5 Underrated Traits that Make Women Exceptional Leaders

In the spirit of National Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, I got to thinking about what makes women such uniquely impactful leaders. I have only ever worked for female managers. Though each has been different, all were innovators in their field, dedicated to their employees’ personal development and committed to leading with grace and humility.

Beyond my own network, some other successful women came to mind who exhibit similar qualities. Below are five underrated traits you can adopt from five inspiring women on your journey to become an exceptional leader:

1. Fostering Inclusivity

According to Pew Research Center, women across the world place more emphasis on gender equity than men do. From my own experiences within the CCWomen community, I have seen women in leadership actively strive to empower other women and underrepresented people in their own organization and beyond, as their way of paying it forward. Female executives across industries are reinventing standards of corporate culture by using their voice, making systemic changes, and practicing mentorship to prepare young women and BIPOC folk for leadership roles.

Take CCWomen Summit speaker Jasmine Escalera, Ph.D for instance. Off the back of a decade of managing and leading people in her own career, Escalera built a coaching business to support women of color in building confidence in their career endeavors. She has created a platform for overlooked and undervalued women to increase their main stream of income, build side hustles, and find fulfillment in their careers.

This June in Las Vegas, Dr. Escalera will share more of her expertise with our community in her session “Making No Your Favorite Word: How to Set Boundaries and Prioritize Yourself.”

2. Being Innovative

Managing change and improving an organization requires leaders to be visionaries in their fields. Because men have historically controlled the operations of many organizations, women have often seized the opportunity to come in and innovate new methods for process improvement, rather than getting bogged down by the way things have always been.

Expectful’s CEO and Co-Founder, Nathalie Walton, who formerly led product and strategy teams at Airbnb, Google, and E-Bay, is an excellent example of an innovator in her field. In her time between companies, Walton negotiated over 50 first-in-kind deals and launched multiple new products before launching Expectful, a holistic wellness app for expecting moms.

Creative leaders like Walton will be crucial for managing the next generation of employees, who crave freedom in their work and are not quite as motivated by traditional command-and-control leadership.

3. Mastering Adaptability

Women all over the world manage both a career and a household, while also taking on the emotional weight of others and juggling a multitude of other responsibilities, including their own self-care. Women are natural masters of adaptability, able to adjust our working styles, priorities, and expectations depending on the environment we are placed in.

This adaptability was crucial during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. Directors and managers were forced to find creative ways to accelerate digital transformation and build out their organizational continuity plans in a rapidly changing business landscape. Liz Gellene, who was Sr. Manager of CX at Little Spoon at the time the pandemic struck, partnered with various internal teams to develop strategic initiatives to effectively improve customer satisfaction, retention and LTV in a time of crisis.

After just 7 months in her manager role, Liz took on the new position of Director of CX in July 2020 and focused on “leveraging data sources to fully understand the customers' experience while focusing daily on delivering value, solving customer problems and realistically developing new opportunities.” Go Liz!

4. Focusing on Relationships

Exceptional female leaders lift their colleagues up with them as they rise to the top, rather than push others down to stand on. They recognize the people who have supported their career paths and seek to forge new relationships with peers and mentees.

Relationship building in the business world is about more than just paying it forward, however. Having a diverse network of colleagues, clients, and even competitors can benefit individual leaders and their organizations as they are able to learn from the experiences of others, as well as seek external advice or opinions.

Gabb Wireless’ SVP of Operations & CX, Diane Acevedo, has forged connections in her community through the founding of Utah’s 40 Women Over 40. The social organization aims to share stories of success later in life, changing careers, starting a business, and returning to the workforce after raising children, and everything in between. Acevedo’s dedication to connection has not only bolstered her own career, but has also created a space for women across industries to find common ground.

5. Showing Empathy

According to a brain imaging study done by UCLA, the part of the brain that mimics the pain of others is consistently more active in women. Thanks in part to sociocultural implications and hormone levels, women can better relate to their employees and their customers. This trait is important for employee engagement: according to Gallup’s State of the American Manager report, employees with managers who connect to know them on a personal level are more likely to be engaged and, therefore, more likely to stay at their organization long-term.

Though historically, women have been advised to adopt masculine, rigid, authoritarian styles of leadership, these new studies support the notion that the more feminine, kind, and caring aspects of female leadership are more effective.

Take Thrive Founder and CEO, Arianna Huffington (yes, she is also the founder and former President of The Huffington Post), for instance. At Nextdoor’s Speaker Series, Huffington spoke about the importance of work-life balance and how to ensure your employee’s wellness comes first: “You have to make sure that you put your own oxygen mask on first.”