Features of managing a women's team. Psychological characteristics of leading a women's team

You need to be a fireman to quickly put out outbreaks of squabbles, hysterics and conflicts. And also a psychiatrist, because the female soul is an extremely vulnerable substance. A trainer, to develop willpower and organize the disorganized, and a veterinarian, preferably with a specialization in “sheep, snakes, chickens,” because this is what women often call each other, and this, believe me, is not without reason.

If you add the skills of a juggler, storyteller and musician to this gentleman's set, you will not be worth anything, and the team will be ahead of the rest in terms of performance indicators.

It is no secret that in Ukraine women work 4-6 hours more than men. And this means that they:

are eager to work;
are not afraid to work hard.

In addition, they know how to successfully cope with frankly boring, routine work. After all, take a closer look - it is women who work in the positions of accountants, cashiers, and proofreaders in the majority.

They are also executive and more responsible. But here it is necessary to make a reservation - subject to competent management.

Source: depositphotos.com

How to manage a women's team. Rule #1.

Don't let it get on your neck!

Everyone in the team - from the chief accountant to the cleaning lady - must feel the distance at the boss-subordinate level.

Discipline, a clear position of the main thing and exceptional confidence in your actions! Women have excellent intuition. The slightest uncertainty, weakness - and long live chaos and anarchy.

Rule #2.

Put everyone in their place.

Or, to be more precise, put everyone in their place. Here it is worth using the coach's strategy. Each of your players should clearly know their position in the team: who is in defense, who is in attack, who plays and who serves. This scheme will allow you to avoid the favorite female trick - switching the arrows to another. And so you set a task - and you know exactly who to demand from.

How to manage a women's team. Rule #3.

Don't put everyone under the same category.

The female team is interesting and scary at the same time due to its exceptional diversity.

Here, oh, how the skills of a psychiatrist will be needed. Some people need a good kick to improve their performance and greater aspiration, while for others even the smallest praise will make them move mountains. You need to carefully observe your subordinates and then skillfully distribute to everyone what they need. The main thing is not to mix it up, because you risk running into a weapon of serious defeat - a woman’s sobs right in your office! And this is a terrible blow not only to your nervous system, but also to your reputation.

I am lucky - my life has been spent for many years surrounded by women. Every morning, when I come to the office, I see beautiful girls happily cooing with a cup of coffee in the kitchen. My job is to make sure they get the job done and generate revenue for the company. At the same time, as a man, I must make sure that they are comfortable.

Why do men survive

It so happened historically that in Russia executive search (search for senior managers) is rather a female area of responsibility. As, indeed, everything related to human resources. Most often people come to this area of consulting from HR, and in our country this is a traditionally female profession. Abroad, the opposite is true.

As a rule, to get into executive search, you need to achieve heights in your company, have extensive experience under your belt, and know the specifics of the work of top management. Ideally, you need to have acquaintances and established contacts. Therefore, in the West, older male bosses often become consultants. Men did not linger in our Russian offices. And the funny thing is that their women “survived”.

A couple of years ago, a wonderful employee from a well-known Western company came to us, but did not work for several months. At first the girls were extremely happy about him. Having gotten used to the team a little, he began to communicate, and sincerely. And then the employees, united, began to survive him. To my surprise, women did not like the fact that a colleague made friendly jokes about his appearance, clothes or relationships during lunch. A year later, we hired another male consultant. A professional in his field, he, nevertheless, could not find a place for himself in the office among the fair sex - most often he was silent, did not take part in holidays and corporate events. Soon we parted. I concluded: if a man should appear in a women’s team, then not one, but several at once.

Best employee

When I was studying in England, I heard a wonderful phrase: The best man for a job is a woman (the best employee is a woman). Women have amazing qualities: they are diligent, neat, and attentive to detail. This is extremely important in our business. A man is a winner, waving a saber is part of his image. Where it was not possible to “ride up on a white horse”, they are not so interested. And a woman will achieve what she wants much more calmly. It is worth selecting employees based on these differences, among other things. It all depends on what your business is focused on. If you are focused on more aggressive and assertive business development, on attracting new clients, work under tight deadlines, and your priority is development - take men. If the most important thing for you is the quality of service delivery, the so-called delivery, pay attention to women.

