Feminine or Masculine? What Leadership Styles Say About the Future of Logistics

In this episode of Rozmowy Logistyków, Piotr Skobało talks with Beata Trochymiak, founder of the Women in Logistics Forum, about leadership styles in the industry. They discuss the role women leaders play in the European and global supply chain, and how that's changing under the influence of technology and artificial intelligence.

TWO STYLES: TRANSACTIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL

Beata Trochymiak, creator of the Women in Logistics Forum, identifies two dominant management styles in the industry: transactional — focused purely on a specific financial result, ruthless management by the numbers — and transformational — pursuing results through developing people and teams, not just numbers. The first more often characterizes masculine leadership, the second feminine, though the author stresses that leadership itself has no gender — rather, certain traits that statistically occur more often in one gender or the other shape the style.

DATA FROM THE PANDEMIC PERIOD

Research cited in the conversation shows that companies led by women with a transformational style clearly outperformed those managed in a purely transactional style, focused solely on profit, during the hardest period of the pandemic. This suggests that under high uncertainty, flexibility and investment in people pay off more than rigidly holding to the financial result at all costs.

18% OF TOP MANAGEMENT, BUT NEARLY HALF OF MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

In Polish logistics, women hold just under 18% of the highest management positions — a similar figure is observed globally. At the middle-management level, the proportion is already close to balanced (nearly 50/50), which shows that the problem lies more in breaking through the top tier than in access to a career at all.

AI AS AN AMPLIFIER OF SOFT SKILLS, NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR THEM

The author's own study of 100 female managers in the logistics industry found a surprisingly high adoption rate of generative AI tools — 96% of respondents use them daily (generating text, graphics, Excel tables). An even more surprising finding: over 30% of respondents said AI tools help them develop soft skills, including communication, and nearly 50% said AI makes it easier to understand modern technology in general. The key takeaway: no artificial intelligence, however good, makes someone a better leader on its own — it's human traits (communication, intuition, emotional intelligence) that remain the foundation of leadership, and they'll be what determines effectiveness as automation progresses.

HARD SKILLS CAN BE TAUGHT, SOFT SKILLS NOT ALWAYS

An etymological aside: the distinction between "hard" and "soft" skills reportedly comes from the US military of the 1960s-70s, where "hard" skills literally meant operating military equipment. The key practical difference: legal regulations or a system's user manual can be learned — but empathy, the ability to build compromise, or communication can't be absorbed from a textbook the same way, even though they're precisely what determines effectiveness in managing large areas of logistics.

THE FUTURE: FEWER TECHNICAL SKILLS, MORE LEARNING SKILLS

Looking 10-20 years ahead, it's hard to predict the specific technical competencies that will matter most — technology changes faster than people can keep up. Instead, the key skill becomes the ability to learn and adapt to tools that don't exist yet — while basic human leadership traits remain the foundation, regardless of how far automation goes.