Chinese Women Business Leaders

Seven Principles of Leadership

Jean Lee

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780081012215
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Accounting
• Index: Business

Chinese Women Business Leaders - Seven Principles of Leadership includes seven women who represent the characteristics of ShEOs in the wave of Chinese economic reform. Their unique life stories are also reflections of changes in Chinese society. These women have each played a distinctive role In China's rapid emergence. Reform and opening up has brought more opportunities than ever before to Chinese women, though along with these opportunities come some questions and challenges.

The fetters and shackles of tradition have been shattered. A path for self-actualization has opened up. Women in mainland China have experienced great changes, and struggled with conflicts between traditional heritage and modern values. Ever since reform and opening up in 1978, the rapid emergence of women in leadership roles in business has paralleled significant upheavals in the Chinese business landscape.

• Offers a new perspective on leadership using examples from successful woman leaders in Chinese business
• Includes seven unique case interviews with successful women leaders in China
• Provides an overview of China's business environment over the past 30 years and the challenges unique to entrepreneurs working in China

Chapter One

The She-Era–Is It Here Yet?

Abstract

Across the world, from politics to academia, women around the globe are taking on more significant roles in their societies. This “She-Revolution” signals the erosion of gender barriers and an age in which women’s unique leadership traits are sought and celebrated.

Keywords

Women’s leadership; women executives; women leaders; gender; sex role; Chinese business women; women entrepreneurs

A Women’s Leadership Revolution Runs Deep

Some say the 21st century is a She-era. Across the world, from politics to academia, women around the globe are taking on more significant roles in their societies. Still water runs deep, and women leaders have awaited their moment for many years, quietly staging a “She-Revolution.”

In July 1974, María Estela Martínez Cartas de Perón became not only Argentina’s first female president, but also the first female president in the world. Following that, female heads of state began appearing on stages throughout the world. Margaret Thatcher made history by becoming the first woman to be elected British Prime Minister in 1979. Decades later, Angela Merkel would rise to power as Chancellor of Germany, and she would be called the “Iron Lady” in reference to her similarities to Thatcher.

Female political leaders emerged throughout Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa after the 1970s. Benazir Bhutto became Pakistan’s first female Prime Minister in 1988, making her the first female head of state in the Muslim world. Other women soon followed suit. Khaleda Zia was elected Bangladesh’s Prime Minister in 1991, and Tansu Ciller became Turkey’s Prime Minister in 1993.

Although the United States has not yet elected a female president, there have been three women Secretaries of State. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to represent a major political party as its candidate for the U.S. presidency. In 2010, Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister, and Dilma Rousseff was elected the first female president of Brazil in 2011. In July 2016, Theresa Mary May became the chairwoman of the British Conservative and Unionist Party and the nation’s prime minister’s—making her only the second woman in U.K. history to hold those posts.

The She-revolution in politics reached Asia as well, as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the Philippines, Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia, Han Myung-sook in South Korea, and Pratibha Patil in India made history as the first women leaders of their countries. Yingluck Shinawatra became the first female Prime Minister of Thailand in 2011, and Park Geun-hye became the first female president of South Korea in 2012. Former Japanese defense minister Yuriko Koike became the first female governor of Tokyo in 2016.

The United Nation’s World Map of Women in Politics 2010 reported that the world average of women in parliaments is 18.8%. The regional average of the Americas reached 22%, narrowly surpassing Europe at 21.4% (Inter-Parliamentary Union & United Nations, 2010). In some Latin American countries, Bolivia and Argentina included, the average of women in parliament exceeded 30%. What is more, in a few countries’ cabinets, the female percentage is more than half: 9 women out of 17 Cabinet members in Spain, 7 out of 15 in France, 10 out of 19 cabinet ministers in Norway. In the Swedish Parliament, female participation is 47%, the highest in Europe.

