Women often don’t think of themselves as leaders. I know this first hand. After just four years working as a neuropsychologist, I was offered the position as head of my department. I did not accept, and a year later enrolled in law school. A decade later, while practising law I was asked to be the president of a women’s networking organization, Toronto CREW, and I declined. Why did I decline the offers to take a leadership role when others saw me as a leader? Was it because I did not see myself that way?

Now I realize that at that time the idea of leadership was masculine for me. After decades of images of male leaders, and learning the message that being bossy was a negative trait for a girl, I held a hidden gender bias about women not being leaders. And I am not alone. Many women tend to have such a self-limiting mindset. Due to childhood training we often don’t see ourselves as leaders, even as we influence and lead others. And to be it we have to see it.

We also discount our own abilities, credentials, and approaches. Because we believe we don’t have the skills to lead, we ignore the evidence of our leadership abilities and decline opportunities. It is so pervasive that McKinsey, a leading global management firm, suggests that organizations need to hunt, fish, and trawl for the best leaders as they are hidden; hidden due to gender, race, or other biases.

Perhaps women are great leaders because the best leadership styles are those most associated with women. Not command and control – the style most often associated with a masculine approach – but democratic, participatory and visionary; feminine styles that focus on the team’s experience, interests and goals rather than those of the leader.

Research recently highlighted in the Harvard Business Review, provides more evidence for the inefficacy of the traditional style of command and control. In the article, “Pulpit Bullies: Why Dominating Leaders Kill Teams”, Michael Blanding concludes that leaders who focus on their power and control hurt the performance of their teams. Leaders primed in the studies to be “high-power” leaders dominated the discussion, talking twice as much as “neutral-power” leaders. As a result, the “high-power” leaders missed important information from the team, and had an overall success rate of 59% compared with the 76% success rate of the “neutral-power” leader, who allowed more team participation and sharing. In other similar research, it was found that leaders who orchestrate the conversation and have everyone contributing end up with the most successful results. One way to increase the 76% success rate? Perhaps by introducing “team-focused” leaders.

It’s time to bring all of the hidden gender stereotypes and beliefs about leadership into the open and to replace them with accurate ones. Here are some suggestions from my book Understanding Gender at Work.

• Drag gender stereotypes, beliefs, and biases into the light. Be able to recognize them so if you see something, you can say something.
• Identify any self-limiting mindsets you may have about women and leadership. Recognize and replace any incorrect beliefs you may hold about women and leadership with new ones that are beneficial and accurate.
• Become androgynous. Be able to use both masculine and feminine leadership styles. Research from Stanford shows that women who are androgynous have the same chance as men to be identified as leaders and are promoted at a faster rate than men and other women.

Being able to recognize that you already are a good leader and have effective leadership skills is the biggest step to becoming a great one. Endeavour to remain hidden no more!