Inside the mind of the male and female CEO: should we mind the gap?

Do the differences between male and female business leaders’ views on strategies for growth, confidence and jobs matter?

This week, the 20th survey of CEO’s views on confidence, growth and skills was released in Davos.

It won’t take too much time for the average reader to notice that that there are far more male business leaders responding to the annual survey than female ones. 7%, or 102, of the business leaders responding to this year’s survey are women. And that is actually greater than the 4% of Fortune 500 public company CEOs that are women. In the 20 years since the annual PwC CEO survey began, the demographics of women in work and leadership have improved, in life and in the survey respondents, although it is not as far as many would have hoped.

In this year’s survey, 39% of male CEOs are very confident about revenue growth in the year ahead vs 28% of female CEOs. By contrast, 34% of female leaders are more confident about global growth, vs. 29% of their male peers.

Is it playing to stereotypes (or perhaps our unconscious biases) to say men are more likely to be more bullish about revenue growth than women? Or that women say they are more likely to favor collaborative business partnerships in the year ahead to grow their revenues, than their male peers (34% of female leaders are more likely to favor collaboration with entrepreneurs and start ups vs 28% of male leaders). Women CEOs are also much more concerned about access to affordable capital than their male counterparts (61% concerned vs 41%).

Some of this may be linked to the size of the business CEOs work in. The female leaders spoken to in the study were more likely to be working in a private company than a public one (60% vs 56%); and over half worked in organizations with less than 1000 employees (52%). By contrast, 60% of our male respondents worked in organizations with over 1000 people.

There are much closer views on issues such as the continued rising concern about building trust in a digital world, the role of business responding to wider stakeholders, or the threat of regulation.

Of the significant differences, female leaders feel more strongly that how organizations manage personal data will impact trust in their organization (75% vs 63%) and many more female leaders see technology completely reshaping competition in their industry in the next five years (55% vs 33%).

Male leaders found it more difficult than their female peers to recruit eight of the nine skills business leaders value the most: skills in adaptability, creativity and innovation, STEM, emotional intelligence and collaboration.

Female leaders found it harder than their male peers to recruit risk management skills. Tellingly, the biggest challenge for both, is recruiting suitable leadership skills.

In many cases the difference in views is not substantial enough to be an opposing view (I agree vs you don’t). For me, the value in the differences is that there is diversity in what and how people are thinking, not just the gender of those thinking it. It’s not about one view being right and another wrong.

Even in the nuanced differences between the male and female views, the key point in the difference between the views is simply that the views are different. Good decisions don’t necessarily come from everyone having the same view, doing the same thing, or all agreeing.

Having diversity in points of view helps leaders think through the best course of action for their situation.

Yes there will be situations where one person’s view is better suited to a business need than another.

The trick is, you only know what the best decision is, when you’ve taken in those different views.

Six months into my role on PwC’s global leadership team, I’m seeing this for myself working with colleagues across the world discussing issues underpinning investment, technology, processes, skills, and service. The value of diversity is in having the widest range of views and experiences around the table as possible and listening to each person’s perspective.

For me, it demonstrates why the theme of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos of ‘responsive’ and ‘responsible’ leadership holds so much relevance.

It reminds us as leaders that with power, comes responsibility — and responsiveness — to the markets, our people and communities we’re operating in.

Business leaders’ concern on adequacy of skills, whether it’s about talent that can be developed, or talent that joins with specific skill sets such as STEM skills, reminds us that leaders have a responsibility to cast their net much wider, changing their HR and talent strategies — responding to the market and society as well.

Eighty-seven percent of all business leaders are now promoting diversity and inclusiveness, and changing their talent strategies to meet future skills needs.

There are many who will rightly argue that commitments to diversity need go faster or further; indeed CEOs themselves admit this year that globalization has not done enough in the past 20 years to create social equity, of which diversity and inclusion is a key element.

But that’s probably the difference between 20 years ago and now. Business leaders say — overwhelmingly — that they now recognize their role as one of responding to wider stakeholders. It means they are not only responsible for ensuring a more diverse set of views, but also for responding to them as well.

Diversity means difference. And different perspectives mean better business decisions, which is better for our economies overall.

In the wake of the financial crisis, studies pointed to the ‘group think’ mentality that meant decisions and behaviors were not challenged and argued that more diversity on boards and on leadership teams may have resulted in more diverse opinions, and, perhaps, different decisions having been made.

With economic uncertainty now the top concern for business leaders as a threat to business growth, and concern rising about the speed of technological change and its impact on trust, we need that kind of diversity of thinking, ideas and perspectives as inputs to our decisions-making more than ever.

It tells me, whether you’re a leader or not, when you’re making a decision, the gap between your view and someone else’s is probably the most important input to pay attention to.