Former IBM CEO says the world needs “more feminine leadership traits”

Former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty believes that when it comes to putting people to work, practical skills are more useful than expensive degrees.

Transcript

00:00 - I remember talking about this, you know,

00:01 I can remember my first year, long time ago,

00:03 and I remember I was told when I was an MCO,

00:07 first things were, look, whatever you do,

00:08 do no media interviews.

00:10 You will be defined as a woman,

00:11 and that is not what we want you defined as.

00:13 And let, I'm like, but,

00:17 well, I relearned the lesson my mom taught me.

00:21 I've talked about my mother here before,

00:23 you know, if you don't define yourself,

00:24 someone else will, okay, so valuable lesson.

00:27 But it was about, you know, just be tough, be firm,

00:31 do all these things, and I think,

00:33 what I do think is different now,

00:36 it isn't that the world needs just more women leaders,

00:40 I think it needs more feminine leadership traits.

00:42 And that is what, in the end,

00:44 what I ended up writing about in Good Power,

00:46 'cause it was, I think you can do really hard things,

00:48 and I know you will do them in a positive way.

00:53 And that, you know, I often said,

00:56 while everyone talked about what I did,

00:57 I hope the greatest legacy I left was how I did it.

01:00 And that, to me, like, you know,

01:03 Heather was up here earlier talking about divisiveness,

01:06 and that idea that you could unite people,

01:08 you can appreciate their differences,

01:09 but, you know, you can love tension and conflict,

01:12 but come to a closure.

01:13 You could do it with respect.

01:14 So I actually think this is the moment that,

01:16 no, men can have feminine leadership traits too, right?

01:19 So I think it's very much across the board,

01:22 and I'm hopeful that this is, I think, a unique time,

01:25 though, that what you do naturally is going to really be in demand.