Designing Work for the Reality of Humans

Our differences are strengths, fair systems and work design makes us better together.

As a founder, a coach, and a woman who has led in high-pressure environments, I care deeply about the quality of our public conversations especially when they shape how we work. The New York Times’ headline last week “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” achieved virality, then backpedalled through multiple edits after swift backlash. It was a provocation, not a proof. When a platform with outsized cultural influence frames half of humanity as the problem, we owe ourselves a steadier lens: evidence over outrage, design over dogma.

1. Men and women are not the same and that fact should make work smarter, not harsher.

Biology isn’t an opinion. The U.S. National Institute of Health requires scientists to consider sex as a biological variable because male/female differences can influence everything from drug response to stress physiology and disease risk. That is policy, precisely to improve rigor and outcomes. In other words: difference is a design input. (grants.nih.gov)

Neuroscience adds nuance: sex-linked differences are reproducible; where others shrink or disappear once you control for overall brain size or context. The take-home is mature and human: yes, differences exist; no, they don’t justify crude essentialism or blanket judgments about capability. (ScienceDirect)

2. Leadership patterns differ at the margins and the workforce itself is evolving.

Across decades of research, women are, on average, rated slightly higher on transformational leadership (vision, coaching, ethical modelling), while men score higher on transactional/monitoring behaviours. Effect sizes are typically small and context dependent. Healthy organizations don’t caricature this, they build a portfolio of styles and match them to the work. (ScienceDirect)

At the same time, younger cohorts are changing the brief. Deloitte’s 2025 global survey of 23,000+ Gen Z and millennial workers find a durable preference for learning, wellbeing, purpose, and flexible work models. That is not “ruin”; it is a predictable redesign of how value is created and kept. Good leaders respond with clarity, not contempt. (Deloitte)

3. Reality check: structural gaps still cost people and productivity.

Zoom out from opinion to the ledgers. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 index estimates the world is 68.8% of the way to parity, with centuries not years until full closure at current pace. UN Women’s 2024 Gender Snapshot shows no SDG 5 indicator fully achieved. The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2024 ties legal and practical barriers to a 20%+ drag on global GDP. This is macroeconomics, not ideology. (weforum.org)

If anything undermines competitiveness, it is the waste of talent when systems are designed around a single default worker and ignore predictable realities (caregiving, safety, health). Headlines that blame women distract from the management problem in front of us: misaligned work design. (Reuters)

4. Mindsets and cultures are adjustable; people and systems can change.

Adult neuroplasticity means learning, habits, and environment reshape the brain over time, which is why well-designed coaching (clear goals, feedback, reflection) improves skills, wellbeing, and goal attainment. Repeated experience, what we learn, how we practice, the feedback we receive literally rewires pathways over time. The research on growth mindset adds a sober nuance: belief in developability helps, but effects are modest unless the context supports it. Slogans don’t move the needle; design does. The environment must make the desired behaviour the easiest behaviour. (mdpi.com)

Robert Greene, in The Laws of Human Nature, calls us to “elevate perspective” and change circumstances by changing attitude, a timeless reminder to trade reactive certainty for reflective agency. Leaders set the tone: what we model, we multiply. (Reference: Greene, 2018.)

When Greene urges us to “elevate perspective,” he’s asking leaders to lengthen the time horizon, widen the lens, and decentre the ego. In practice, which looks like pausing before judgment, testing multiple explanations for the same behaviour, and asking “what system design would make the right thing the easy thing?” His companion idea, change circumstances by changing attitude doesn’t mean positive spin; it means adopting the stance most likely to improve reality: curiosity over certainty, accountability over blame, and design over dogma. In modern workplaces, this translates to concrete habits:

• In meetings: start with intent (“what are we solving?”), surface assumptions, and end with clear owners/next steps, modelling calm, clarity, and respect under pressure.

• In performance and talent reviews: evaluate behaviours in context, separate facts from stories, and reward learning velocity, not just outcomes.

• In conflict: shift from “who’s at fault?” to “what feedback, resources, or guardrails would prevent this next time?”

• In change communication: narrate the why, name the trade-offs, invite questions, and show you’re listening then adjust the plan visibly.

Leaders set the emotional and ethical ceiling of the team. If we model reflective agency with steady attention, fair process, evidence-based decisions, people will copy it. What we model, we multiply.

5. Fairness is not “soft” it’s a performance variable.

Decades of organizational-justice research link perceived fairness (distributive, procedural, interpersonal) to higher job satisfaction, commitment, citizenship behaviour and, and research suggests better performance with lower turnover intentions and counterproductive behaviour.

When people experience fairness how decisions are made (procedural justice), what outcomes they receive (distributive justice), and how they’re treated in the process (interactional justice), they reciprocate with the very behaviours that scale results: higher effort, stronger commitment, more constructive citizenship, and fewer counterproductive acts.

Fairness scales results because people do, is not a slogan; it’s one of the most replicated findings in organizational science. Two landmark meta-analyses synthesizing 180+ studies show justice beliefs correlate robustly with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, citizenship behaviours, and (to a smaller but meaningful degree) task performance while unfairness predicts withdrawal and counterproductive behaviour.

Later work clarifies the mechanism: fairness builds positive affect and social exchange (“I’m valued here”), which, in turn, drives performance-relevant behaviours.

In plain terms: design for fairness → people lean in → teams perform. (SpringerLink)

What this means for leaders and for Evolved Ethos

• Design with difference in mind. Treat sex differences and life-stage realities as practical inputs to scheduling, safety, benefits, and leadership pipelines not as excuses to exclude. (grants.nih.gov)

• Use a portfolio of leadership styles. Stop asking which gender is “better.” Ask which behaviours your context requires, then coach and reward accordingly. (ScienceDirect)

• Align to generational reality. Flexibility and wellbeing aren’t moral debates; they’re retention strategies. Measure what they enable: focus, learning velocity, customer outcomes. (Deloitte)

• Invest in mindset and capability, not slogans. Build coaching and learning that are evidence-based and embedded in real work. Model elevated perspective when headlines try to drag you into the mud. (Emerald)

• Operationalize fairness. Make rules clear, processes transparent, and dignity non-negotiable. Expect better behaviour because you’ve built a system that enables it. (SpringerLink)

The Human Advantage Starts Here

“Did women ruin the workplace?” isn’t analysis; it’s bait. The evidence points to something far more useful: men and women are different and that diversity is an advantage when we design for it. At Evolved Ethos, we champion a pro-human approach: fair systems, psychologically safe spaces, and authentic leadership grounded in clarity, confidence, and wellbeing. When leaders model integrity and organisations operationalise fairness, trust and performance rise together. Our differences aren’t the problem; careless work design is. Let’s build workplaces where people can do the best work of their lives, where we are better, together.

Thank you,

Chantal Blais

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