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Assertiveness, dominance, competition, risk-taking: these are the hallmarks of traditional leadership models, and theyre overwhelmingly associated with men. From corporate boardrooms to political offices, the archetype of a strong leader has been built around commanding voices, hardliner decisions, and lone-wolf thinking. This framing isnt just outdated: its dangerous. The traits weve long sidelinedcompassion, collaboration, long-term thinking, humilityare no longer soft skills. Theyre survival skills. And theyre overwhelmingly found in what are often called feminine leadership styles. In fact, businesses with gender-diverse executive teams are 25% more likely to outperform financially, and companies led by women CEOs have historically delivered around 223% return on equity over 10 years, versus 130% for companies led by men. Alternatively, Gallup research indicates that employee performance can drop by up to 30% under authoritarian or top-down management. Its clear that aggressive leadership styles are not working, and that inclusive, emotionally intelligent leadership must be embraced by organizations that want to achieve greater success and longevity. But there are other leadership styles that are redefining what effective leadership looks like. Collaborative Leadership: Power With, Not Power Over Aggressive leadership thrives on control: the leader speaks, others listen. But in a world where the best solutions come from diverse voices and interdisciplinary teams, this model falls short. Collaboration isnt just a buzzwordits a prerequisite for success. Consider the turnaround of Korean Air in the 1990s. Plagued by fatal crashes, the airline discovered that junior crew members were too deferential to challenge their captainsa cultural deference to hierarchy that proved deadly. When Korean Air implemented training that encouraged teamwork and empowered all voices in the cockpit, its safety record transformed. In modern organizations, collaborative leaders flatten hierarchies and empower team members to think, speak, and lead. They listen more than they talk and make decisions informed by a wide range of perspectives. They know that authority doesnt mean having all the answersit means creating the conditions for the best answers to emerge. Purpose-Driven Leadership: Inspire, Dont Intimidate The traditional model of leadership motivates through pressure: meet your targets, or else. But this approach is a major driver of disengagement. According to Gallup, close to 80% of the global workforce is disengaged at work, costing businesses $8.8 trillion in lost productivity every year. Many are not just unmotivated: theyre working against their employers. Intimidation is costly, but leaders who inspire with purpose reverse that trend. Take Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, who focused not just on profits but on sustainability, health, and human well-being. Paul expanded the circles of connection and well-being, see circles in figure below. He ended quarterly earnings reportsan industry norm that drives short-termismand embedded social and environmental goals into the companys core strategy. The results? Unilever outperformed competitors and built one of the most admired brands in the world. Purpose-driven leaders dont lead with fear. They lead with vision. They make people care not just about what they do, but why they do it. In a generation of workers increasingly driven by values, this is your competitive edge. Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: Strength Through Empathy For decades, leaders were taught to leave emotion at the door, or at best at home. But the truth is, emotional intelligence is one of the most powerful tools a leader can have. The ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotionsboth your own and othersis essential for building trust, diffusing tension, and guiding teams through uncertainty. Nelson Mandela is perhaps the most powerful example of this. After 27 years in prison, he emerged not bitter or vengeful, but focused on reconciliation. His leadership brought South Africa back from the brink of civil warnot through force, but through empathy, humility, and vision. In business, emotionally intelligent leaders like Satya Nadella at Microsoft have reshaped company cultures by prioritizing learning, psychological safety, and inclusiveness. These leaders dont mistake kindness for weakness: they understand that people do their best work when they feel seen, heard, valued, and respected. The Future of Leadership Is Balance The traits that aggressive leaders dismiss as weaklistening, collaborating, empathizingare actually the ones that foster resilience, innovation, and long-term success. Masculine or feminine, theyre simply effective. And theyre precisely what todays challenges demand. The real question is whether leaders can meet the momentand the moment calls for balance of a wider range of leadership skills, our full human leadership potential. We need leaders who can be bold and humble, decisive and inclusive, confident and caring. For too long, leadership has rewarded those who speak the loudest and dominate the room. The future will reward those who can listen, connect, and bring people together. The age of aggressive leadership is over. The age of collaborative, purpose-driven, emotionally intelligent leadership has just begun. Ask yourself: What masculine and feminine leadership traits do I lead with? Are they balanced and effective to drive performance?
