Gender Intelligence: Why Different Wiring Means Better Business

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Why, after decades of work to advance and empower women, have we yet to close the gender leadership gap? According to Marie Wilson, founder of The White House Project, one reason could be the brain. “I was convinced so much that if we just didn’t the right things, trained women right – and I’m so tired of ‘fixing women’ – we could just make it work. When I met with Barbara Annis, we started to talk about what I had avoided my whole life – brain differences.”

She added, “Wiring doesn’t mean everything, but it means a lot.”

Wilson was speaking at the first ever Gender Intelligence Summit, a conference organized to discuss the neurobiology of gender. Held in Washington, DC, on Friday, the conference featured preeminent scientists on the subject of gender intelligence, as well as corporate diversity practitioners who have incorporated gender intelligence into diversity and inclusion work – and found success.

When companies take into account gender differences within the brain, and teach individuals and companies to appreciate and value those differences, diversity becomes more than a numbers game. Barbara Annis, Founder and CEO of Barbara Annis & Associates and Chair of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is an expert on inclusive leadership. She said, “We thought that if we got enough women into the pipeline, some of them would float up.”

But, she continued, true inclusiveness isn’t merely about the numbers. It’s time to consider the neurological reasons women work and lead differently than men, and why companies can benefit from appreciating those differences.

For example, men generally perform better than women when it comes to spatial reasoning, while women usually perform better at reading facial expressions. Both are valuable skills for a business team to have in its toolbox. Learning to appreciate these kinds of distinctions can help instill corporate culture with a reverence for difference – which will drive gender inclusiveness on a more meaningful level than simply injecting more women into the pipeline with fingers crossed for success.

Focusing on the benefits of “unlikeness,” Annis said, is one way to encourage companies to change their game, refine processes to retain women, and, ultimately, make more money. “The business case is compelling. You can’t deny it anymore,” she explained.

Gender and Neurobiology

“Men and women are in so many ways similar, but it so many ways different,” began Dr. Ruben Gur, Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry and Director of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Gur gave a brief, but compelling, history of gender research when it comes to the brain. He was among the first scientists to study female brains – which didn’t happen until the ’70s (previously, women were considered too variable to be subjects of scientific research in most areas besides reproduction).

According to Dr. Gur, there are a several differences between male and female brains. First of all, he explained, “just when you sit and relax, women’s brains are idling at a higher rate.” This is because men have a higher proportion of fat in the brain – which insulates the nerve cells. Women’s nerve cells appear to have less insulation and are therefore more active. Additionally, he explained, the higher proportion of fat and fluid in the brain that men have makes them better able to withstand blows to the head – which could be the evolutionary reason behind the disparity.

Secondly, he continued, the brains of men and women tend to have differences when it comes to the amygdala or “reptile” brain. “The job of the amygdala is to detect threat and issue the alarm to the front of the brains,” Dr. Gur explained. Women tend to have a larger orbitofrontal area relative to the amygdala, compared to men, he said. “This is why women are better at modulating anger responses and physical aggression.”

A few more differences he described included females’ (on average) superior ability to detect and express emotion, and males’ (on average) superior spatial processing and motor skills. “Memory is better in women almost for any kind of material,” he added.

Next, Dr. Marianne Legato, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Founder and Director of the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia University, spoke about the impact of biological gender differences on society. Dr. Legato explained that it’s not just brains that differ between men and women.

For example, she was the first doctor to research differences between men’s and women’s hearts (which wasn’t even considered until the ‘90s). “After six months of research, it was clear to me that the hearts of men and women are completely different,” she said. This has significant implications for public health, pharmaceuticals and medical care, and the insurance industry.

“There are tremendous differences in every system of the body between men and women. The same genes in DNA are expressed differently if you are male or female,” explained Dr. Legato. What are the implications of this research on society, she asked. What are the implications in the workplace?

First of all, she said, while it is possible to compare gender differences in the biology of the brain, we don’t necessarily come out of the womb that way. “The brain is plastic,” she said.

Brains change and grow significantly, even in adults. Could societal gender expectations cause certain biological changes that are observed in the research that Dr. Gur discussed? Does women’s brain chemistry and structure change when they enter a new environment, with new expectations and structures – such as a male dominated and male structured workplace? “Are women becoming more like men in organizations where they have been successful?” she asked. “Are men learning from women?”

Gender Intelligence in the Workplace

As John Hart, Founder & CEO of the Impact Center, pointed out, women are more likely to leave a company not because of work/life issues, but because they don’t feel valued.

As Wilson said, “Gender is not just a matter of how people get along or how companies make money. It’s a matter of how decisions get made.” How can companies better take advantage of gender intelligence differences?

Jennifer Allyn, Managing Director in the Office of Diversity at PwC, said that the firm is working to ease those gender communication conflicts that lead women to feel less valued by companies.

For example, according to Allyn, PwC recently learned that, by and large, women didn’t feel like they were getting enough attention about their career paths and about career opportunities. But it came down to a difference in communication styles in an organization where leaders are predominantly male.

“The things we want to talk about are different than what men want to talk about,” she explained. “It turns out that we don’t agree on what constitutes a meaningful dialogue about career advancement.”

She suggested that while women may want to talk through challenges they could face in a new opportunity, men perceive that as uncertainty. Men, on the other hand, feel they are signaling loyalty when they don’t ask a lot of questions, she said.

To counteract this communication challenge, Allyn said PwC has implemented a sponsorship program called the Bold Initiative to ensure that individuals feel they are having the valuable conversations they need to advance their careers. By considering gender intelligence differences, the firm has been able to better work with women so they feel they are being valued in their careers, and stave off attrition caused by gender-based misunderstandings.