There are other differences besides gender. Having the opportunity to compare employees from the Moscow and St. Petersburg offices, I noticed an interesting fact: residents of St. Petersburg are more tolerant. For some reason, they find more excuses for others and are willing to endure longer. But it cannot lead to conflict in any women’s group. For men, a spark can flare up and go out, but for women, if it slips through, expect a fire. Over time, the fire will burn like peat bogs - even at a depth of one and a half meters under the snow.

Woman's happiness

It’s not for nothing that they say: whoever understands a woman will rule the world. Ideally, the boss should guess the true motivation of the employee. But what to do with women's logic? For men, career, money, and position in society are important. A woman, with rare exceptions, will never put anything above family, children, relationships. There is no point in fighting windmills. I advise you not to even try to motivate a woman with a career, because deep down she may have completely different thoughts and dreams. But it is necessary to remove demotivating factors. I learned to understand that for women, work does not equal personal life. At the risk of seeming tactless, I will say that, according to my observations, those women who “have their own lives” are more stable work better. Happiness at work is usually impossible without happiness in your personal life. Only a few can painlessly replace it with work.

What a woman wants, God wants? I remember a funny story about how one of our employees decided that it was time to marry a decent man. In her free time, she spent a long time selecting candidates on company websites, and then simply said: she found it! And she began to dream. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but six months later this particular young man came to us for a conversation about a potential job. Coincidentally or not, he was leaving us for a presentation, where guests were invited with their other halves. Having told us about this, he suddenly turned to this girl and asked her to join him. Now they are married and happy. Women are truly capable of creating miracles!

I am sure that if women ruled the world, there would be no wars. They would definitely be able to find an option on how to achieve what they want without the use of force and aggression.

If you add the skills of a juggler, storyteller and musician to this gentleman's set, you will not be worth anything, and the team will be ahead of the rest in terms of performance indicators.

It is no secret that in Ukraine women work 4-6 hours more than men. And this means that they:

are eager to work;
are not afraid to work hard.

They are also executive and more responsible. But here it is necessary to make a reservation - subject to competent management.

Source: depositphotos.com

How to manage a women's team. Rule #1.

Don't let it get on your neck!

Everyone in the team - from the chief accountant to the cleaning lady - must feel the distance at the boss-subordinate level.

Discipline, a clear position of the main thing and exceptional confidence in your actions! Women have excellent intuition. The slightest uncertainty, weakness - and long live chaos and anarchy.

Rule #2.

Put everyone in their place.

How to manage a women's team. Rule #3.

Don't put everyone under the same category.

The female team is interesting and scary at the same time due to its exceptional diversity.

In a team consisting only of women, not everyone is comfortable working, but lead a women's team much more difficult. After all, in addition to professional tasks, a manager has to deal daily with such phenomena as mood swings, excessive emotionality, and personal problems.

There are absolutely opposite opinions regarding working in a women's team. Some argue that this is a source of gossip and intrigue, while others draw attention to the atmosphere of kindness, care and mutual assistance that reigns among the women working together. Moreover, it is mostly men who give positive assessments to women’s groups.

But women do not often strive to work in such a company, fearing mutual evaluation of each other, nagging and attacks.

But psychological studies show that the degree of friendliness and mutual respect in women's groups can vary, and various factors can influence this.
The work of the female team is determined by such factors as emotionality, optimism, mood swings, a tendency to be late, exaggerate, and pronounced verbal signs.

When the manager is familiar with these features, manage a women's team it gets easier. Taking into account the factors influencing women's work, it is possible to adjust the management style and direction of the organization's development. Thus, verbal abilities can be used in positions such as PR manager, call center operator, consultant. And given women’s tendency to exaggerate and speculate, tasks for them must be set as clearly as possible.

Lead a women's team- means, to some extent, to manage oneself. The main conclusion of psychology experts is that a man should manage a women’s team. He is capable of resolving controversial work issues and resolving conflict situations with a “cool head.” Of course, this does not mean that a woman does not know how to manage a female team, but for this she will need strength of character and the ability to cope with emotions.

