045 | Cultivating Culture: The Unique Impact of Female Founders

Are you ready to discover how female founders can transform company culture into a powerhouse of innovation and collaboration?

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, understanding and leveraging the unique leadership qualities of women can be the key to overcoming challenges and driving your company toward unprecedented growth. 

We’re diving deep into why and how female leadership styles can create more inclusive, innovative, and productive workplaces.

Listen now to unlock the secrets of impactful female leadership and start transforming your business culture today!

In this episode, you’ll discover

• In this episode, you'll discover 5 powerful leadership traits female founders use to boost business growth and enhance team collaboration. 
• In this episode, you'll discover how to increase employee satisfaction by 22% through inclusive and transformational leadership.
• In this episode, you'll discover 3 essential strategies for scaling culture in your small business to drive long-term success.

This episode at a glance:

[04:56] Female leaders tend to be more democratic in their leadership approach. Which encourages participation and values input from members of the team.

[06:15] Inclusive and innovative leadership approach. Is a super valuable one when it comes to building culture.

[07:11] Rituals aren't just for sororities. They are the foundations of connecting and bringing people together.

[07:35] Find something that can be consistent that you know, can be scaled, that more people can be added to it. Because you want to make sure that what works for five people can work for 50 or more as you grow. 

[10:07]  The goal of culture is to help people feel like they belong and that they are a part of something bigger than themselves when they are doing their work. 

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode:

• Free Range Thinking
• Dawn Andrews
• Motherhood Center of New York
• Check out FREE RESOURCES 
• Let’s Connect on Instagram!

You might also like

• Why Having Women in Leadership is The Best Business Strategy
• Company Vision Workbook
• How To Build Camaraderie To Boost Your Team’s Motivation and Productivity

More about the “My Good Woman” podcast

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Transcript

My Good Woman
Ep. 45 |  Cultivating Culture: The Unique Impact of Female Founders

Dawn Andrews:

Men provide direction for their employees while women encourage employees to find their own direction.

Welcome to the My Good Woman podcast where we help female founders break past plateaus and get to the next level of business growth by refining their strategy building systems and streamlining operations. 

I'm Dawn Andrews, the founder and CEO of free range thinking business strategy consulting. Join me each week for candid conversations, with culture, shifting glass ceiling busting trailblazing women who are leading impactful enterprises and grab their strategies to help your business reach extraordinary levels of growth. 

In this episode, you'll discover five powerful leadership traits female founders use to boost business growth and enhance team collaboration. How to increase employee satisfaction by 22% through inclusive and transformational leadership. And three essential strategies for scaling culture in your small business to drive long-term success.

So welcome back to my good woman, the place where business meets chutzpah and where we as female leaders dive headfirst into the deep end of leadership and strategy. I'm Dawn Andrews your host and I'm ready to unpack what makes us ladies uniquely fabulous at cultivating culture.

Culture does not change because we desire it to change culture changes when the organization or a community is transformed. "The culture reflects the realities of people working together every day." That quote is from Frances Hesselbein the the former CEO of girl Scouts of America. 

Let's peel back the layers on what makes the leadership styles of women, not just different, but more effective. And spoiler alert, it's not just because we're great multitaskers. Women are particularly known for their empathy, inclusivity and collaboration. 

And these aren't just fluffy words, these are hardcore business strategies that drive openness employee satisfaction, and nail-bitingly good problem-solving. Have you ever tried to be a woman who is taking care of a family, running a business, caring for older parents like myself, and also planning to run a marathon;  talk about multitasking and problem solving. 

It's like they say, give everything that you want to do to a busy person, because they will figure out the best way to get it done. And this holds true when it comes to finding ways to include people as you build a culture. Even in the midst of all of our multitasking activities. We still can manage to prioritize employee wellbeing, which translates into off the chart productivity. Because feeling good is good for business.

