If Election2016 turns out to be a slugfest between two white men will the winner gain a two-term presidency? If so, we may well have to wait until January 2025 for a woman to be inaugurated president of the United States.
Here's a reality check. A few years ago, I did a series of interviews for an article titled "The Best Boss I Ever Had Was A Woman." When I asked women do describe this "favorite" boss to me, they returned blank stares. Most of their bosses were men, and the few women they had encountered in management, had been trained to fit into a male structured world.
The best boss, a woman? Well the times, as the song goes, are a' changing. Men, with their goal-seeking, single focused, team spirited, testosterone charged drive have brought us this far.
Now, a new study, just released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and EY, reveals that when the issue is economics and the focus is the corporate world, women in leadership are tied to higher profits. The study goes further and includes language from a 2015 McKinsey Global Institute study.
"Complete gender parity with men could increase global output by more than one-quarter relative to a business-as-usual scenario."
And that's not all. When the need expands to address climate impacts, the environment, or to make a rapid transition to resilient, sustainable communities, women make the best leaders. Why? Again studies show that the female brain is best able to manage high levels of complexity.
Women work BEST under stress, it turns out, because the hardwired female brain is able to break free of social conditioning - or suppression - when placed under great stress.
As Eleanor Roosevelt once reminded: "Women are like a tea bag. When you put them in hot water, they get stronger."
I like to put it this way: "When the going gets tough, the hardwired female brain turns on." In my opinion, today's world needs more heroines. Lead on!
Alexia Parks, an American futurist , is a Virtual Mentor with the United Nations and Founder of the Alexia Parks 10 TRAITS Leadership Institute