Whenever I have had women in senior positions working with me I have felt confident because they usually understood the strategy we were trying to achieve. It’s a sweeping, rather general statement. Not every woman I have worked with has been intellectually tuned to strategy. But as a generalisation, women seem more strategy-aware than men. I have, of course, also worked with men who understand strategy and tactics extremely well. As another gender generalisation I’d say that I observe men as excellent tacticians. That may be why so many win battles both in the field and in the parliament.
When I started work in London in 1952 women were regarded as the labourers of the office. They typed, filed, made tea, cleaned if necessary and ‘tidied up’ – that awful phrase that implied the detritus of libidinous living and chaotic behaviour. A lady who was on a Board or in a Visibly Senior Position was generally thought to be ‘well connected’, possibly the wife of a busy man who had more urgent things to attend to.
Male predators harassed women even in those days. It was difficult to know how much since it was seldom mentioned and never reported. Some men saw it as a right and suburban wives sometimes saw it as insurance for the pay packet. From my observation I think it was less prevalent than today but that may have been my more innocent perspective.
Gender competition is even less fruitful than most of the other pointless competitions we indulge in. The implications of strategic and tactical ability are, however, very much to the point in a world teetering towards self-destruction. Strategy, by definition, demands vision; tactics are about the next move. One of the reasons chess is such a good game for the mind is its combination of strategy and tactics. A rash move can lose you the game. As in life.
One of the reasons a balance of women and men on a Board is so vital is the need to keep the objective in sight as we navigate each bend in the meandering river of progress. Events taking place in Washington illustrate the absurdity of unstrategic tactics. Consequences of them will endorse the fact that two forces charging each other to kill will inevitably succeed. The tacticians will then shout “Game, Set and Match” I shouldn’t wonder. Madness.
The most difficult problem women on boards encounter, I think, is the lack of coherent organisation strategies. Most companies are reluctant to identify a strategy and even more suspicious of declaring it. The news media do not help by treating strategy as tactics. What isn’t accomplished in the next financial quarter has, according to the media, failed.
I have known, or known of, many men strategists whose influence on world events has been dramatic. Sir David Attenborough has consistently made his strategy for the planet so compelling that there can be few who have not been influenced by it. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery made his WWII strategy a model of command. When a battle began he retired to his caravan to sleep and let his Generals turn his strategy into tactics.
Similarly there have been many women whose tactical nouse won the day. One saved my life when the strategists had almost given up on doing so. But even the most tactically brilliant women often show a streak of strategy only now being recognised as lifeblood.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is my favourite. Her “poorest of the poor” cry echoed round the world when she first said it and did it. It changed the concept of neighbour to friend.
It still does today for all thinking people.
It still will tomorrow.
Good morning
John Bittleston
If you think my hypothesis is somewhat correct please say why at [email protected].
If you think it is wrong, even more important to say so, please.
01 June 2025