One thing that's really cool about women is that we tend to have a more transformational view of leadership. A transformational style. We focus on mentoring. We like to inspire others. We like to motivate others and to take the time to figure out what's actually underneath what the psychology is, what does in fact motivate people. And that creates a culture of creativity and innovation where people can thrive.

Women leaders are known to score significantly higher in their capabilities to connect and relate to others. So look at us, go is all I'm saying. So how does this mentoring inclusive approach show up in the real world?

Well, let's talk about, my work with the Motherhood Center of New York. They have been consistently growing and continuing to reach out and treat women with pre peri and post maternal mental health disorders that needs support. And in their growth process, they had reached a point where scaling was really getting tough with the way that their model was set up. 

And rather than the CEO locking herself in a room and trying to figure it out on her own, she partnered up with her most senior leadership team to come up with a draft and then involved all of the department heads and got feedback to help develop what the plan was for the next level of growth. 

Now, in a larger corporate environment that may be standard practice to some degree. But what was different in this situation is that she knew and was very open, that she didn't have all the answers that she needed to really hear and understand points of view of her team members. 

How does this stack up against the old suit tie and briefcase approach of our male counterparts? 

Let's try some comparison. 

Shall we?

 Before I dive into the male versus female leadership approaches. I just want to let all the men that are listening out there. Know that I appreciate you. I'm glad you are listening and learning. I'm glad that you are allies and advocates for women. And I will say openly that I'm starting to see this change, especially in the younger generations of men that I've had the opportunity to coach or to even learn from. 

It's really exciting to see men in their thirties take a new look at how men are leading. But, that's not always the case. So let's just talk about the differences. Shall we?

Men typically play not to lose rather than play to win. 

The traditional male style of leadership emphasizes a command and control approach. They're generally more task-oriented and that leads to a top-down management style. It is effective for quick decision-making, which is fantastic, and for very clear simplified one plus one equals two directives. But in that environment team collaboration and usually innovation cannot thrive 

They're just contrasting styles. 

Female leaders tend to be more democratic in their leadership approach. Which encourages participation and values input from members of the team. Just like we were talking about in the example before. This builds team collaboration and leads to higher job satisfaction and loyalty. 

Women's leadership styles are often described as more inclusive and empathetic. And they prefer open communication and mutual respect. So let me get an amen, like, I'm curious to hear whether that's true for you. It is definitely true for me. 

So check out this little nugget from the American Psychological Association; Men provide direction for their employees while women encourage employees to find their own direction. And if you were a female leader with a beautiful vision that you can easily articulate, having smart people who can find their own direction and connection into that vision is gold. 

If we're talking command and control versus connecting inspire the ladder wins always by more than just a few points. In fact, most inclusive cultures, both to 33% jump in profitability, but who's counting?

It turns out I am.

And in fact, just to hammer that home, a poll that Gallup conducted shows that there is a 22% lower turnover rate in companies led by women. And lower turnover means more cake at work anniversaries, there's that. So I'm just saying that inclusive and innovative leadership approach is a super valuable one when it comes to building culture. 

If you treat people like people, then you have people around to build a wonderful culture. If you treat people like things and focus only on their tasks, you don't get the people part of the people. 

How do you scale culture? 

Because right now I'm talking to you, the female founder of generally a small service-based business, small to medium-sized service-based business. It may be you and a handful of small, but mighty team. As you add people and your business grows from all of that inclusivity and innovation. 

How do you build a scalable culture? 

Well, Let's talk about it. 

You do it through rituals and routines. 

Now everybody raise your hand out there if you have eyeballed all of the Instagram reels of people's morning routines. Like, I know you have, I know you're watching somebody with their morning run their meditation and their green smoothie, whatever it is. 

I know you do because I do too. It's real. Because rituals aren't just for sororities. They are the foundations of connecting and bringing people together. There's a reason why church works so well, whether or not you're religious people love the consistency and ritual of it. It helps them know that they are a part of something. 

What do you want to create for your company? 

Do you want to do weekly shout outs? 

