Are gay men the best bosses?

Most of my clients are women. I enjoy working with guys; but for some reason I seem to attract females more often.

And that’s just fine because more often than not it’s easier to get a dialog going with women than men. There are a lot reasons for that – including the anatomy of the female brain, nurturing done when they were children, hormones, and simple cultural background. Women are more ready and able to communicate than the hairier gender. This makes it a lot easier to successfully coach them.

Now there’s new research which indicates that gay men may have some of the same communication approaches as females, and, when combined with some of the attributes traditionally found in guys the result may be the perfect boss. In this month’ s DETAILS magazine, writer Daniel Sacks presents the case for this pretty well. He reviews research done in the book “The G Quotient: Why Gay Executives Are Excelling as Leaders… and What Every Manager Needs to Know.

“Gay managers tend to look at how each individual brings unique abilities, and they see their job as figuring out how best to take advantage of those skills”, says USC business school Prof Kirk Snyder who authored the book. He details the results of a 5 year study which include a finding that gay bosses produce 35 to 60% higher levels of employee satisfaction than their straight counterparts. When you consider that only about 14% of the workforce are fully engaged by their jobs (Towers Perrin Research); this is a big deal.

Seems that the way gay males had to behave to make it thru high school may have much to do with their successful management styles- – they did a lot more dodging and weaving, and are constantly assessing their style as they grow up. And”coming out” can create an individual with a greater ability for self reflection and candidness than other guys possess; resulting in an individual who is secure in his identity without the need to abuse others to boost their egos. The article notes that the typical male manager learned as a boy that “there are 2 emotions: angry and tired.” Doesn’t make for a great repertoire to fall back on when someone needs some constructive advice to improve performance does it?

So, if your new boss happens to be a gay guy, chances are you’re going to be happier and more satisfied.

till next time

john