Who Makes a Better Leader, a Woman or a Man?

According to the Pew Research Center Social & Demographic trends, the article  Men or Women:  Who’s the Better Leader? asserts that “Americans believe women have the right stuff to be political leaders. When it comes to honesty, intelligence and a handful of other character traits they value highly in leaders, the public rates women superior to men, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey.”   21% say men make better leaders over all, but 69% said that they made equally good leaders.  Yet those executives I coach, dominantly are men in the highest leadership levels.  It appears to me, as well as according to this research, that regardless the effort women have made to create a level playing field through high education, they still do not garner the ivory tower.  What do they site as the two main reasons for this gender discrimination?

1. A resistance to change
2. “old boys club”

The lesser reasons included:

1. Family responsibilities
2. Shortage of experience

I found it interesting, while being a part of a national search for the new CEO of a leading public works engineering project, that in my opinion, the only woman we interviewed had as much, or even considerably more qualifications for the position than other interviewees, and yet, the other four panelists, all men I might add, didn’t appear to even consider her in the running.  Was it her gender, or mine that swayed me, and them?  I’ll never know.  What experiences have you had with women up for promotion for upper ranks of political or business positions?  What is your feeling regarding women in high levels of politics or business?