The Hindu Business Line : Woman’s brain is wired differently

To most men these statements may not appeal: That there is 15 to 20 per cent more blood flow in a woman’s brain than in a man’s at any given time; that unlike the female brain, the male brain shuts off many times a day; and that the male’s memory centre is generally less active than the female’s during emotional experiences.

Neurobiologists have been able to track over 100 such biological differences, write Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis in Leadership and the Sexes ( www.josseybass.com).

For instance, women take in more through each of their five senses than men do, on average, and store more of this material in the brain for later use, which perhaps, explains how they remember more details during a conversation.

Another difference shows in shopping: “Women more readily enjoy walking through a store and touching and feeling objects, while men will get less pleasure from this”,

There is some disparity in the ‘matter’ too, related to cognitive functioning in the brain. Women have more white matter and men have more grey matter, the authors state.

White matter connects brain centres in the neural network; grey matter tends to localise brain activity into a single active brain centre.

As a result, “women tend to often be able to make crucial connections between widely disparate elements that men don’t make; simultaneously, men tend to task-focus on one element or pattern without distraction better than women do’.

We are now at ‘an evolutionary point in gender history,’ declare Gurian and Annis. With insights from the new brain sciences, we can move to ‘true partnership’ instead of stereotyping men and women, they assure. Also, paying attention to who we really are can make it possible to create policies that satisfy our deepest needs as men and women, and become people of depth and vision.

In that direction, towards ‘balanced leadership,’ the first principle that the soon-to-be-released book proposes is gender intelligence – that we are, in large part, hard-wired to be who we are.

This understanding begins a work/life process of nurturing our own nature and feeling personally responsible to help others nurture their own authentic gender qualities, the authors reason.

Quite often what’s going on is a simple result of the males’ brain wiring, say Gurian and Annis.

“Men not only listen differently (holding less eye contact, in general) but also sometimes need to just zone out for a moment, then bring their brains back to action.”

Interestingly, the book can guide gender-intelligent men to watch how women compete with each other – ‘especially the verbal methods women use for one-upping, criticising, or putting the knife in!’

For, while men spend more time “focusing their energy on hierarchical competition – in part because their bloodstream is more constantly flooded with aggression, competition, and territoriality chemicals,” women compete through ‘verbal interactions in smaller groups’.

Differences come to the fore when leading, too. Men tend to be transactional, unlike women who work towards participative teams. “The more support women build around them, the lower their stress level, and the more effective they may be as leaders.”

In the long-term, say the authors, male leaders tend to define themselves more by their ‘accomplishment and performance’ than by their ‘success at keeping personal or workplace relationships intact’.

Of immense value in the book are the four ‘gendertools’, which include assistance in running a ‘gender-balanced meeting’ and improving ‘conflict resolution skills’.

Imperative read for both the stakeholder groups!

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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Woman’s brain is wired differently

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