Is there a monthly deep dive into your financials? 

Whatever floats your unique business boat, but find something that can be consistent that you know, can be scaled, that more people can be added to it. Because you want to make sure that what works for five people, you're a small, but mighty team now can work for 50 or more as you grow. 

And then another thing that helps culture scale that women are also good at is keeping an eye on it. 

You gotta be able to do some cultural assessments. Make sure that the culture ball is part of your annual KPIs for your company. So what are your regular checkups to help ensure that your business body so to speak is healthy? Are there assessments that you do at the end of the year? 

You know, larger companies have the resources usually to do some sort of team pulse. They can do a check-in to see what the general morale is within a company, but it's more awkward to do when you have a small to medium sized company, because people may have direct interaction with you as the founder and people aren't generally straightforward when they're telling the founder directly that they're unhappy with their work or their job. 

 Find a way to check in on the culture. You can even have certain people on the team that are your culture keepers that you can check in to see from their perspective. How does everybody feel? How's it looking these days? Do people generally seem to be happy and enjoying their work? Just knowing that you're checking in already helps build a more inclusive culture. 

 So all of that caretaking that you're doing, and those other parts of your life actually do pay off in business because the goal isn't necessarily to build a business family. Like if that's the kind of culture that you want, go for it and build it. But it is the way that you can knit people together and make them feel a part of something when the time that they spend with you is probably the same or even more than they get to spend with their family. 

Go girls! I am so glad that we are skilled at doing this because we are making people feel, I don't know if loved is quite the right word, because we are making people feel seen, heard, understood, and included when they're giving themselves to the work, and I'm all right with that. 

So as you may or may not know, because I work with so many companies in the entertainment industry, I'm under NDAs. And I can't talk freely about some of the amazing people and companies that I've had the opportunity to work for. But I'll kind of talk around it for a second. 

One of the companies that I think has the most amazing continued culture from startup back in the sixties to now where they are a behemoth across theme parks, films, merchandise, streaming, they're everywhere. They have managed to really put people first and of course, as you grow as a company, not every single person in every single instance is going to be living their best life inside your company. 

 But the goal of culture is to help people feel like they belong. And that they are a part of something bigger than themselves when they are doing their work. When culture is at its best that's what happens, and this particular company is really extraordinary at creating that inclusivity for their employees. 

People choose to go work there because they want to have that experience. So the culture, not only keeps people together inside the company, but draws and magnetizes people from outside the company to come be there. And they generally stay for a nice, juicy, long time. 

Something that I admire about their culture is that they are thoughtful about the shifts going on in the world and continue to shift and change their culture to reflect that. Being the large company that they are, they're not necessarily going to be the quickest on the uptake because it's kind of like turning the Titanic. 

But the willingness and the actual action taking is happening and I find that to be very admirable. 

Okay, I'm going to get my fashion on. 

So before we wrap up, let's do a quick catwalk style recap of today's points on leadership and culture. 

We talked about female leadership prowess with empathy, inclusivity, and collaboration. We talked about and did a little cultural comparison of how men and women lead differently and the benefits and detriments of both. And then we talked about how to scale culture and how women are uniquely positioned to be able to do that. 

So I'm curious for you, how does your leadership style help grow and support your organization's culture? Have you been introspective enough to see how you plug into that or how you lead that? I'd be curious to know, send me a message on LinkedIn @freerangethinking. I'd really love to hear from you. 

Thanks for joining me for this episode about female founders and culture. It was so wonderful to spend this time with you. Stay fabulous. Keep leading like the powerhouse that you are. And I can't wait until next time.

Thank you for joining me, my good woman. If you loved today's episode, make sure to subscribe, consider it like getting a front row seat at the premier of the year's biggest blockbuster- every episode. You wouldn't want to miss the opening scene of a cinema classic. Right? So hit subscribe to ensure you're in the audience, popcorn in hand for our next thrilling episode. Don't let the credits roll without you. See you soon.