Until the last century, the field of politics has always been a playground for men. The typical attributes associated with politics, such as cruelty, brutality, and manipulation, have long been considered the domain of men. And why would women want to indulge these traits anyway? Instead, they bring a uniquely feminine power and strength to politics. Many and more female politicians are coupling their visions and fortitude with feministic compassion and benevolence and wield a gentle power to change the world.

The Rise of Women Leaders in Business

With so many great women emerging in the volatile world of politics, the business community saw a rise of women leaders as well, particularly within the last two decades.

HP named Carly Fiorina the company’s first woman CEO in 1999, making her the first woman to head a Fortune 20 company. The company’s current CEO, Meg Whitman, is also an outstanding woman leader. Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi, an Indian-American, was made CEO of PepsiCo in 2006. In 2011, Virginia Rometty became the ninth CEO - but first woman to hold the job - in IBM’s history. She also took on the role of chairwoman a year later. Around the same time, in June 2012, Sheryl Sandberg was elected to Facebook’s board of directors, becoming the first woman to serve on the company’s board. A month later, 38-year-old Marissa Mayer was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo.

According to CNNMoney’s 2016 report on “Top-paid women executives,” Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, received $41 million in compensation, including stock options (Gabrielle Solomon, 2016). She was named Co-President and Chief Financial Officer in April 2011 and became CEO in September 2014. Mary Barra made history in 2014, when she took over as CEO of General Motors Company, making her the first female CEO of a major global automaker. Staples, Inc. announced the appointment of Shira Goodman as its President and CEO and a member of its Board of Directors in September 2016. America hit a milestone that year: The maximum number of female CEOs ever. There are now 27 women at the helm of S&P 500 companies, compared to 22 in 2015 (Long, 2016).

The years between 2001 and 2017 saw tremendous contributions from women entrepreneurs. The percentage of women entrepreneurs jumped from 21% in 2000 to 36.5% in 2006 in China (Business Weekly, 2011). According to research conducted in 2015 by market research company Scorpio Partnership on behalf of HSBC Private Bank, 51% of female entrepreneurs surveyed in Asia have a net worth of more than USD $15 million, compared with 33% surveyed in the west. The research is based on interviews with more than 2,800 business owners with a personal wealth of more than USD $1 million. The study found that 40% of entrepreneurs in Asia are women, and in mainland China this figure is 37%, compared with an average of 31% in Western Europe and the United States (HSBC Private Bank, 2015). The global financial crisis did not cause any drop in these figures. Sales of businesses run by women remained steady at more than USD $100 million, and profit stayed at approximately 98%, with the exception of mid-2009, when there was a 1% dip in profit. Young women are also becoming more involved in business and more ambitious in the roles they seek. Clearly, women of all ages are claiming their pieces of the corporate pie.

The rise in women’s leadership has been accompanied by an increase in their economic power. World Bank statistics showed that by 2014, the income of the world female population would reach USD $18 trillion, twice as much as the GDPs of China and India combined. Presently the annual expenditure of the female population is USD $20 trillion, which is expected to reach USD $28 trillion in 5 years (Lee, 2012a). The “womenomic” (Shipman & Kay, 2010) power is creating a long-lasting impact on business and society, brought about by the huge “female market” potential through emerging women entrepreneurs and the significant growth in women executives and leaders.

Is Leadership Still a Masculine Enterprise?

We cannot deny that historically, political and corporate leadership have been primarily masculine enterprises and that many theories of leadership have focused on the desirability of stereotypically masculine leadership qualities in leaders (Miner, 1993). Forty years ago, V.E. Schein asked male and female managers to rate whether a list of characteristics was most similar to “men in general,” “women in general,” or “middle managers” (Schein, 1973, 1975). The characteristics endorsed for men are more similar to the expectations for leaders than are the expectations for women. These findings were replicated more than 20 years later by researchers revisiting these trends (Brenner, Tomkiewicz, & Schein, 1989; Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1989).

