Why Can't a Woman Manage More Like . . . a Woman?

By Barbara Rudolph

A jockstrap was a parting gift when Marion Howington retired last year from the once all-male post of senior vice president at J. Walter Thompson. It was a teasing tribute to a woman who was well known for beating the pants off men at their own game. For Howington, a striking 60, who began climbing the ad agency's ladder in Chicago in 1967, the key to success was to "be aggressive" and "think like a man." In 22 years, she says, she never turned to other women for professional support or advice. "I didn't think they had anything of value to share," she says. "There's not a woman anywhere who made it in business who is not tough, self-centered and enormously aggressive."

Maybe not. But these days, as more women find their way into the executive suite, they feel less compelled to act like male alter egos. Some observers, in fact, see the emergence of a new style of management -- most frequently but not exclusively practiced by women -- that is less rigid and hierarchical, more open and inclusive, than the classic male approach. Sally Helgesen, author of The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership, calls it a feminine style of management. It is characterized, she says, by talking more frankly with employees, sharing information rather than withholding it and keeping the office door almost always open. Observes Juanita Kreps, a former Secretary of Commerce and a board member of several FORTUNE 500 companies: "Women bring a problem-solving attitude that embraces coordination more than the masculine drive to have power."

As founder and president of ASK Computer Systems in Mountain View, Calif., Sandra Kurtzig has adopted a style that would have shocked the button-down troops that Howington trained with. "I have a style of walking around and stroking people," says Kurtzig, 44. "Whenever possible, I try to compliment them in front of their peers and go up and hug them. A woman can show the warmth that a man often can't." While a woman's emotional range and empathy were once looked upon as distinct disadvantages in business, nowadays some executives see them as potential resources. "The best way to negotiate," Kurtzig insists, "is to understand what the other side wants. With men, it's often all or nothing. They can end up where it's the last time either side will do business with the other."

Naturally, not all women managers like to hug their employees, and not all male bosses are insensitive negotiators. "Gender isn't necessarily destiny in management style," affirms Christie Hefner, 37, who succeeded her father two years ago as chairman and chief executive of Playboy Enterprises. Nor do the so-called feminine qualities of consensus building and listening imply a lack of spine, although, as Hefner wryly observes, such traits "were not greatly valued in management books until they began to be defined as Japanese."

The emergence of a distinct female style has hardly transformed workplaces into cozy dens of peace and goodwill. For one thing, not many women have arrived at positions that are truly high enough to influence a corporate culture. Says Lester Korn, chairman of the executive-recruiting firm Korn/ Ferry International: "Most successful women have adapted to the fact that it's a male world. They have not, by and large, changed the way that business is done."

Research by Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Emory Business School indicates that women have fared best in merit-driven industries, such as entertainment, biotechnology research and computer software. He likens these businesses to baseball teams and finds that women thrive there because they "can be themselves and say, 'Here's what I've produced. Judge me on these terms.' " Women tend to be less successful in the type of industry that Sonnenfeld calls "the Club" -- utilities, insurance firms and commercial banks -- where promotions are often based less on individual worth than on seniority and status. It is in these clubbier, more tradition-bound industries that women face the toughest, most shatterproof "glass ceiling," the invisible barrier of old-boy bias that keeps them from rising to the top.

Work-force demographics suggest that the emerging female style of management will become more prevalent, not only because more women will achieve positions of power but also because a flexible, mediating approach will be vital in dealing with America's ever more heterogeneous workers. "It's going to be increasingly important to understand the different cultural ground rules that employees are bringing to the workplace," says Madelyn Jennings, 55, a senior vice president for the Gannett newspaper chain. Since women tend to be better at that, she says, "rather than women having to adapt, men are going to have to learn from women."

With reporting by William McWhirter/Chicago