it is important to make sure we are not inadvertently punishing the women who are stepping up by blocking their leadership at the same time challenging men to lead where they are gifted and not leave all the work to the women. Also, interesting article, thanks.
Jake,
Great introduction and useful review of the gender discrimination story. I know many of you think I see little devils around every corner, but the spiritual fact of the matter is that gender bias is a well-established pattern and practice of Satan. He created it back in the Garden when he asked Eve, “Did God say?” I promise you I am not trying to oversimplify the matter, but it has such a long history that many of us still have scales on our eyes so that we do not see the truth about equality.
Sadly, the fight for gender equality is not without heavy spiritual losses, on both sides. I think it would be just like the devil to use this emotionally charged phenomenon to create even more division, distrust, and destruction between God’s created beings. Putting on the whole armor of God, which fits both genders just fine, is the best “going in” recommendation I can give.
Stand firm,
M. Webb
I agree, I think the enemy has used divisions among the genders to wage great damage to churches all over the world. As long as we don’t equally affirm and encourage male and female leaders we allow the enemy to win and don’t represent the full image of the God who created us.