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What are the gender differences between men and women in coaching?

I have just spent a very enjoyable weekend at the Hay Book Festival listening to an array of Authors, Celebrities, Academics and Political Commentators presenting and debating on important topics such as Climate Change, Aid to the developing world, The Environment, Freedom of Speech. They were also intent on promoting, marketing and selling their latest books. The audience was approximately 50% men and 50% women but there were more male than female speakers to the ratio of about 2:1. This got me thinking about gender differences.

The difference that I observed starkly was that 80% of the Speakers were men but more starkly than that c95% of the people who asked questions in public at the end of each session were men! This observation led me on to thinking about why there was such a large disparity and what if anything does this say about the different characteristics of men and women involved in the coaching process.

I recognise that I need to be very careful about making sweeping generalisations here but these are some of the thoughts that I have had on this subject. Men, it appears, have more confidence, are more risk taking and more prepared to speak up in public and to expose their thinking – even if what they have to say may sound a bit foolish. In short they often like the sound of their own voices and let their ego drive them to ask questions where as women will often me more circumspect. Is it also because in general women are better listeners than men?

The nature of the questions being asked also interested me – quite often the questioner was merely using this opportunity as a platform for them to put across their own views on a particular subject rather than to ask an open question. On one occasion this diatribe went on so long that it provoked members of what appeared to be a quite gentile audience to shout out “Question – what is your question!?”
This aspect of questioning to make a point or to lead the listener down a particular path to a specific conclusion reminded me of the care with which we need to ask our questions of the people that we coach and not to merely lead them to our conclusions!
Returning to the point about gender differences in my coaching experience I would say that the differences between each individual person and personality is much more marked than obvious differences between men and women. They all take it quite seriously, they seem to listen well and both men and women find it easy to talk about themselves once they get into the process. Some women lack a little confidence or exhibit some anxiety – but then so do some of the men. Some coachees enjoy the cathartic experience of getting some deep felt thoughts and feelings off their chests – but this is not a differentiator. Possibly some men are slightly less self-aware and perhaps some women are more prepared to put their new thinking into practice but overall I cannot see clear differences in response to coaching delineated between men and women.
In my next article we will consider the impact of the gender of the coach.