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Tuesday, 27 September 2022

The gender roles of leadership and mentoring + Copper prices are way down, even though there’s a supply pinch

Paternalistic leadership — done the right way — can offer great benefits to a business and its management: A paternalistic leadership approach associated mostly with leaders in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, offers a number of benefits that Western leaders need to take note of, the Financial Times writes. Unlike “transactional” and “transformational” models of leadership heralded by Western leaders, the paternalistic approach uses a combination of authoritarianism, benevolence and morality to make emotional connections with employees that reflects in more loyalty, productivity and motivation across the company’s staff. It also helps company leaders through high-profile disputes and conflicts, where they are able to use these qualities and their loyal following to mobilize positive publicity and use it in their favor.

And speaking of gendered leadership: Girl power is circumstantial when it comes to mentors: Women initially prefer women mentors — a preference that is likely to shift with more background information about the candidates, according to a UCLA and University of Chicago study cited by the Wall Street Journal. The research results show that female students are drawn to mentors who are also women when they don’t know much solid information, but if they know more about a mentor’s mannerisms, likelihood to give personalized advice, or awareness of future job opportunities, the preference no longer holds.

The findings show without sufficient data, women will opt for allies from their own gender: In the first phase of the study, women students were 20% more likely than their male counterparts to contact women mentors, regardless of preferred occupation. They were also 28% more likely to give up a mentor with their preferred occupation to pair up with a woman mentor. In the second phase, students received the same information about the 30 pairs of mentors with star ratings from past mentees including knowledge about job opportunities, affability and likelihood to give personalized advice. Given this additional information, neither female nor male students were willing to sacrifice a mentor with their preferred occupation regardless of gender.


Copper prices are down by nearly 30% since March on higher inflation, recession fears, and market volatility, triggering a larger copper-deficit outlook which could short-circuit the global energy transition, Bloomberg reports. The drop in prices is dampening new investment and could stoke a shortage in global supply of the metal, which is used in all things green including EVs and power grids. The deficit is expected to reach 10 mn tons, or 20% of demand, by 2035.

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