Management Development

Important steps in getting more women to the top are a gender balance in management development programmes and a gender perspectiveon programme content. Below are some ideas that you can use in your work.

Aims and objectives of the management development programme
Gender perspective
Attitudes and values
Mixed or single-sex groups
Speakers and course providers

There are many ways of approaching management development. You can read about mentoring, coaching and shared management elsewhere on this website. This section concerns training and development programmes organised internally by an employer or purchased on the market.

A Swedish study shows that most large employers organised regular management development programmes, two thirds of whose participants are men. Only a few are doing anything to increase the number of women in leading positions.

Aims and objectives of the management development programme
Many training courses are knowledge-oriented and deal with negotiating skills, budget management, planning etc. This can be described as management training because these are skills that a manager must have. When we talk about management development training, however, we mean training that develops people's ability to lead – that helps managers develop their own personal approach and settle into their role.

Participants in a management development programme sometimes experience a conflict: should they adapt to existing norms, or try to develop on their own terms? The company wants to use the training course to pass on its values and objectives. If these are at odds with participants' own values, a conflict will arise that must be dealt with and discussed. If the values are based on male thought processes or a masculine leadership style, then another difficulty will arise that is tougher for women than for men. Since the norm is unexpressed, people may not even be aware of its existence, and instead will feel that they personally do not fit in. And many who do experience such value conflicts may prefer not to discuss them anyway, for fear of appearing difficult or ‘bitchy’.

For many women, management development training has been about learning to get along and get ahead in a man's world. They have to learn male behaviour patterns: make demands, become more tactical and competitive. These are useful skills. But if you want managers who are able to call upon their whole emotional range of creativity, empathy, courage and integrity, the programme must help managers develop their individual potential. This will necessitate open discussion of ideas of what women and men know and want, and a neutral look at what leadership should involve, not least in the company in question.

If the management programme is to help achieve a better gender balance in leading positions, those planning it need to review its aims and objectives.

Management development with a gender perspective
Gender is not usually discussed in management development programmes and knowledge of why there are so few women in top positions is not widespread. A management programme with a gender perspective should encourage critical reflection on established views and values, both within the company and in the outside world. Bringing up and discussing gender gives participants a chance to think about their own ideas, which is the first – and perhaps most important – step in achieving fundamental change.

A gender perspective can be integrated into all management and management development training. In management training, a gender perspective is about the gender equality aspect of the issues in hand.

Questions may include:
- Are our customers mostly women or men? What effect does this have on staff policy? On   the development and marketing of goods and services?
- How are women and men respectively affected by various planning decisions?
- Are there gender differences that I, as a manager, need to be aware of, for example   when dealing with conflicts, deciding salary, or planning a good working environment?

In management development programmes, there should be a gender perspective on both form and content.

- Balanced gender distribution of speakers and participants.
- Time and place should take into account the fact that people have families.

A gender perspective on the programme content might mean teaching and discussing gender, leadership and organisation.

Examples of themes:
- The importance of gender in working life and its implications for career and management
- Organisational culture, values and ideas
- How mixed groups utilise the entire pool of talent and achieve good results
- The structure and gender equality goals of the organisation
- Ways of achieving change
- Anti-discrimination legislation

W2T has a wide range of literature that may be of help.

Attitudes and values
To achieve sustainable change, we have to work with expectations of what is female and male, to examine myths and clichés. Gender equality issues arouse emotions and provoke resistance. If handled correctly, resistance can be turned into something good – a willingness to change.

Also, top management may not be sufficiently clear in its direction or ambition. The management development programme should therefore provide plenty of time for discussion and the opportunity to debate conditions and gender structure in the organisation. Top management should also be prepared to accept the results of this process.

Sometimes, people have negative feelings about the subject and feel that they are being held responsible for the prevailing gender order. It is important to get away from guilt and deal with the issues on a general, structural level, without however neglecting the individual's responsibility for his/her own behaviour.

Exercises focusing on attitudes and values can be an effective way of creating structured discussions about gender and leadership. Start by discussing issues that are close to your own business. The person leading the exercise must not be judgmental but must show respect for the views expressed and instead ask follow-up questions that give the speaker the opportunity to further express his or her arguments. It might be good to use outside expertise.

Mixed or single-sex groups?
The advantage of single-sex groups is that there is more openness. Subjects come up that would probably not come up in mixed groups. Programmes for women can serve as a forum for exchanges of experience, and provide confirmation that they are not alone in their thoughts. Together, women can devise strategies for how to proceed. And the most valuable aspect is the network that develops between the participants, which can be lastingly helpful.

There are gender-related programmes for men only. In these, men are given the opportunity to examine their allotted role as the dominant partner in society and working life, and they are able to explore ways of developing an alternative management role.

Many people prefer mixed programmes because it is more effective if both women and men hear what is being said and can work together on processes of change.

Today, there is great demand for more individualised management programmes with mentorship and coaching. The advantage is that the programme can be tailored to the needs of each manager. Individual management support however cannot replace joint discussion of values.

Make demands on speakers and course providers!Whether you are arranging a management development programme yourselves or purchasing an external service, you should check that consultants and speakers have documented knowledge of management and gender. Demand that suppliers provide 50% women speakers! Speakers should also have sufficient practical experience to be able to deal with conflicting values and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Be aware, too, that there are several views of the existing differences in women's and men's leadership styles. It might be a good idea to discuss this aspect with those responsible for the programme. Those who emphasise gender differences claim that women and men are different and that this is the whole point: it is women's differences that make them good leaders.

Many gender researchers instead emphasise similarities between the sexes and think that differences are primarily social constructs and the result of expectations linked to the biological sex. Good leadership, in this view, is more or less the same regardless of whether it is exercised by a woman or a man. What is important is to give women the same conditions and opportunities as men.

The gender-difference viewpoint is more about creating diversity and the gender-similarity argument is more about making use of the entire pool of talent and skills. The distinction may seem academic but it can have important implications when discussing the reason why women make good managers. Think about your own views in this matter and raise the topic with the course provider to see what (s)he thinks.