Standing outside his chicken coop Craig explains what he means by “femaleadership;” leadership qualities generally held by women and much needed to make a better world.
Here’s the video script
Hi everybody. Hey it’s Craig Freshley here.
If more women were in leadership positions, it would be a better world. If more men led like women, it would be a better world. From what I’ve seen women tend to be more collaborative and inclusive; tend to be more team players, more concerned with the long-term group success then short-term individual success.
I am a professional meeting facilitator. I have run thousands of meetings. I’ve watched a lot of group dynamics. I’ve seen a lot of gender dynamics. And what I’m telling you is not based on social scientific research — although there is a lot of research out there — and what I’m telling you is just based on my observations.
From what I’ve seen, women tend to be more interested in communities, families children, future generations. Less apt to try and solve disputes through fighting and more apt to try and solve disputes through talking.
Now I’m not saying that every woman has these characteristics, but let’s just imagine if more women were in leadership positions. Imagine if a majority of our United States Congress were women. Imagine if a majority of the companies, nonprofits, governments, church groups, across our country were led by women. What would that be like?
We’ve got some long-standing notions that men are naturally better leaders and I think I know where that comes from. I have kept chickens here in my dooryard for many years and I have observed that the rooster — the cock of the roost — has a very important job. And that is to defend the flock.
When I let the chickens outside the rooster is looking in the sky for hawks and looking for predators. And if a predator comes close he takes a stand, he puffs out his chest, he tries to scare the predator away. He has another important job: he cock-a-doodle-doos every morning. And he’s got another important job, he helps make chicks.
But the idea is that one important job of any leader is to protect and defend the health of the flock. When — in the olden days — when we were organized in tribes and fought with each other it was hand and hand combat. And of course men were the natural leaders because they are bigger and stronger then women. Today many combat decisions are made in climate controlled rooms where it doesn’t matter what size you are or how much you lift. Of course many combat positions call for physical strength, but more and more they don’t. I’m talking about, situation rooms, drone command centers, aboard ships and aboard planes. And similarly when leading a company or a nonprofit or government, size is not a factor.
In the olden days size was a factor in how you obtained a leadership position. You had to fight off others. And it’s like that with chickens. If I have two or more roosters in my flock they fight. It’s called cockfighting. One of them might kill the other one if I let him.
But these are old ideas. We are not flocks of chickens. We are not tribal warriors. We are a complex society that faces big decisions and we need to muster all of the collaboration and innovation that we can for the good of our communities, our families, and our children.
Now look, I’m not saying that only women should be leaders. Of course not. I’m saying that our leaders should possess these characteristics that I have called “femaleadership.” It’s a word I made up and I made it up because it happens to be mostly females that have these characteristics. But men, women, people of any gender — people who care about collaboration, people who are team players, people who put communities and families first, people who talk first and fight second, people who want to hear the contributions of any person regardless of race or gender — these are the kinds of people that I believe we need in leadership positions.
We’ve had many years of male leadership domination. If you want your group — whether it’s your nation or your church group — to be less cocky and less combative, more community-minded and more collaborative, promote female leadership.
Men, practice the principles of femaleadership: collaboration for community interests. Women, practice the principles of femaleadership: collaboration for community interest. Based on what I’ve seen it will help make a better world.
