Comment: They say that men change the world and women improve it.
My Response: There is something in that; I agree. A woman organizes the world. She tends to connect it together, to make it more convenient, more comfortable, just like she wishes to arrange an apartment. This is how she sees the world.
A man, no. He breaks forward. He needs changes in the world, leaps, perhaps even rather extreme “surgical methods.”
Women generally do not go for that, and therefore they are more suited for governing the world.
In general, governance should be in a pair. We know that in every family the wife quietly commands, and the husband carries out. And if he does not, then it is not a family. Usually, it is always this way. If a man understands this, it is good. It is said in the Torah to Abraham: “Do as Sarah tells you.” This is correct. I think this is how one should educate.
Comment: Forty years ago, the company Xerox conducted large-scale research in its sales department about who sells better. It turned out that women are better salespeople than men. Since then, management’s attitude toward women has become more favorable.
In a study involving about 3,000 managers, several characteristic qualities distinguishing men and women were identified: their differences, advantages, and disadvantages.
The first is power and leadership as strengths. Men are interested in official recognition of their authority. They push forward forcefully and therefore often reach greater career heights and salary levels compared to women.
Women are more focused on internal processes. It is important to them that the work be structured as they envisioned, and it does not matter who formally stands at the helm.
The downside: men, striving to satisfy personal ambitions, are less loyal to the company.
Women may not desire power less than men, but they are often inclined to indecision in the struggle for the leadership chair.
My Response: This is natural. A woman by her nature is not inclined to conflict; she is inclined toward peace, ready to concede in order to preserve the environment, the company where she works, her place, and so on. A man may destroy everything in order to achieve his authority. For a woman this may be completely foreign. Naturally, women are ready for all kinds of sacrifices, while men are not.
In general, in most cases women are preferable. Perhaps the only area where this is less significant is the army, and even there not in planning. In developing military plans, I would involve women as well. Their absence there seems to me necessary to address.
Ultimately, I do not see where a man has an advantage over a woman except in precise implementation.
Comment: The second factor is locus of control depending on gender.
Researchers concluded that as men age, they increasingly rely on their own experience and skills. Men have an internal locus of control and therefore often higher self-esteem than women, who give greater importance to image and others’ opinions.
For example, when problems arise in a school, a female principal gathers teachers and parents to discuss and find a solution together.
My Response: Yes. Men tend to use a more forceful method.
The downside: relying on oneself makes a man less flexible and can lead to excessive self-confidence.
A woman may be more vulnerable due to an external locus of control. Business often demands rigidity, and therefore women in high positions sometimes adopt masculine qualities and constantly balance between personal life and professional duties.
Answer: The main thing is the collective. If the collective understands that, in principle, it is better off with a woman leader than with a man, then the whole collective benefits. Where is the question for this answer?
Question: The next factor is internal corporate processes. A businessman creates a team. Men are more result-oriented. They value employees who are more effective and produce better results.
A woman boss creates a family. She senses the mood in the collective, concentrates on overall comfort. Women tend to have more developed emotional intelligence for creating such an atmosphere.
The downside is that a man may reduce efficiency due to a weak individual approach to each member. A woman may become overly concerned with what is happening in the collective. How can this be balanced?
Answer: We do not manage to do this even in family relations, much less in today’s mixed collectives.
This requires a truly wise collective, where everyone understands the nature of men and women. By discussing everything together, they rise above their egoism.
Here there are no personal gender relations in the usual sense. They reason as clear psychologists: how they can connect in the middle line, not feminine and not masculine, but precisely in the middle. And the middle line is the most effective, correct, and possible combination of these two lines.
This is very difficult. One must constantly work on it. It cannot be done once and for all. Therefore, within a collective there should be such a person, or perhaps even a pair, who would constantly support the mutual complementarity of the inner aspirations, decisions, and visions of the male and female parts. Otherwise, the collective will not be truly effective.
Comment: The next factor is strategy for earning money.
A male leader is naturally less patient and wants quick profit “here and now.” Therefore, he is ready to take risks, to use creative approaches that push business forward.
A female leader often makes decisions more thoughtfully and conservatively. She thinks more long-term and strategically.
The downside: men, due to their need to take risks, are inclined to make rash decisions and incur serious financial losses.
My Response: But they enjoy risk. For them, risk is itself a kind of reward: “I may lose, but I took the risk! I was in it!”
A woman by nature must act thoughtfully. She must care; stability is primary in her—maintaining stability now and in the future. A man does not have this in the same way. For him, the main thing is to leap forward.
Both movements are absolutely correct; only their mutual complementarity is problematic for our society.
Comment: The fifth factor is communication style.
Men are excellent orators who inspire the masses. A woman wins in close-range communication. Women are naturally better at reading nonverbal behavior, possess strong listening skills, and are more sensitive to their own experiences.
The downside: men often do not pay attention to details and may lose negotiations over obvious matters. Women, with an external locus of control, spend considerable energy analyzing how others perceive them.
My Response: A man does not see what is near. He does not read faces or subtle actions—the things a woman notices, absorbs, and orients herself by. A man does not see them.
In everyday life, this is an astonishing ability of women, to sense the surroundings. Like an animal going out to hunt and sensing everything around it with its whole body, so is a woman. A man is not like that. He is goal-oriented; his main thing is to reach a specific point, he sees nothing else.
We are created differently; nothing can be done about that. A person and his qualities cannot be remade. We correct egoism, help a person rise above his egoistic nature, but not above his inherent qualities. A man remains a man, a woman a woman. We must only understand how to combine them correctly.
Therefore, we must choose the proper combination of our actions.
Question: What should leaders, men and women, take into account in their work?
Answer: A proper leader must assemble a collective of several men and women, ike a board of directors, who will correctly understand the collective itself, through discussion properly understand its tasks, correctly understand their own nature, and determine how to combine it in such a way as to develop the middle line, which optimally accounts for both approaches and yields the best result.
And still, this result will naturally be neither feminine nor masculine, but intermediate. It will always be some kind of compromise.
We must learn to live precisely in the middle line.
[241862]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 2/26/19
Related Material:
The Primordial Nature of Men and Women
Man And Woman – Such Different Worlds, Part 1
“Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus”
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Question: If we speak about the Kli that needs correction in the feminine gender, does it mean women should primarily be the ones to engage with Kabbalah rather than men?
