Caesar or Boudicca? Antony or Cleopatra? Churchill or Thatcher? Obama or Clinton (Hillary, that is)? The old argument over which of the genders—male or female—makes better leaders seems finally to have found an answer.

A recent survey of more than 300 global business leaders* indicates that both men and women think that women make better leaders. And perhaps even more surprising to the die-hards of the boardroom, it turns out that women with children make the very best leaders. In fact, the more children a woman has, the better leader she is.

It all comes down to those “female” behaviors that were once maligned as a woman’s Achilles’ heel in the workplace—behaviors like consensus building, teamwork, clear communication, and empowerment that you probably learned from your own mother.

Parenting is now viewed as a breeding ground for skills that are transferable to the workplace. And where men’s leadership ability is seen to diminish with age, women, especially older women—those who have more experience with life, family and work—make the best leaders.

Here’s an example: When asked how they would create a strong team, one survey respondent said, “Build an inclusive environment where each [person] has a role and responsibilities that contribute to the final outcome, make everyone heard and communicate well.” The similarities between managing a family “team” at home and doing so at work are obvious.

This research shows that, rather than worrying that taking time off from their careers to have children is going to hurt them, women—and their employers—should look at what skills they will gain by doing so, and how those skills might be harnessed when they return to the workplace.

Does all this mean that women now have an advantage in the workplace? Sadly, statistics still suggest otherwise, but the research does demonstrate that leaders and their businesses would do well to take notice. Behaviors like “divide and conquer” and “damn the consequences so long as targets are met and profits are made” are at least partly responsible for the political and financial turmoil of the last decade. Those “Old Boy’s Club” behaviors are not going to work anymore.

According to the research, the worst leadership qualities include being ego-driven, divisive, greedy, untrustworthy, weak, bigoted, irresponsible, arrogant and corrupt. And the leaders who best embody these qualities: Gordon Brown, George Bush, Tony Blair, David Cameron, and Silvio Berlusconi. This list goes on and it is all male and mostly all white.

Survey respondents were clear about what is going wrong among our leaders today. Some of their judgments were driven by current events, but the ranking demonstrates an increasing refusal to accept leaders with a lack of character, or those who abuse power for selfish ends.

Bad leadership begets bad systems and poor-performing companies. Therefore, better leadership is no longer just a nice idea, it is a necessary step toward socioeconomic and political progress in the world. We need leaders who are more transformational as opposed to transactional. The business and political worlds can no longer sustain leaders who are acting solely for their own gains.

Leaders need to be empathetic and understanding. It would be unthinkable to be a mother who didn’t consider the consequences of her actions; it should be equally so for a world leader or business leader whose decisions directly affect so many.

It’s important now that leaders have a clear view of the future. They need to be more interested in getting things right, being more reflective and behaving in a less “just do it” way. They need to demonstrate a degree of balance—a gentler route of continuous improvement rather than radical change. All leaders need to employ these more traditionally female behaviors, regardless of their gender.

Respondents said that the leaders they admired most were those who are thought to have integrity and courage as well as being human and real. Survey respondents named them because they stood for something and weren’t afraid to bring about change. For example, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama all made the list of the Top 12 Most Admired Leaders in the survey. Both ethnic minorities and women figured prominently on the list—another rejection of the Old Boy’s Club.

Now that leadership is no longer synonymous with being male, it would appear that the time is right for women to take their place in the leadership echelon of every organization. As one survey respondent put it: “Dare to put your head above the parapet.”

Individual leadership styles have never been more valued. And those styles that are more feminine in their approach and guided by the knowledge of what it takes to be a parent—ego-less, thinking of the whole instead of individual gain, long-term sustainability and the future of the organization and the world—will become more and more highly sought after.

Businesses that want to maintain and increase their success should seek to inject their workforce with as much diversity—be it gender, age, ethnicity—as they possibly can, as soon as they can. Stop letting talent, particularly female talent, leek out the front door. Start attracting, retaining and advancing diverse talent. The success of most businesses will depend on the injection of diverse skills, and customers will demand more and more diversity. Organizations that do this will ensure that they have a pool of potential leaders to draw upon in the future.

As the number of women in the global workforce continues to grow and even outpace the number of men, now is the time for women to step forward. Draw upon the leadership skills that you possess innately, those you have gained from parenting and those you constantly hone at work. Let your leadership ability shine.

* The research cited in this article, now in its seventh year, was conducted by Aspire and Customer Interpreter Ltd. For more information or to download the full report on the survey, Tearing Up the Rule Book: A New Generation of Leaders for 2010, visit: www.aspirecompanies.com

About the Author

Dr. Samantha Collins is a women’s leadership expert, executive coach, international speaker and author. She is the founder and CEO of ASPIRE, an award-winning executive coaching and leadership development company that specializes in working with executive-level women. She was named one of the top 10 coaches in the UK by the Independent on Sunday and one of the top 200 women in the UK to impact business and industry by HM The Queen. She is also the founder of The Aspire Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making a difference for women suffering from injustice in the the Middle East, Africa and Asia.