Leading in a Different Language: Will Women Change the News Media?
Women as Media Leaders

Fortunately, doors have begun to swing open for women. While far from achieving a critical mass of women in leadership posts, it is now possible to find women who have moved into top media management and discover what contributions they are making.

Qualities Women Bring to Leadership

Most women journalists tell the IWMF that women bring significant talents to leadership, but that women's leadership qualities differ from those of men. Respondents to the IWMF survey in March 2000 indicated that the most important qualities a leader can bring to management include clear vision, communication skills, creativity and flexibility.

Yet, when asked which qualities women bring to their careers, clear vision was low on the list for the survey respondents. Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Constitution and IWMF co-chair, suggested that this contradiction may arise from a "conflict between this idea that one of the most important things for a leader to do is articulate a clear vision and the idea that one of the strengths of women is that we are collaborative."

Tucker explained that in editorial meetings her style is to ask for contributions and ideas from her team, while her male colleagues often give directions and make assignments without asking for input. As Tucker said, this difference in management style could lead to a perception that men articulate vision more clearly than women. It does not mean that women do not have vision, however. Results from the 2000 IWMF survey corroborate this view. The journalists said that women leaders make themselves available to subordinates more often than men, a key to an open and cooperative work style.

According to the survey respondents, women leaders excel at communication (68 percent) and flexibility (63 percent). Women understand how to make things happen, tend to build relationships and are more apt to share information with colleagues, they said. Women are also adept at juggling many tasks and priorities and often deal with a number of crises simultaneously - both in the office and at home. As a senior editor from the United States summed up, "I think women are often better organized. Nothing beats the organizational skills of a busy editor with a family."

Most journalists completing the survey also agreed that each individual should create her own personal style of leadership rather than conforming to practices and philosophies that are part of a male-dominated system.

Role and Responsibility

Most women who make it into decision-making positions feel they have the responsibility to open doors and support other women seeking to travel similar paths, according to respondents to the 2000 IWMF survey. They said that some of the most important obligations of women in management are to support junior women for promotions, serve as role models to other women and engage in mentoring relationships.

Women media managers at the IWMF conference in May 2000 agreed. "We need to support the other women around us," said Gail Evans, executive vice president of CNN. Annegrethe Rasmussen, editor-in-chief of Berlingske Sunday in Denmark, advised, "You really do have an obligation to try to promote and attract other women to [management] positions."

Emily Nwankwo, general manager of the Nation Media Group in Kenya, articulated a point of view held by many participants in the IWMF conference. "I realized that if I don't push a woman, no man is going to be looking back saying, 'This woman is good, let's promote her,' " she said.

Support for other women does not necessarily have to be overt. Women role models also give guidance - sometimes subliminally - to younger women journalists on how to approach issues and how to tackle problems. These women are also examples of achievement. Alena Mullerova, a producer with Czech Television, said, "All these positive examples [at the IWMF conference] help me not to lose self-confidence in my work…where only 3 women -- me and 2 others -- are in leader positions."

Mentors can also provide one-on-one, personal advice, from how to research a particular topic, to navigating the intricacies of a media company, to preparing an application for promotion. Of the women journalists completing the 2000 IWMF survey, a majority (85 percent) felt that having a mentor was at least somewhat important to women aspiring to move up.

Saida Hamad, bureau chief of Al-Hayat in Jerusalem, said that mentoring gives "women more strength and confidence to fight and win, when they know that they are not being stopped by other women, but rather supported by them."

Elisa Tinsley, deputy world editor for USA Today, explained that serving as a mentor and role model are often closely linked and that both are important not only to the journalists of today, but to the journalists who they will inspire. "If supervisors don't take the time to help people improve their performance they are failing…to serve as an example to those people as they rise through the ranks and reach levels that put them in a position to mentor others themselves."