The pandemic taught male CEOs to lead more like women

– Leadership style.  My colleague Geoff Colvin has a new piece in Fortune this week about the evolving role of the CEO, a position that has permanently and profoundly changed in large part because of the pandemic, with more upheaval still to come.

“They’re supposed to be informed, prepared, and firmly in charge, not vulnerable. They’re supposed to be optimistic and confident,” he writes. Jim Citrin of the Spencer Stuart executive search firm puts the executive transformation another way: “CEOs went from being godlike to being more human.”

Many of the CEOs who agreed to speak for this story were men, leading businesses like Lysol-maker Reckitt Benckiser Group and the cruise company Royal Caribbean. They candidly opened up to Geoff, recounting how the past two years have forced them to lean into their vulnerable sides and learn to support employees’ well-being and emotional needs. While this rebirth should certainly be lauded—after all, corporate leaders are known far more for being ruthless mercenaries than for their ability to emotionally buttress their workforce—their newly mastered behavior may sound awfully familiar to women in business.

Simply put, male CEOs across the Fortune 500 and beyond may be learning to lead more like women. According to 2016 research by the people and organizational advisory firm Korn Ferry, women executives are 86% more likely to employ the competency of emotional self-awareness consistently and 45% more likely to demonstrate empathy. Such skills have become even more critical as work and personal lives collided during the pandemic. Congruently, women are also able to display high competencies in more traditionally “male” leadership qualities like bold leadership, taking initiative, and driving results, according to Harvard Business Review.

The pandemic, Citrin says, gave leaders “permission to be real, and authentic and transparent,” an area in which women leaders have long excelled. Of course, the CEO role also changed for women throughout the pandemic. Executives who are parents, and especially mothers, embraced a new level of vulnerability as previously verboten glimpses into their personal lives, like kids in the background of Zoom calls, became more commonplace. For some, growing acceptance of bringing their full selves to work was a welcome reprieve from years of demands to tamp down their emotional or vulnerable side.

As experts look to the future, they expect high CEO turnover in 2022 after low corner office job-hopping in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 crisis. Now that the importance of honing skills like empathy and emotional intelligence has become clear to CEOs and boards in recent years, perhaps the executives tapped to fill vacant roles will increasingly be women—or at least better equipped to lead like them.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Streaming drama. The collapse of Netflix's stock stems back to the 2020 ouster of Cindy Holland, its VP of original content, a Hollywood Reporter piece argues. Holland guided the streamer's initial push into original content, often choosing high-end and expensive series like House of Cards. Her philosophy differed from that of head of global TV Bela Bajaria, who helped the company release more content at scale after her 2016 arrival. Their different approaches reportedly led to frequent internal confusion. One anonymous employee says Netflix "pitted Bela and Cindy against each other." The Hollywood Reporter

- In memoriam. World leaders gathered at Washington National Cathedral yesterday for a memorial service in honor of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who died at 84 last month. "With her goodness and grace, her humanity and intellect, she turned the tide of history," President Joe Biden told the audience. New York Times

- Call to action. Protesters throughout Mexico are demanding justice for Debanhi Susana Escobar Bazaldúa, a teen found dead at a motel in Monterrey. The apparent killing of the young woman family and friends say was an aspiring lawyer has reignited the call to end gender-based violence and femicide in Mexico. Guardian

- Stalled but not forgotten. Businesses launched a renewed push for paid leave this week, calling for action by legislators as the Build Back Better agenda remains stalled. Airbnb, Reddit, and DoorDash are among those urging the creation of a national paid leave program, in part, to help ease the country's labor shortage. Business Insider

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Finance management platform Rho has named Christine Cuoco as vice president and head of marketing. Denise Beckles has been appointed chief financial officer of beverage brand Zevia. Helene Gayle has been named Spelman College’s next president. Amateras Capital co-founder Alex Jung will be leading a joint venture to leverage female investment with AEA Investors. Former Center for American Progress vice president Sharita Gruberg has joined the National Partnership for Women & Families as vice president of economic justice. Lively has appointed Anahita Besson as vice president of revenue and Katie Beekman as assistant vice president of retail. The Luupe has named IBM executive director of marketing, global demand strategy Ashley Patterson as chief operating officer.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- On campus.  Nike has unveiled the newest addition to its Oregon headquarters: the Serena Williams Building, which will house the company’s design team and boasts 200,000 square feet of lab testing space. Williams is, of course, one of Nike's preeminent sponsored athletes and in 2021 launched a program pairing early-career designers with Nike staffers to design a collection in her name. Wallpaper

- First sentence. Former leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to five years in jail over corruption charges. She was deposed in a military coup in early 2021, and calls the allegations against her "absurd." All told, she faces charges under the new regime that could lead to a sentence of 190 years in prison. CNN

- Tough race.  A record number of women are running for Congress in this year’s midterm elections, with 100 vying for seats in the Senate and 500 running for the House of Representatives. A new study from the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found that although women running for office isn’t novel to voters anymore, voters still view female candidates as likable or qualified, but not both; inexperienced in economic issues; and judged based on their appearances. USA Today

- Grande dame. Geraldine Weiss, an investment trailblazer dubbed “the Grande Dame of Dividends,” died at her La Jolla, Calif. home on Monday. She was 96. After being told by stockbrokers she was best suited for a secretary position, Weiss began publishing her investment newsletter, Investment Quality Trends, under the name G. Weiss in 1966, concealing her identity as a woman for another 11 years. The newsletter is still in publication today. New York Times

ON MY RADAR

Author Margaret Atwood wants students to envision future utopias—and mint them as NFTs Decrypt

Meet Rana Abdelhamid, the progressive who wants to pull off the next AOC-style victory in NYC Elle

Elizabeth Warren: Providing childcare support can help solve inflation Fortune

PARTING WORDS

"[I want to show] that women can fight. That we can sell tickets."

- Boxing champion Amanda Serrano, who will go up against competitor Katie Taylor at Madison Square Garden this weekend in the venue's first-ever women's headlining matchup.