Dr. Mary O’Malley, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who works with senior executive women, sees exchanges such as the one between Jill and Jim all the time. She notes that women often have difficulty defending the value of what they see in part because the traditional workplace is not necessarily structured to recognize subjective observation. Lacking support, women are likely to lose confidence in the value of what they have to offer and may internalize their inability to do so as a failure. Suppressing their best insights also makes women feel out of place and lowers the quality and authenticity of their exchanges. In the end, everybody loses.

But, in general, women’s observational style tends to be broad and wide-ranging, while men tend to focus more narrowly on what they perceive as relevant to the task at hand. Women are continually scanning their environment for information, whereas men are more apt to restrict their observations to what a specific set of actions requires. These complementary capabilities should be a source of strength and offer a perfect demonstration of the benefits that diversity can bring to organizations.

But because diversity is often viewed as a numbers game — “We will increase our percentage of women at director level by 30 percent over the next five years” — companies often end up missing the larger picture. Diversity does not result simply from creating a richer demographic mix. True diversity is the diversity of values.

This post was excerpted from The Female Vision, published by Berrett-Kohler Publishers, June 2010.

Sally Helgesen is the author of five books, including the classic best-seller, The Female Advantage, celebrating its 20th year in print, and The Web of Inclusion, described by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best books on leadership ever published. She is an international speaker and groundbreaking thinker on leadership and organizations.

Julie Johnson, a graduate of the Harvard Business School, is considered to be one of America’s most experienced and well respected coaches. She has coached hundreds of senior executives in blue chip companies and has worked with many of the most successful women in the Fortune 500. Her work has been published in the Harvard Business Review as well as in the noted book, Coaching for Leadership.