Women and leadership

Did you happen to see the latest edition of Newsweek? They have an excellent special feature about women and leadership.

I was particularly struck by the article about San Francisco. Women lead nearly every public safety agency in the city. Police. Fire. District Attorney. And almost everything else like homeland security, emergency management, etc. This hit me:

It's no accident, says Mayor Gavin Newsom, that public safety in his city is managed almost exclusively by women. Except for the district attorney, who was elected in 2003, he appointed them all. "I wasn't looking for the 'woman' candidate," Newsom says. "I was looking for a competent team."

In the post-Katrina world, Newsom reasons, the public demands nothing less than the compassionate, collaborative and practical approach he gets from his women chiefs. And as Katrina showed all too clearly, there is no more critical task in a disaster than the ability of first responders to coordinate and communicate with each other and the public. "America loves the macho guy with the cigar and the crew cut," says Newsom. "But America also likes results. I've often sat in envy of the ability of women to multitask, put ego aside, not complain, and solve the problem."

Anyway, check it out. Good stuff. And, while it's not qualitative research, I do think it would meet specs for qualitative, even if it's not published in a peer-reviewed journal.