This post is a continuation of last week’s post on gender. This week we will explore the ways in which men and women lead. While we do not know exactly how much of that difference is biological and how much is socialization, we do know the differences are significant.

During the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, six countries did extremely well responding to the crisis – Norway, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Taiwan, and New Zealand. All six had a female head of state. They all worked collaboratively with their health departments, seeing them as co-workers, not subordinates. They were willing to compromise, without ego need getting in the way of good decisions. They were also willing to admit when they were wrong. Jacinda Ardern was particularly adept at that, quickly switching directions when necessary.

Compare those nations to three countries that did spectacularly poorly in the early phase of the pandemic – Brazil, the United States, and England. All three had heads of state at the time who did not work collaboratively, did not compromise, and could not admit they had been wrong. To make broad generalizations from nine examples is a stretch. Nevertheless, by most measures women are better leaders than men.

Women show more empathy than men. Women are more decisive than men, taking energy from action.  They work more hours and are better at multi-tasking[1], while taking fewer unnecessary risks.[2] Women complain less often than men, because they are more accustomed to deferring to others. Women are better at embracing nuance, because they tend to have a higher emotional intelligence.[3]

Women comprise more easily than men. Women are more open to being corrected when they are wrong than men. They have more humility. Women are more resilient than men, and are more communicative than men. They are also more collaborative[4] and inclusive than men.

How much of that difference in leadership is socially determined, and how much is a matter of inherently biological differences between male and female brain functioning, particularly as it relates to the two hemispheres of the human brain?

There are three parts to the human brain. The brain stem (reptilian brain) takes care of bodily functions, including breathing. The midbrain, also known as the limbic system, includes the amygdala and hippocampus. When we are in crisis, the limbic system decides whether fight, flight, or freeze are the appropriate response. These decisions are made in a split second by the amygdala, and the hippocampus responds by recording the circumstances.

If the amygdala has decided upon fight or flight, the hippocampus goes into heightened memory mode. If the amygdala decides the danger is too great for fight or flight, the body goes into freeze mode and the hippocampus erases conscious memory so the brain does not have to experience the trauma. Unfortunately, the trauma does not leave by some hidden portal. It moves from the brain into the body. The body remembers the trauma. This keeps therapists in business.

The prefrontal cortex is the thinking part of the brain. When a significant threat occurs, the cerebral cortex is overpowered by the midbrain. Under normal circumstances the prefrontal cortex is constantly processing every stimulus, both internal and external.

The brain is also divided into two hemispheres, the right and left. People often say the right hemisphere is where images are stored and the left is where words are stored. The truth is that both hemispheres trade in words and images. It is how the two hemispheres process those words and images that is markedly different.

The human right brain develops earlier than the left, and therefore has a kind of primacy in our development as a species. The right brain is online in early childhood and much of the work done in depth psychology is focused on those early right brain experiences. As I say to my clients, “We focus on the past for the same reason a bank robber focuses on banks. That’s where the money is.”

Iain McGilchrist a psychiatrist, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar, says the right hemisphere is the primary hemisphere and the left hemisphere is its emissary. The right hemisphere, more connected to the brain stem and the limbic system, sees things in wholes rather than in parts. It sees things in context, in relationship to other things.

The right brain is more integrative, searching for patterns. Its take on the world is based on complex pattern recognition. The right brain has a greater capacity than the left to hold several ambiguous possibilities at the same time without prematurely choosing a particular outcome or interpretation.[5] It prefers metaphor over literal meaning.[6] It understands the world based on empathy, inter-subjectivity, and metaphor.[7]

The right brain is where EQ resides, and is more concerned with meaning as a whole, in context.[8] Metaphor, irony, humor, and poetry are all the realm of the right brain. Awe, mystery, otherness and paradox are also right brain phenomena. The right hemisphere is deeply connected to the self as embodied. It is where the child’s early sense of identity is determined through interaction with the mother’s face.

The right brain is primarily concerned with what it experiences. The left brain is primarily concerned with what it knows. The right brain is more focused on feelings, while the left brain is more interested in turning those feelings into thoughts.[9]

The left brain removes information from context and analyzes the information in bits, assigning words to the bits and organizing them into categories. McGilchrist calls it the hemisphere of abstraction.[10]The left brain allows us to control, manipulate, and use the world. It breaks wholeness into parts for categorization, creating a hierarchically organized world.

The right brain processes information first, then sends it to the left brain for analysis and organization into categories and thoughts. A healthy person is then able to return that processed information to the right brain, where wholeness is created from what both hemispheres have processed. Wholeness occurs when we achieve balance between the hemispheres.

Is it possible that men have a greater tendency to function within hemispheres, while women have an easier time crossing between hemispheres? Is it easier for women to move information from the analytical left brain back to the holistic right brain, or are men equally capable of placing information in context? We will take a look at that next week.

[1] Kay and Shipman, The Confidence Code – Harper Collins, 2014

[2] Quarterly Journal of Economics 116 No. 1 February, 2001

[3] Journal of Applied Psychology 95 No. 1 January 2010

[4] Facebook symposium on diversity

http://managingbias.fb.com

[5] McGilchrist, Ian. The Master and his Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, New Haven, Connecticut, University Press, 2009, page 49.

[6] ibid, 82.

[7] ibid, 51.

[8] ibid, 70.

[9] ibid, 48.

[10] ibid, 50.