Coffee Talk

Leadership

I was sitting at the breakfast table the other day, reading the latest issue of Harper's Magazine.

"Here is an interesting statistic," I told my wife.

"Unh-huh." She replied. She was reading one of her magazines and letting her tea cool. She loves it when I interrupt her reading to share something.

"57% of Americans think that men and women have different leadership styles." I read it right from the page.

"Well, Duh. What do the other 43% think? Did they even ask them? Please pass the toast."

I read further. "It doesn't say. It does say that 22% think that women generally have the better approach." I took a sip of coffee.

My wife said "They probably just didn't ask the other 43%."

"Well, that's not the way a survey works. They have a bunch of questions written out. They don't just take the answer they are looking for and stop the survey."

"How do you know?"

I decided to move on and went back to reading the magazine.

When I turned the page, I realized the room had gotten silent. I looked up to see my wife looking at me; her magazine down on the table.

"What?" I asked.

"You are just going to leave it like that? What else did the article say? What conclusions did they draw? If 20% thought women were better leaders, what about the 80% that thought men had the better approach?"

I flipped back to page nine. "It isn't that kind of article. It is just listing facts and statistics. It lets you draw your own conclusions."

"Well, my conclusion is that it stinks. We don't know how the survey was run, who they asked, why they were asking, or how they used the data. Why did they even put it in the magazine?"

"It is a regular feature. Here. Look." I passed her the magazine.

"Well, you didn't tell me this." She was waving the folded magazine at me. "It also says here only 15% thought that men have the better leadership style. You led me to believe that the 22% in favor of women were the minority when, in fact, this proves that women lead better." She dropped my Harper's back down on the table and went back to her own magazine.

I was about to protest that it didn't prove anything, that it was just an opinion. Then I thought about the last statistic she read. If 22% voted for women and 15% voted for men, that left 63% that told the interviewers "Uh, nope. I ain't gonna answer that question. Are you crazy?"

I decided to follow their example. I shut up.