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on business acumen and a grasp of their particular
market, product or opportunity to “[earn] authority
through expertise and command of the business.” Male
executives, on the other hand, are given the benefit of the
doubt more often and do not need to establish respect
with the same sense of urgency; they just “assume they
have [the respect and authority],” Schimel noted.
If females do not manage these perceptions and establish
their authority quickly, awkward situations can occur. In
many cases, male employees in China are quite surprised
to have a female manager. For example, when Rachel Kot
was introduced to several new teams at Alcatel Lucent,
the large French telecommunications equipment firm,
numerous employees mistook her for the secretary,
despite her senior status.
Thus, women need superior soft skills when leading
Chinese teams. Schimel suggested that “women need to
be stronger [than men] in the areas of communication
and [goal-setting]. Women need to excel. There needs to
be no question of authority.” Women also need to have
great emotional intelligence while leading teams, and
should spend more time “building consensus quietly as
opposed to open public forums,” according to Nancy
Liu, president of Forevermark, the brand of De Beers
Diamond in China. Women tend to build consensus
with a bottom-up approach, whereas men utilize a more
top-down method. In addition, female executives must
learn to read between the lines, especially in Chinese
societies, where employees are reluctant to disagree
openly with their superiors.
Liu added that female managers “need to learn signals
and then leave an open door for [employees] to come
and have that discussion with you later on.” She also
emphasized the need to help male subordinates maintain
“face” by not publicly refuting their ideas or criticizing
their work. Successful female executives are also
extremely good at leveraging their feminine strengths in
the workplace by being soft but firm. Liu likened their
management style to an “iron hand in a velvet glove.”
Another clear difference between managing men and
women in the Chinese workplace is the employees’
approach toward establishing relationships with their
managers. “Chinese females look for female mentors and
8 Knowledge@Wharton • The Lauder Global Business Insight Report 2013
want to develop more personal relationships [whereas
the men do not],” according to Schimel. She noted that
while men are respectful of their female managers, they
do not want to get close and maintain a “typical boss
and employee relationship,” whereas “for young women,
having a woman as a boss really means a lot to them.”
Some observers suggest this may be because women are
more relationship-oriented and men more task-oriented.
As Alcatel Lucent’s Rachel Kot commented about an
ongoing gender study involving focus groups in her
company, “Women believe having the right mentor will
help [them] to accelerate more, whereas men believe
having the right business acumen will have more of an
effect.”
Female managers in China feel that managing male
employees sometimes entails a balancing act between
stroking their egos and optimizing business decisions,
according to some women. Li noted that she allows
her male employees to implement minor decisions she
disagrees with from time to time because she knows it
will be too damaging to their egos otherwise. On issues
of significant consequence, she will insist on the most
optimal decision, but, generally speaking, she feels she
needs to give male employees more breathing room to
feel empowered.
Similarly, Schimel described an experience where
she managed a Chinese team that was led by a male
manager, and realized she had to make an effort to
empower him so he would not feel destabilized. In
general, these situations are more delicate in China
than in the West. “In Asia, these moments are fraught
with a little bit more risk and discomfort, so it is harder
to get back on good footing afterwards [if you make a
mistake],” Schimel said.
Female managers may have to be extra careful to win the
respect of their male employees and manage their egos,
but managing female employees presents a different
challenge because they are often more timid. As Kot
noted, “[Conversations with male employees] are more
structured, and [much of the] time [men] expect a lot
more respect for what they are saying, which is great,
because coaching them will be easier. As long as the
bottom line is set, you just let them brainstorm their
creativity out. [Yet] when it comes to the women, they