I have identified nine behavioural traits that mark out a good leader and found women scored higher than male peers in five:

• People development
• Defining expectations/rewarding achievements
• Being a role model
• Being inspiring
• Building a team atmosphere.

Starting order:
Gender is immaterial at graduate recruitment level, argues recruitment specialist Anthony Hesketh of the Lancaster University Management School. But, in the book he co-authored, “Mismanaging Talent”, he acknowledges that the brightest and best are not only judged on their abilities and past achievements but by a more subjective measure of their likely fit, based on the recruiters’ own preconceptions of worth.

Bad timing
It is later in executives’ careers that women are deselected from the pool of potential leaders. Some argue the tipping point is generally in the early to mid-thirties, when promising individuals are selected by company as future leaders. This is also when many women are considering whether or not to start a family. Inadvertently, the timing of the leadership selection procedure puts women at a disadvantage.

Getting the right chances
The more likely scenario is less straightforward, as talent management specialist DDI found in its research, “Holding Women Back”. During its research into the global employment situation, it found that that men and women were on an equal footing at early-stage employment and followed parallel paths into early management. But by executive level, the number of women filling senior posts had halved to one in five. Organisational support, weak for both sexes as they change jobs, decreases more for women as they move up the career ladder.

What has gone before
Maybe the problem is that we assess leadership styles based on our experiences of the way good business has been done in the past, regardless of how well these models will perform in the future.
There is also a lack of transparency — for both sexes — when it comes to senior-level appointments in too many businesses. This makes it difficult for failed candidates to identify with any certainty where they are falling down. “There is a question on whether companies are genuinely interested in diversity.

Your own worst enemy
It’s clear then, the accusation of the boys sticking to their own has weight, if on a less conscious level than anyone would like to admit. But women also disadvantage themselves through their own outlook — albeit after years of disappointment and socialisation.

Women tend to deselect themselves as candidates if they feel they don’t fit a job description perfectly. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to feel they have a chance even if they only have a few of the job requirements.

More choices, and taking them
For many men, the corporate arena is the only place they feel they can earn the respect of their peers (how many men are admired for being excellent fathers for instance?). Women, arguably, have more choices — and a number are opting to take them, in the form of flexible working or entrepreneurship.