Posted by Elizabeth Counts on Thu, May 14, 2009 @ 07:27 AM
You have invested substantial time and analysis identifying leadership competencies that are important to your company. You rate your employees on these metrics in an effort to discover hidden leadership potential in your employee base. But could you be missing some key leaders in your organization by concentrating on competencies that are typically masculine characteristics? 
Are your company's performance standards skewed to favor one gender?
According to the Catalyst study Cascading Gender Biases, Compounding Effects: An Assessment of Talent Management Systems, these inequities can eventually impact corporate success. By overlooking atypical, more traditionally female leadership characteristics, companies can miss high performing women.
Traditionally male competencies such as being action oriented, driving results, and focusing on problem solving overshaddow other more female oriented competencies such as being collaborative and a visionary. All of these metrics are important characteristics to measure when identifying leadership talent.
Are the leadership competencies that you track more stereotypical or well balanced?