Progress on achieving greater gender diversity at the top of our organizations has been nowhere near as quick as many would like.  It’s a situation that has prompted calls for more interventions to help redress the gender balance at the top of our firms.

New research from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School reminds us that best performances don’t simply emerge when we have more women at the top of our organizations, but rather when there is a healthy gender mix.

“We offer an alternative account to the prevalent female-focused theorisation of the positive strategic implications of TMT gender diversity,” the researchers say.

Diverse mix

The research challenges orthodox thinking that the benefits of greater diversity come from inherent differences in the cognitive perspectives in decision making between men and women.  Instead, the authors believe that the key is the gender-specific differences in interpersonal proclivities between the sexes.

For instance, the researchers highlight that women have a greater proclivity towards social sensitivity, which can help create a more trusting and supportive environment, whereas men have greater proclivity towards challenging one another and sharing their perspective.

“In sum, the equal infusion of men’s and women’s social-role proclivities in TMTs, enabled by gender diversity, will foster TMT psychological safety that characterises both mutual trust and support, and interpersonal risk-taking to openly speak up,” they explain. “Especially when women observe men voicing authentic and controversial thoughts without getting socially punished, they are more likely to feel comfortable raising their own voices in the TMT team.”

Psychological safety

The value of psychological safety has been long established, and the researchers highlight how this benefits the strategic outcomes of the firms as they target the dual outcomes of exploration and exploitation.

The paper suggests that the benefits of the right gender mix are even greater when organizations have little slack on terms of their resources, which is often the case during particularly challenging times, such as those experienced during COVID-19.

“When gender-diverse TMTs confront the slack resource adversity, men tend to infuse greater voice-raising tendencies to facilitate members in more openly expressing their opinions, even provocative ones, to change the status quo,” the authors write. “Similarly, trusting and supportive relations become more critical for TMT members to cope with adversity and crises together.”