A gender-minder she's not. But Angela Coyle is an academician with an agenda: the development of the woman manager. Arguing that tomorrow's organisation will benefit greatly from the unique skills that women managers bring to their jobs, Coyle, a professor at the Organisation Development Centre in the City University, London, insists that corporations should invest in offering their women employees the special conditions that the latter need to optimise their performance since the returns far exceed the costs. During a recent visit to India to facilitate a training programme for women in middle- and senior-management, Coyle explained to BT's Paroma Roy Chowdhury--a journalist, a wife, and a mother--how corporations can fulfil, and profit from, the potential of the woman manager. Excerpts from an exclusive interview:

Ms Coyle, do you believe that the development of the careers of women managers is still a crucial issue, especially with CEOs increasingly professing their disregard for social factors like race, colour, and gender?

Yes, it is. In today's highly-competitive business scenario, no organisation can afford to overlook the contribution of its women professionals. With women increasingly taking up managerial and leadership roles, employers have to recognise the need to utilise and nurture their skills and abilities through various ways--such as management education, behaviour modelling, and specialised training programmes designed to address the development needs of women. Disregard for social issues, like gender, cannot rule out the fact that women have dual and, often, multiple roles to play. And if organisations wish to retain their experienced and talented women managers, they must help women hone their skills and, simultaneously, acquire new skills while successfully balancing their career and family responsibilities.

Do these problems manifest themselves more in the higher echelons of organisations?

At present, women make up half the organised workforce in the developed countries. But they are highly under-represented at the middle- and senior-managerial levels. In the UK, only 4 per cent of such jobs are held by women, and, at the top, their presence is virtually non-existent. I am certain that the scenario in India is just as bleak. The reason that the picture hasn't changed much is the fact that, as compared to their male counterparts, women find the road to the top rather rocky.

The lack of infrastructure, support systems, and employee-sensitive policies make it difficult for women to compete on equal terms with men--particularly if they have taken time off to rear children. Invariably, the pre-requisites for success include a proven track-record throughout your career, an optimum age (between the late 30s and the early 40s) at which to take up top jobs, time-commitment (translating into regular 12-hour workdays), and a high degree of geographical mobility. This is bound to be difficult for a woman professional with a partner in a full-time career and family responsibilities.

Evidently, a company needs to extend more concessions to accommodate women in senior positions. But why should a company do that if it can get the same level of commitment and expertise from men managers without doing so?

Fortunately, employers are recognising the need to develop the skills of both their men and women managers. But the true learning for the organisation is both in terms of the skills that women bring to their jobs as well as the benefits that flow from harnessing their talents. This is particularly relevant in today's environment since the expertise that women carry to the workplace is synergistic with the changing patterns of management and leadership. And this can make the extra investment in women managers worthwhile in terms of the returns.

What skills are you referring to? Is leadership now gender-driven?

The paradigms in which corporations operate are changing rapidly. Take organisational patterns: large, centralised organisations are giving way to leaner, decentralised structures. Multiple layers are being reduced to a few. Vertical hierarchies are being replaced by flatter and more horizontal structures, and rigid functional specialisations by cross-functional expertise. Also, a corporate culture characterised by value-orientation--with an emphasis on co-operation and consensus--rather than task-orientation--with its emphasis on control--has come into existence.

There is a similar shift in leadership styles. A decentralised organisation needs a more democratic, rather than heroic, leader. One who believes in consensus as opposed to a direct approach, makes use of personal credibility rather than status and position, and seeks advice as opposed to providing solutions to every problem. In other words, the old male model of the expert manager has given way to the relatively gender-free model of developer-manager--an archetype that befits women managers because of their work-style and skill-sets. In that sense, leadership is gender-driven today.

Is there a qualitative difference in the way in which women manage as compared to their male counterparts?

To answer this, I will draw on the model provided by Judy B. Rosener in her article Ways Women Lead in the Harvard Business Review (November-December, 1990). According to Rosener, men are more likely to have transactional leadership styles, which pre-suppose exchanging rewards or punishments for performance, whereas women will make use of transformational leadership, which calls for motivating others by synergising individual goals with the goals of the organisation.

Further, men tend to utilise the sanctioned and structural power that comes with organisational positions while women resort to personal power as manifested in charisma, credibility, and contacts. There is no qualitative difference between the way men and women manage. Women may choose to, and often do, manage differently as a power strategy, or because their power is more likely to be challenged. And they may decide to opt for transformational leadership to make their authority more acceptable without formal, organisational sanction.

Work-styles apart, smaller, flatter, and more decentralised organisations require a broader range of skills, including the highly-developed time-management skills that women are most suited to deliver since they juggle multiple roles. Second, a value-oriented culture demands a high degree of interpersonal skills as well as negotiation, consultation, and communication skills--which most women possess. And third, a learning organisation requires the teaching, coaching, and empowering skills that women managers can easily deliver since they are more likely to manage by way of personal power. So, by developing their women managers, organisations stand to gain enormously.

