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The secret to running a productive company

Written by: Donna Ann Peck 696 views

A light bulb is turning on in boardrooms across America. The secret to running a productive company is to hire more women. Studies show that companies employing 30 percent female executives perform better than companies with only males at the helm.

The scarcity of women in boardrooms and executive suites has led to second-rate decision making, according to a study published by McKinsey & Co, an international consulting firm. The shattered economy has irrevocably altered the employment landscape. Many companies are dismantling their hierarchical structure. As the hierarchy goes away, so does the entrenched male echelon.

The segment of the U.S. workforce predicted to be independent contractors by 2019 will be 40 percent. Work hours will be more flexible, projects more collaborative, workers more freelance, and workplaces more virtual. Results will be the focus. Seniority matters less, and no one gets paid for showing up. The team member who contributes the most leads the team..until displaced by someone who contributes more.

One worker gets the job done in a four-hour work day, another works until midnight and sleeps in. Not only their modus operandi, but their goals are varied and highly personal. Employees may share jobs to keep working yet also take time off to head the save-the-Tasmanian-Devil campaign or write a novel at a sidewalk cafe in Paris.

In the work world of the future—where companies have fewer traditional employees and more short-term independent contractors and consultants—women will assume leading roles. They are consensus builders and collaborators. In the absence of a hierarchy, they focus on getting the job done. They have a transformational leadership style—heavily engaged, motivational. They may squelch competitiveness because it gets in the way. In short, their emotional-intelligence skills will be essential.

Companies that value these skills, and want to keep pace with the emerging workplace, are inviting more women on board.

Women are already running the show at Citigroup, Bank of America and the FDIC. Terri Dial heads consumer banking at Citigroup and is busy cleaning up the financial mess. Barbara Desoer at Bank of America is fixing up the bank’s risky acquisition of mortgage giant Countrywide Financial—and just may end up the bank’s next chief executive. Sheila Bair at FDIC is working to stabilize the economy. She initiated policies to keep cash-strapped borrowers in their homes by modifying mortgages. All three women are  balancing risk and reward.

No one epitomizes female management skills better than America’s newest icon. Michelle Obama says that she is doing what comes naturally. “But whether by accident or design, or a little of both, reports Nancy Gibbs in Time, June 1, 2009, “she has arrived at a place where her very power is magnified by her apparent lack of interest in it.”

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