On Women and Management
From Wednesday's Financial Times:
Collegial, Not Command and Control -- That's the Female Way
Dame Stella Rimington, who was the model for 'M', the fictional head of M16 played by Judi Dench in the recent James Bond films, believes that men and women approach leadership in different ways.
Rimington:
"Women are more prepared to discuss things, to take advice," she says. "I do not have this command-and-control style of leadership that has been, until fairly recently, the accepted style in a lot of companies. My style was far more collegiate. But it wasn't the fashion in M15 when I became a middle manager to do a lot of sharing or consulting."
She says she did not feel a need to intervene to help women when she became director-general.
"There was no longer any bar to anything that they could do - so their natural abilities brought them on. Part-time work and flexible working hours were gradually introduced during that period. "I don't think it was specifically at my instigation."
Personally, I think the FT offers the best daily take on business news -- and its weekend section is the bomb. Art, architecture, cool people, fashion, criticism. Blows the Wall Street Journal's Personal Journal/Weekend Journal away -- although I love movie critic Joe Morgenstern and the Friday wine column.
Unfortunately, I can only get it in the mail at this point. That's why this blurb is a day behind. If more of you order it, maybe we can start receiving it on our doorsteps.
Due to recent automated spamming attacks on our blogs, we are temporarily requiring commenters to authenticate themselves via TypeKey® before posting comments to any News & Record blog in order to prevent denials of service. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.