Women Really Could Be Running the World If Hillary Clinton Becomes President

If Hillary Clinton, now officially the Democratic candidate, wins the election in November, she’ll make history, and not just as America’s first female president. It would mean that for the first time ever, three of the world’s most powerful democracies would be led by women: the US, the UK, and Germany.

What might that mean? Management experts studying leadership saywomen are more collaborative, more inclusive leaders. They build teams; in Clinton’s words, they understand it “takes a village” to run a country, and the world. They do not believe, as Donald Trump does (and not just him: many men do), that they “alone can fix it.”

The US, UK, and Germany all face the big challenges of the rich world today: immigration, terrorism at home and abroad, and a revolt against the one percent. It’s easy to imagine Clinton sitting down with Britain’s Theresa May and Germany’s Angela Merkel to hash out solutions to shared problems.

It’s also easy to see this troika of women developing a cohesive approach towards Russia, Iran, China, Syria, and other countries whose interests often run counter to those of the West. A Trump in that mix? He and his associates look uncomfortably cozy with Russia, and a Trump-Putin axis would be a lot more dangerous for the world than a Clinton-Merkel-May one.

Gender should not be the deciding factor in electing someone to the world’s most powerful office. But the female leadership style Clinton espouses seems more attuned to the needs of the world now. One thing’s for sure: She’s unlikely to brag about the size of her hands, or anything else.