Conflicts among female employees are mainly of an emotional rather than industrial nature. And one of the main pieces of advice on how to lead a women’s team is not to interfere in such conflicts, to distance yourself from women’s intrigues.

The correct tone is also very important - a friendly, comfortable environment in the organization contributes to effective activities.

Hire married women - they are more responsible and more interested in work, while single girls can spend part of their working time flirting with colleagues or clients;

When hiring older women, pay attention to their experience working in a team. Sometimes they are prone to grumpiness, and the task of the leader is to tactfully remind them of the importance of treating each other politely;

Organize the possibility of a medical examination - both for potential employees and for the permanent team. Healthy employees are an important component of effective operations;

To effectively lead a female team, from the first days of work explain the importance of quality time;

At the beginning of the working day, each employee should be familiar with the list of tasks for the day, so women are distinguished by diligence, but experience difficulties when faced with the need to make independent decisions;

Allow your subordinates to organize their workday so that they have the opportunity to change activities. Monotony makes most women nervous;

Women need a sufficient number of 5-10 minute breaks during the working day - to fix their hair and makeup, call their children, etc.;

Criticism towards women should be very correct, without harsh or ironic remarks;

In a women's team, it is necessary to monitor the purity of speech; obscene expressions are unacceptable.

Any manager at some point thinks about how to properly build relationships with a team of subordinates. This is where books and articles on organizing effective leadership come to the rescue. But the problem is that most of these recommendations are aimed mainly at some abstract “personnel”.

Vakhrusheva Nadezhda Viktorovna, a teacher-psychologist at the Novoportovsk kindergarten “Teremok” from the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, she is sure that in order to effectively manage a team, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of female psychology.

It is known that in general educational institutions of our country the teaching staff is mainly female. Therefore, the manager one way or another has to take into account the peculiarities of female psychology.

Leadership of a women's team should not be just leadership. Leading women means living with them as one family, experiencing everyone’s pain and joy as one’s own, but at the same time being an example of wisdom and decency, unobtrusively teaching this to all members of one’s “family.”

What are these features?

Firstly, As psychologists' studies show, women are more likely than men to show sensitivity to the psychological climate in a team; for them, it is emotional connections with colleagues that are most significant. Women subconsciously build their relationships in a team on the principle of family and, accordingly, expect emotional warmth, support and understanding from their colleagues and managers.

Secondly , In an all-female team, competition manifests itself in a unique way. Being inclined towards mutual support and prone to empathy, women treat well those who feel bad (and therefore can take the side of those who “innocently suffered” from the anger of management), which again can affect work efficiency and trust in the manager as a whole. Therefore, the manager has to take compatibility into greater account and strive to maintain not just warm, but also even relationships with all members of the female team. In addition, you have to find time to inquire about the mood of employees, their household chores and other “little things”.

Third A feature of the women's team can be called the presence of certain “undercurrents” that are felt by all members of the team, but rarely “overflow their banks.” Conflicts in men's groups occur mostly openly: as a protest or a challenge. In women's it is more hidden, using gossip, slander and even minor dirty tricks. Therefore, the leader of a women’s team has to be on guard, not deluded by the absence of open conflicts, and clearly monitor the mood in the team, firmly suppressing the spread of rumors and gossip.

And finally, fourthly, As experience shows, it is very difficult to implement competitive elements in a women's team. After all, if men cope relatively easily with their loss in the production sphere, it is enough for them (according to psychologists) to feel like winners in other areas of life: hobbies, attention of the opposite sex, etc. - with women everything is much more complicated. Being subtle, emotional people, they want to be successful in everything. That is why, if a manager singles out one of the employees based on the results of competitive activity, this should be well justified and understandable to all members of the female team. Otherwise, the success of one of the colleagues may be perceived by women as their own failure.

All of the above difficulties of the women's team should not be perceived as difficulties. If the manager begins to take them into account only as features of the female team, he will be able to achieve mutual understanding with the staff and he will be able to count on the support of the team.