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There are subtle gender-based differences in the ways people approach the working world, and it’s often harder for women to advance through the ranks than for men. There’s plenty of evidence and research to support this (no matter how much certain people want to pretend everything is ok, and suppress efforts to promote equality and inclusiveness).
A new international study that included a large-scale analysis of U.S. workers has highlighted an interesting aspect of the ways women relate to other colleagues. It could partially explain their underrepresentation in senior, influential business roles.
The international team of researchers, including a professor of sociology from the University of South Carolina, examined the way women think about social networks in professional settings. In this context, this means, essentially, how people create a mental map of how colleagues are connected to each other, through particular projects, through various managerial chains, and other, more subtle links.
The team’s research found that women have a much, much better ability than men when it comes to spotting who is connected to who else in a professional way — and they’re better at remembering these networks, research news site Phys.org notes. That may not surprise you, at least if you’ve ever been impressed by the way a female colleague can remember details like, “Oh yes, that’s colleague X who worked for boss Y on that big project Z last year…you know, the one where person A did that amazing work with person B?”
But the researchers found that women are able to carry out this sort of impressive mental feat by relying on a “triadic” trick, which means they assume some form of professional relationship exists between two people who are both connected to a third person. In complex, dense team situations in the workplace, this is a superpower. Researchers found this approach boosts the accuracy with which women understand professional social networks.
The thing is, when you get to more open, informal, and less densely interlinked social networks, the report says it could lead to women making more incorrect assumptions about how people are connected, potentially leading to confusion and less team cohesion.
Think of a situation where your company has asked people to work on a new project that crosses existing teams, where many workers may not have had too many opportunities to work together before. In these situations, information, instruction, and expertise tends to flow through one or two highly knowledgeable people, or informal leadership networks, rather than passing along the usual direct reporting chains. For example, Steve from Accounts may know exactly who to speak to on the new project to solve a particular issue, but you may not, even though you may be senior to Steve.
The researchers found that thess situations tend to disadvantage women. Men can then find themselves in a position of being able to wield more power and advantage.
Why should you care about this? It may sound like a bit of scientific psychobabble to you, but it touches on something important.
You should care because having a deep understanding of relational patterns in a workplace is vital for a good leader. Remembering who reports to which manager for which project, and how the projects are allocated across teams, is more than a memory trick: if problems occur, knowing which person can fix them can be critical. Essentially, knowing which personnel lever to pull to get your company to achieve its goals makes you a more effective leader.
If you want to help your female colleagues and workers to advance to senior levels, then the new research suggests you should be at least aware of the different ways different genders work in professional social networks. By making it very clear which team members have key roles for which topics, and perhaps by formalizing team structures for a project, even an ad hoc undertaking, you can remove some of the disadvantages female leaders may face.
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