March 15, 2012; Source: Harvard Business Review Blog Network

I guess maybe some people still need to be convinced of women’s relative competence in the workplace and particularly in leadership so here is the data from a male to female comparison of the 360 degree evaluations of 7,280 leaders: the ladies scored higher by a significant margin. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, the authors of the Harvard Business Review Blog Network, state, “Specifically, at all levels, women are rated higher in fully 12 of the 16 competencies that go into outstanding leadership. And two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree—taking initiative and driving for results—have long been thought of as particularly male strengths. As it happened, men outscored women significantly on only one management competence in this survey—the ability to develop a strategic perspective.”

The study looked not just at top leaders but those in a variety of management positions.

Now, here is what I want to talk about: so where is our money? Maybe we want to look once again to Wall Street for setting the stage on matters financial including this pesky gender wage gap because, as Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently reported, in that field, women only get between 55 and 62 cents for every dollar their male colleagues earn, as contrasted to the average 77 cents to the dollar enjoyed by us ladies overall. –Ruth McCambridge