Scribble
Archmage
In general the men were dictative and political whereas the women were collaborative and open. Maybe that is a cliché but maybe it's true as well.
I've had 3 women bosses over the years. The first two were authoritarian and political, working in a very "boy's club" corporate environment. They were far stronger and brighter than the 25 other department directors who were all men, but they had to be.
My last boss who was a woman embraced the collaborative and open mode that you describe. I felt that she was very naturally "a woman" in her role, being herself, leading through collaboration and not dictation. When I came from that other world, I was used to barking orders and having them followed, putting people against the wall if they didn't do what I told them. I had the authority, I was used to using it. When she hired me, I delivered projects in three months that had been floundering for years. However, I stepped on a few fragile egos - one VP wanted me fired. The others came to my defense, saying I was in the right. This was in the executive meeting, I didn't even know!
I have a tough job. I report to the COO, and my clients are the CEO, the VPs, and the directors. I am trying to push my vision for our systems to people who technically I report to. From her, I learned how to "garden". How to work with people to lead when you aren't in charge. How to get people to take risks, and that is through trust, by being open. When you are able to make mistakes, you give other people the freedom to make mistakes, and that is how we take risks. When you are super-smart and authoritative, everyone is afraid to voice their opinion.
If they have doubts in your project, they may be afraid to voice them. By nurturing a collaborative environment where we are free to question, to doubt, to make suggestions that might sound dumb, then we move forward. We avoid failing based on the wrong idea of one person at the top. We take advantage of our collective knowledge and reasoning.
That's the sort of thing I learned from her. To me, that is what I would expect to see in a realistic matriarchy, a kind of collaborative hive, where the queen bee is making executive decision, but based on the communal results of women. Otherwise, you have the male based hierarchy structure which works perfectly well in military engagements, but certainly less healthy in managing modern societies.
Based on brain science and personal experience, women appear to have wider association. Where men are more compartmentalized and role based, I would expect a matriarchy to be less role based, and more committee based. Where in a patriarchy you have a single male answerable for all defenses, in a matriarchy, I would imagine a group responsible with links to other groups, a sort of multi-role situation.
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