The ideal manager was perceived as possessing stereotypical “masculine” qualities such as self-confidence, independence, assertiveness, dominance, and rationality (Schein, 1973). Research has indicated that across different organizations and countries, the “good” or successful manager was described in masculine terms by both women and men (Powell & Anthony Butterfield, 1979; Schein, 2007; Schein, Mueller, Lituchy, & Liu, 1996), as illustrated by the phrase “think manager–think male” (Schein et al., 1996). A recent meta-analysis of 69 studies that examined the extent to which stereotypes of leaders are culturally “masculine” confirmed the overall “masculinity” of leadership stereotypes (Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011). Traditional stereotypical “feminine” characteristics were considered irrelevant or even antithetical to success in management roles. These perceptions consciously or subconsciously disadvantage women in leadership positions, forcing them to cope with the perceived incongruity between their “leader roles” and their “gender roles” (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Powell & Graves, 2003).

Social role theory suggests that women are expected to be communal (e.g. helpful, nurturing, and gentle), while men are expected to be agentic (e.g., assertive, controlling, and confident) (Eagly, 1987). When one behaves inconsistently with his or her sex role, he or she is evaluated negatively (Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000; Heilman, 2001). The incompatibility between the female gender role and the leadership role is described in role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002). The inconsistency between the female sex role and the leadership role can result in double biases—either the woman does not have the right characteristics for a leader role, or if she does, she is violating her sex role expectations (Burgess & Borgida, 1999). In both cases, she is evaluated negatively. This perception is found to be even stronger among men who work for female bosses.

In my leadership research in Asia, I surveyed many people about their perceptions of women and men leaders. Most agreed that there are differences between the sexes, and two sets of characteristics emerged through those surveys. In the chart below, you can see the words these interviewees most commonly associated with masculine and feminine leaders.

Men Vs. Women in Competence (Lee, 2012b).

Masculine Characteristics	Feminine Characteristics
Comprehensive	Rigorous
Forceful	Diplomatic
Resolute	Communicative
Speedy	Empathetic
Decisive	Prudent
Fortitude	Tolerance

But times are changing, and the characteristics that fall under the women’s category are increasingly sought after in the business world. In the past, leaders based their authority on their access to political, economic, or military power. However, in postindustrial societies, leaders have to share power to a greater extent, which requires them to establish a network of collaborative relationships (Lipman-Blumen, 1996). Therefore, contemporary views of good leadership encourage teamwork and collaboration and emphasize the ability to empower, support, and engage workers (Hammer & Champy, 1994; Cooper & Senge, 1994). The contemporary approaches to leadership not only recommend a reduction in hierarchy, but also place the leader more in the role of coach or teacher than previous models of leadership. Many authors have emphasized that the leader roles are changing to meet the demands of greatly accelerated technological growth, increasing workforce diversity, intense competitive pressures, and diminishing geopolitical boundaries.

Here is where women find great opportunities. Women’s leadership styles tend to be more interactive, involving collaboration with and empowerment of employees, while men’s traditional command-and-control approach, involves the assertion of authority and the accumulation of power, has become less effective.

Feminization of Management

The recent increase in women’s prominence in leadership roles suggests that the attributes traditionally assigned to women have become more desirable than those typically associated with men. Researchers assert that management is becoming more feminine in the sense that qualities, which have traditionally been associated with women, are now being associated with effective organizational management (Benveniste, 1993; Duehr & Bono, 2006; Fondas, 1997). Changes in organizations’ economic, demographic, technological, and cultural environments have given rise to this alternative perspective, allowing for deep changes to take root in both politics and business. Many authors have argued that in order to succeed in today’s frequently changing, less hierarchical and more flexible organizations, manag...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One. The She-Era–Is It Here Yet?
• Chapter Two. Chinese Philosophy of Water
• Chapter Three. Ocean: The Accommodating
• Chapter Four. River: The Persevering
• Chapter Five. Rain: The Nourishing
• Chapter Six. Lake: The Reflective
• Chapter Seven. Waterfall: The Empowering
• Chapter Eight. Water is Shapeless: The Adapting
• Chapter Nine. Water Droplet: The Dedicating
• Conclusion
• Index