In business today, there is a growing need for balance between the more traditional “masculine” qualities and the newly respected “feminine” qualities. For masculine, I’m talking about the linear, logical, competitive, active principles that are so important in business. The feminine qualities include cooperation, intuition, communication, compassion, and embodiment of the cyclical nature of existence – equally important, but often overlooked in favour of the masculine principles.
Programs for women that attempt to “manage” the feminine nature of participants often treat these qualities as problems to be overcome. Women are sometimes viewed as over-emotional and irrational and are given advice as to how to hide or ignore these parts of themselves in business, as these aspects are seen as handicaps.
At Evolutionary Intelligence, we are passionate about helping both men and women recognise and honour the more feminine qualities and learn to use them as an asset in business. Women naturally express more of these qualities, although men of course, have them too and express them to varying degrees.
As an example, we talk a lot about Human Doing and Human Being. If we are busy doing all the time, we close down the space for something new to emerge. It’s only when we allow ourselves to BE – a more feminine quality, that space appears for vision, intuition and creative problem-solving. How many people have “slept” on a problem and awakened with a clear sense of how to solve it, that was not apparent in the busy-ness of the day?
To embrace and embody the feminine qualities is an extremely powerful way of increasing productivity, building conscious relationships, accessing vision, managing change and bringing a sense of joy and wellbeing into the business – and who wouldn’t want all that?