Men and women are different. In the view of anatomy, behavior, and attitude. Therefore, 2 characteristics have a huge impact on us and what defines us. Warmth and Strength. While women are seen to be warmer than men, and men are seen as stronger than women, those characteristics have an important influence on our role in society. It will become troublesome when it comes to a career.
In the next couple of posts, I will provide an answer to ‘Why are there fewer female leaders than male leaders?’, ‘Why are men not allowed to cry?’ and more. Furthermore, I will show you practical tips on how to deal with various work situations. But first, we need to understand the true meaning of strength and warmth.
The true meaning of strength
Strength gets things done. It is the measure of how much you can impose your will on the world. We are very aware of people with strength because of the possibility that they can help us or harm us. Either way, we respect people with a lot of strength.
People who seem weaker are not paid a lot of attention unless we need something from them. Weaker people are insecure to take action and have a weaker impact on the world than people with a lot of strength.
Furthermore, leadership and strength are inevitably bound together. No one will follow a leader who cannot decide or has no will to take action. Are they going to protect our group from outer threats?
Strength consists of two basic elements: the ability to affect the world and the guts to take action.
Ability
Ability includes everything that gives you the power to affect the world. Besides physical strength, learned technical skills, incredible social skills, and hard-won wisdom are considered abilities. Many scientists refer to it as ‘competence’.
In our earliest years as humans, we control others with brute force. The stronger you are, the more food and potential partner you get. It is shifting now to other fields other than brute strength. If you are reliable e.g. in your career, as a person you are strong which consequently brings respect for you. It is no longer about what you get through the force instead about your social skills, learned skills, and so on.
Will
While competence gives you the ability to change your world, it is useless without a proper will to execute things. In addition, they will work in a combination of desire and skills. Moreover, the will can be trained like a muscle. Many know the synonyms for the will, like motivation, determination, ambition, grit, and perseverance.
The will is determined by two things: deciding how bad you want it and the power of focus. People who reach their long-term goals instead of quitting are bringing their personality, values, and character into their goals.
When I started working out my goals were to be shaped and sexy. But, solely with this motivation in mind, I lost my focus and will to go to the gym. Two years ago, I reset my ambition and the reason to work out. Instead of focusing on having a shaped body, I learned to love the exhaust after every workout. Also, working out let me forget my problems and obstacles in life. And as a plus, I could feel every nice fiber of muscles. Summarized, if you want to reach something, refocus and find the enjoyment you will have by doing that. So, you will stick to it longer.
Biology of Strength
Assertiveness and dominance are tied directly to the hormone testosterone. While testosterone is present in females and males, though in higher levels in men. The higher concentration of testosterone corresponds with behaviors associated with dominance and risk-taking. That is the reason for the stereotype that men are stronger, more risk-taking, and have a stronger will. This comes to one basic rule, the higher the concentration of testosterone the higher the strength, simple.
We can learn to project strength and unleash reactions of respect and even fear from the people around us. But strength alone can only take us far. To move beyond respect to admiration, we also need to be liked. And to do that, we need to project warmth.
The true meaning of warmth
Warmth is the universal term for love, affection, and the feeling that people care for us. For our purposes, warmth is what people feel when they recognize they share the same interests and concerns. It is the sense of being on the same team. If strength is about carrying out your intention, warmth is about being happy about the result. When people project warmth, we like them.
Warmth consists of three components: empathy, familiarity, and love.
Empathy
I think if couples have a strong sense of empathy there will be no fights, logically without any amount of fights. Empathy is about being in the other pair of shoes. Trying to understand how they feel will bring us more clarity, and can be used to pay more attention to what we do to the other one. It also helps us understand their behavior and choices in life. Empathy offers us the incredible feeling that we are not alone. This is why deep talk is so popular. Having someone besides you who understands how you feel and why you act in a particular way, makes us human.
Many people hate being misunderstood. Either, it is judged harshly by why you act while you are emotional or the motive is interpreted to be the worst. The older I get the more I understand how important it is to have people who understand you. And these people are treasures you have to keep.
Familiarity
People like people with the same mindset. Fans of the same football club are liking each other. Kids who resemble their dad or mom are favored by them. I resemble physically my dad, but the mindset is almost exact to my mother’s. Maybe that is the reason why I am her favorite boy. We like people who are like us.
Love
There are three kinds of feelings similar to love: one for romantic love, one for sexual attraction, and a third for general feelings of attachment. We will concentrate on the third one, basic affection, and attachment.
Biology of Warmth
The main hormones for warmth are estrogen and oxytocin. For a long time, those hormones are considered female hormones, but those hormones are presented in both women and men. Warmth is all about sharing feelings, good or bad, sad or happy.
Summary – The true meaning of strength and warmth
Overall, you should know that strength and its components are linked to testosterone. And warmth and its components are linked to estrogen and oxytocin. The higher the concentration the higher the performance of each characteristic of it. Instead, it is not linked to gender at all. For example, I can show even strength and warmth. Sometimes together sometimes separately. That the true meaning of Strength and Warmth are fighting constantly for the upper hand is biologically linked to our bloodstream. In the next post, I will discuss their relationship with each other and how you can learn to show strength or warmth in the right situation.