Читать книгу The Female Leader - Sonja Becker - Страница 10

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he information and media age lies just as far behind us as the industrial age. Since the beginning of the new millennium and its historical beginning on September 11, 2001, the service economy has superseded the old capitalist power structure, as it served capital more than people.

While the old economic tanker grindingly held its course, purging itself through redundancies, so that no employee could be sure of keeping their position, a parallel economy developed which was based on self-employment and which produced new answers, new capital and new careers with brilliant ideas and innovations in the service sector.

In Germany, the “desert of service”, especially, many a stretch of waste land has yet to be turned into an oasis. Parallel to this is the drive towards self-determination, freedom and the development of personal interests and capabilities. Even the government tends to encourage people to pursue their own interests and to develop their own business ideas and become self-employed. More and more people are discovering that the greatest potential lies in themselves: their entire personal talent lies there to be capitalized on. When women found and lead a business, they can for the first time employ their feminine talents within this service economy.

In a ten year study Danish researchers discovered that businesses which had more women in management worked more profitably. “In fact women manage differently”, commentated the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (5. June 1005, p. 39), “Although women lull their male competitors into a sense of security through their calmness and reticence in the beginning, when it comes down to it they negotiate tenaciously and ruthlessly with their eye on the goal. (…) The management techniques of women, who on the whole rely on intuition rather than reflection, also go far beyond seemingly friendly listening.

“In contrast to all the traditional management tools women create a closer relationship with their employees though their prevailingly highly intuitive way of leadership,” says Lammers, a female headhunter. “They create bonds which makes the employees obliged to them. (…) That is why they are so valuable.”

A further study in England compared masculine and feminine styles of leadership and came to the conclusion that, “Women managed in a much more informal way, involved employees more in decision-making and inspired them. Moreover, women in management positions forgot less quickly what it feels like to be an employee.” “The employees admired their female bosses for it,” summed up Inge Kloepfer of the FAS. “This type of bonding is a much subtler way of exercising power and influence than the pressure of hierarchies.”