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E-Commerce
Every weekday morning, across the country, parents fall into the same routine. A line of SUVs and minivans snakes around the school. Engines idle as mothers and fathers inch forward, phones in one hand, coffee in the other. Kids sit in the back seat scrolling on their own phones, waiting for their turn to be unloaded by a staff member in a reflective vest. One by one, the doors open, backpacks are lifted, and the vehicle pulls away. The factory-like process is orderly, efficient, and utterly dehumanizing. The school drop-off ritual is a powerful curriculum, teaching kids that they are packages to be delivered and picked up, and that they require constant adult supervision. In 1969, about 48% of children walked or biked to school. By 2009, that number had dropped to just 13%, according to Walk, Bike & Roll to School statistics. Today, the figure hovers around 11%, largely unchanged for a decade, per Rutgers University. Even among children who live within a mile of school, walking or biking has fallen from nearly 90% in 1969 to just 35% in 2009. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}} Whats going on? The shift didnt happen because children stopped being born with legs or because they stopped wanting independence. Schools were moved to the edges of town, often on cheap land surrounded by parking lots and wide arterial roads. Roads were engineered to maximize long-distance automobile throughput and minimize short-distance walking and cycling. Parents were persuaded that it was unsafe to let kids walk or bike, even though most child fatalities happen while they are passengers in vehicles. Logistics management Line up, inch forward, unload. It looks like logistics management because it is logistics management. We have turned the beginning of a school day into a miniature supply-chain operation. This logistical worldview carries profound consequences. Physical health: Walking and biking to school once provided children with reliable daily exercise. Today, U.S. teenagers walk about 5 miles less per week than teens did in the 1990s, The Wall Street Journal reports, and rates of childhood obesity have tripled since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mental health: Independent mobility builds confidence. A child who can walk to school learns to navigate space, manage risk, and take pride in independence. A child chauffeured twice a day learns dependence, passivity, and helplessness. Safety paradox: Parents believe driving is a safe way to get around, but an average of three children are killed and another 445 injured every day in traffic crashes, National Highway Transportation Administration’s traffic safety data shows. Packages dont talk back, dont take detours, dont linger to climb a tree, don’t stop to pet a dog, and don’t notice the smell of honeysuckle on the way to class. Car dependency trains kids to be passive and dependent cogs in a machine. The irony is that the very efficiency parents cravefaster lines and predictable behaviorincreases congestion, frustration, and risk to everyone on the roads. The alternatives We dont need a time machine in order to reintroduce childhood independence to our culture: Walking school buses are groups of kids who walk together, accompanied by one or two adults. This approach offers safety in numbers while teaching kids independence. Bike buses or bike trains do the same with cycling, helping to normalize two-wheeled commutes for kids. School siting reform could reanchor school construction back in neighborhoods, instead of exiling buildings to distant parcels accessible only by car. The morning line is more than a nuisance; its a ritual of indoctrination. Every inch forward in that queue trains children to see themselves as cargo, delivered by others, rather than as capable individuals navigating their world. But if we flip the script, if we give kids back some autonomy, the benefits ripple outward. Parents reclaim sanity. Communities reclaim healthier, calmer streets. And children reclaim one important thing the car line strips away: freedom. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Getting dressed for work takes some effort. You have to buy the right clothes, choose what you want to wear each day, and think about how the way you dress affects the way people see you. Some people like to use their clothes as a way to call attention to themselves, while others are not interested in having their clothes make a statement. While there are always some special occasions at work when you want to think carefully about what you wear that day, there are probably many days when you would like to be able to get up and choose an outfit quickly, because there are more important things you have to do in the morning before you head out the door for another day. For that reason, it is helpful to develop a uniform for yourself. That is, a simple look that allows you to make at most a small number of choices that allow you to get dressed and ready. Of course, your uniform need not be an identical set of outfits the way Steve Jobs adopted a black turtleneck and jeans (famously copied by Elizabeth Holmes). Here are a few considerations as you develop that uniform. Stand out or blend in In any environment, there is a certain amount of similarity in the way people around you dress. Those patterns of style set expectations about what people with different roles within your organization typically wear and how that is affected by other factors like gender. Your choice of uniform affects whether other people are likely to notice your clothes. The more that you dress similarly to others, the less that your appearance is going to be a factor that makes you leap out of the environment to others. To the extent that you select clothes that display a more individual style, you are inviting others to notice you because of what youre wearing. You should decide whether youre comfortable with the impact of the decision you make. When you wear something that you feel will call attention to itself, that can influence how you feel when walking the hallways, going to a meeting, or even sitting in a public area having lunch. If you dont like that sort of attention, then a unique outfit is likely to make you uncomfortable. If you dont mind the occasional smile from coworkers or comments about your clothes, then a more individual style can be a welcome point of conversation. Of course, you do want to be aware of the difference between friendly conversations about how youre dressed and comments that veer toward harassment. Talk to a supervisor or your HR rep if you get comments that make you uncomfortable. Everyone should have the chance to display their individual style without fear of unwanted advances. Dress up or dress down One of the dimensions of difference across people in a particular role is whether they tend to dress more formally or more casually relative to their peers. Casual dress tends to lean toward outfits that are more strongly associated with leisure rather than work. More formal dress is often associated with people higher up in the work hierarchy. Casual dress evokes a less serious attitude about work. That doesnt mean that people who dress casually work less hard. But, they are dressing in a way that creates the impression that work is not a strong driving force in their lives. As a result, casual dress is often easier for people to get away with when they have more power within the organization. That power enables them to overcome the initial impression conveyed by their outfit. When you have relatively less power (or are trying to make a positive impression about your workplace attitude), then dressing more formally than is required is an easy way to leave an initial impression of your dedication to the work you do. When in doubt, find a guide Choosing a work uniform (particularly if youre new to an organization or a role) can create some stress. Before investing in your clothes, take a look at other people around you. In particular, notice the ones whose sense of style you admire. What is it about the way that they are dressing that leads them to look comfortable in their surroundings? You need not copy the people whose uniforms you admire. Instead, you want to learn from them. Think about how those people are conveying something about themselves through their work attire. Then, think about what you would like to say about yourself. If youre like most people, you may be able to answer the question of what you want your clothes to say about you, but you may have more trouble figuring out how to get your clothing to say it. Thats where you should seek help. If youre very lucky, you have a friend who knows a lot about clothing who can take you shopping to help you develop your uniform. If not, find a clothing store with a well-trained sales staff. Talk to the staff about how you want your clothes to make you feel and what you want to communicate to others by your look. Let them help you pick out a couple of combinations that will convey that message. Of course, the stores that have great staff are often (somewhat) pricy. If youre shopping on a limited wallet, then pick one or two outfits from that store as a baseline for the rest of your work uniform. Use what you learned to pick similar things at a store that fits your budget. Also, remember that your ideas about the ideal uniform will change over the years. That is going to reflect a variety of factors including your growing confidence in yourself over the course of your career, changes in your role within an organization, and changes in the amount of money you feel like spending on clothes at different points in your life. As a result, you may go through this exercise periodically to reset your look.
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E-Commerce
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