Women better at using soft skills crucial for leadership

Women could be better leaders than men as they are more equipped with emotional intelligence and can better use soft skills crucial for superior business performance, says a survey.
According to a research by the Hay Group division of Korn Ferry, women are better at using soft skills crucial for effective leadership and superior business performance, as they outperform men in 11 of 12 key emotional intelligence competencies.
Based on the data collected from 55,000 professionals across 90 countries, the report says women more effectively employ the emotional and social competencies correlated with effective leadership and management than men.
"Our research shows that women are more equipped with emotional intelligence and therefore are more likely to lead effectively. For businesses to succeed in their leadership pipeline creation, the untapped potential of their women leaders could be a quick win," Debabrat Mishra, Director at Korn Ferry Hay Group said.

As these competencies underpin highly effective performance, men have a great opportunity to learn from women in the workplace how to best leverage these emotional and social competencies to become more effective leaders.
Through greater emotional intelligence, both men and women are able to boost performance within their organisations, accomplishing their goals through both internal and external stakeholders.

"We have worked extensively with clients from various industries and our experience is that leaders who focus on emotional intelligence are the most effective leaders," Mishra said.
Meanwhile, according to Hay Group research, levels of emotional intelligence displayed by a leader are strongly related with how long their team members plan to stay with the organisation.

Talking about the Indian firms, Kaye said, "We are seeing
the emergence of stronger global companies ... I very much look forward to seeing more Indian companies being represented in world's most admired listings."
"One of the things which will also help is improvement in governance, because that is the key thing to take the companies to the next level. Besides the vast opportunities, India also has a vast amount of talent which acts as a catalysts for global clients as well," he added.
When asked about the ease of doing business here, Kaye said he would not be able to comment on the last 18 months but there has been an emergence of a "far more global India" over a period of many years.

"I am certainly very optimistic and that's the reason I am here," he said.
Stating that a consultancy firm or an advisory firm's success depends on that of its clients, Kaye said, "So, our bullishness must reflect the confidence that the clients are seeing in their opportunities for growth going forward."
Asked about the importance of Indian operations for the Group globally, Kaye said, "India is still not a very big part of the global business but it makes an overweight contribution in thought leadership within the organisation.
"They have also been a catalyst in improving our business in other parts of the world. I have also seen a big interest by some of our international colleagues to work in India and I think it is driven by people who want exposure to this market.

"Its an exciting place to be. It can take their careers forward. We have colleagues who joined from Indonesia, Brazil who want to take their careers to the next level," he added.
Hay Group merged with Korn Ferry late last year to form a combined behemoth.
Founded in 1943, Hay Group has a strong intellectual property portfolio and has been in over 50 countries. It advises on all aspects of people strategy and organizational performance.
Korn Ferry on the other hand describes itself as the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm. It opened its first office in Los Angeles in 1969 and currently operates in 78 offices in 37 countries.

Asked about the benefits from the merger, Kaye said, "We are still in early stages so that part is still unfolding.
"Hay Group is particularly strong with Indian firms and Korn Ferry is particularly strong with MNCs and this gives us opportunity to serve all the clients that much better. We have deeper capabilities. We have now access to 7000 professionals globally," he added.
Asked about the clients, Kaye said the Group has "many thousand clients" globally and those accounts range from clients to whom the Group provides data services to large clients where it provides "many million dollars of service in fully integrated projects".

"We work with governments and government departments, we work with private companies, a lot of family owned companies and also public companies," he said.