How should the organisation go about doing this?

The best way to do it is through specialised training programmes, workshops, and other learning techniques that help resolve dilemmas, recognise performance, and hone survival skills. For a long time, women were scared to utilise their capabilities. They feared achievement and success, and, more often than not, hid their talent behind acceptance or indifference. So, the focus should be on making use of this latent talent in a way that benefits both the employee and the organisation.

At the organisational level, this can be done though family-friendly policies and work-arrangements, like flexible timing, facilities to work from home, on-site child-care, sabbaticals et al. And the removal of glass ceilings by doing away with prejudices and equal opportunities at all levels. At an individual level, training programmes can be customised to tackle issues that confront women in the workplace: how to make their presence felt through communication; how to break through professional and personal barriers; how to cultivate influence in a male-dominated, and, often, hostile, work-environment; and how to battle stereotypes about women's abilities and work-styles.

More specifically, the skills that women professionals can be trained to develop can be grouped into 5 categories:

• Skills for self-development, which would, typically, include building confidence, cultivating influence, and honing risk-taking abilities.
• Decision-making skills and coping mechanisms.
• Skills for relationships, such as negotiations, confrontations, and bond-building.
• Skills for the workplace, such as vision, competitiveness, patience, discretion, tact, and loyalty.
• Skills for investigative abilities, explorative skills, creativity, time-management, and coaching skills.

Are any of the ideas you're talking about actually being implemented in the workplace? How far have corporate perceptions really changed globally?

We still have a long way to go before these ideas are actually put into practice. One of the biggest bastions yet to be stormed is, obviously, senior management, where women are still grossly under-represented. And this is partly because of the entrenched attitudes about the capabilities of women managers. Judging by the number of successful women in middle management, there is, obviously, organisational resistance to their moving up and occupying senior positions, and both organisations and women employees have to work on that. Companies in the UK, such as the British Bank of the Middle East and Marks & Spencer, have introduced flexible working hours, extended maternity leave of between 6 months and a year (whereby women can return to the same job, or take up a similar kind of job), on-site child-care facilities like creches, and so on.

This extended leave has been a positive factor for a majority of women professionals in the UK to return to work after having a child. That is a big change. There are organisations like these in India as well. I have worked with an automobile major in this country which has introduced individual pick-ups and drops for women employees working on night shifts in order to combat social and psychological barriers, and to attract talent. But examples like these should multiply. At present, they are too few and far between.

How can this be changed? Is it possible for senior women managers to alert the organisation to such issues?

It is very difficult, actually. The 200 per cent theory still holds: women still have to be twice as good at what they do under similar conditions as their male counterparts. If the norm is long working-hours or not taking week-ends off, they have to conform regardless of whether it is really necessary or has a positive impact on their output. Otherwise, they are accused of demanding concessions because of their sex. The issue, therefore, is one of changing attitudes, and then, policies, to accommodate women professionals in a way that enables them to realise their full potential without feeling marginalised.

As for how women in senior managerial positions can bring about changes in policies and structures to help others, there are conflicting views. A large number of women professionals feel that bringing up gender issues can be detrimental to their careers. In their opinion, as senior professionals, they cannot afford to be seen as lacking in objectivity, or being partial towards their own sex in any way. Yet, I have come across some senior women managers--a CEO, in one case--who feel it is easier to raise such issues, and take corrective action, as one rises in the hierarchy. Personally, I would subscribe to the latter view.

Since you have completed a research project on ethnic minority women managers in the UK, tell me: how far have organisational changes and shifting leadership patterns impacted their career-paths?

Very little, really. In my experience, women belonging to ethnic minorities operate with the double disadvantage of having to break through the barriers of prejudice relating to gender, race, and colour, which, often, overlap. The little progress they have made, at least in the UK, has been in the public sector. In the private sector, they are grossly under-represented.

What is your assessment of the gender situation in the Indian workplace?

In India, I have mainly worked with non-governmental organisations, and have just started interacting with the corporate sector. But this assumes significance in this country since so many talented, qualified women are rapidly entering the workforce. Industries like infotech have a preponderance of women professionals. But the drop-out rates too are significant, with similar problems reversing their career development. Employers have to take note of this, and act on it, since retaining their talented and experienced women managers would be in their best interest.

What is your gender agenda for organisations and women managers?

Companies that want to retain and motivate their women managers should be consistent in recognising their contribution. Nothing works like consistent recognition and acclaim. And women professionals who want to reach the top should create support-structures, both at work and at home, to be able to perform consistently.

Thank you, Professor Coyle.

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