Is a female manager the best way to ensure wellbeing?

Female managers can add to the wellbeing of your office compared to their male counterparts, which leads to a rise in creativity and productivity.

This is according to a study conducted by Robertson Cooper a group of business psychologists and wellbeing specialists who found that female managers outperform male managers in several different metrics, wellbeing in particular.

Prof. Sir Cary Cooper CBE, the founding director of Robertson Cooper explained that the whitepaper showed that female managers are more suited to embedding health and wellbeing inside businesses. The analysis found that “women have more of the personality facets known to be responsible for creating improved wellbeing at work and, as managers, are better equipped to deliver the positive work experience for employees that are proven to drive creativity and productivity in the workplace.”

The research also found that women aged 55-64 seem to show wellbeing qualities better than other aged women.

Prof. Ivan Robertson, the other founding director of Robertson Cooper said:

The secret to these findings lies within the personality trait of Conscientiousness,” explains Prof. Robertson. “Managers with this trait tend to display a strong sense of duty and a realistic sense of their own competence plus a desire for personal achievement. The research shows that this personality make-up helps employees enjoy a better work-life balance.

This new piece of research at Robertson Cooper shows that women, particularly older women in the 55 to 64 age range, are most likely to show this kind of personality, while younger men aged 25 to 29 are least likely to.

So the headline is true: for their teams, female bosses, especially older female bosses, really are likely to create more good days at work than their male colleagues – and now we know why.

Robertson Cooper analysed 210,934 individual responses within one of the single biggest personality research datasets in the UK to obtain these results.

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Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.