THE WHAT, SO WHAT, AND NOW WHAT OF FEMALE LEADERSHIP
When it comes to leadership, have you ever wondered what inherent leadership strengths women and men possess? How about whether there are any real differences between male and female leadership? Have you thought about what competencies are vital when leading a company during the ups and downs of business while also driving results toward an ambitious vision of the future? Well so did we. . . .
Join us as we examine leadership from a few angles using leadership assessment data from across the globe. Our objective is to have a conversation around important leadership competencies, evaluate how we are measuring up, and to develop a plan for elevating our leadership impact during this time of industry evolution. Our results will provide you with interesting insights, an encouraging message, and a call to action.
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Forever optimistic,
-2020 NEXT Leadership Cohort
WHY WE LOOKED INTO THIS
For the inaugural 2020 NEXT Leadership Cohort capstone project, we started with the key belief that nuclear energy should have a seat at the clean energy table and be properly valued as a necessary clean, carbon-free energy source for our world (read more). We also believe diverse leadership around the nuclear executive leadership table is necessary for the future of our industry to sustain our talent pipeline for the future. We initially set out to explore how we could raise our voice to inspire today’s nuclear leaders to recruit, hire, retain, and promote more female talent. We sought out resources to help us understand how we could elevate our leadership within our industry with the goal of making development resources available to others in our industry.
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To get started, we asked a lot of questions about leadership in our industry. What differences exist between males and females as it relates to nuclear leadership competencies? Is one better than the other? How do the differences translate to sustainable results? What drives those differences? How do we leverage those differences to attract the diverse talent pool that we need for the future, to propel stronger results, and to amplify the collective effectiveness of those sitting at the table? How do we leverage those differences to make us better leaders and achieve the desired outcomes?
SO WHAT?
It takes effective leadership to create and implement a new ambitious vision while managing change and disruption. Significant change is upon us! Female leaders have the competencies necessary to lead through this change. Remember if you are not looking forward and improving, you are falling behind. Continuing to elevate your leadership skills will drive results toward a diverse and sustainable clean energy future.
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Change is the law of life. Those who look only to the past or present are sure to miss the future. John F. Kennedy
UNDERSTANDING THE DATA
If you are interested, you can read further into the hard data compiled for us by Zenger Folkman. Assuming your memory on regression analysis from your last statistics class is similar to ours, this is what you need to know to better understand how the conclusions were drawn from the data. Click to better understand the data.
INSIGHTS GAINED FROM THE RESEARCH
​Overall Leadership Effectiveness
Overall leadership effectiveness is comparable between females and males within the nuclear industry. Female leaders scored slightly higher overall when compared globally
Female leaders scored higher in most leadership competencies necessary to drive sustainable results even in times of change
Biases may get in the way of our nuclear peers when assessing leadership effectiveness
Females continue to be underrepresented in nuclear leadership
Leading During a Crisis
Female leaders scored higher in the essential skills necessary to lead a team through a crisis
Leading With Resiliency
Data reflects female leaders are significantly more resilient which is the ability to sustain energy under pressure and recover quickly from difficult conditions.
Resilience is a crucial trait of high-performing leaders that must be cultivated in order to thrive.
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NOW WHAT?
Join us as we continue to elevate our leadership perspective and skills while looking closely at technical acumen to ensure any gap (real or perceived) is crushed! Click to get our action plan and to connect with the strategic leadership toolkit.