In the area of trading, it is now an academically demonstrated fact that women tend to be a little bit more risk-adverse. They don't move positions as quickly and as erratically as men. Maybe it is a bit less profitably, but I think it would have been less risky.

Christine Lagarde

Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.

Christine Lagarde

change inspirational funny

To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It’s about stimulating them. It’s about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.

Christine Lagarde

enabling purpose people

Think about it. Women control 70 percent of global consumer spending . . . when women do better, economies do better.

Christine Lagarde

spending economy thinking

If Lehman Brothers had been a bit more Lehman Sisters ... we would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened.

Christine Lagarde

degrees tragedy brother

You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.

Christine Lagarde

ego people thinking

We cannot just look at a country by looking at charts, graphs, and modelling the economy. Behind the numbers there are people.

Christine Lagarde

numbers country people

I have a theory that women are generally given space and appointed to jobs when the situation is tough. I've observed that in many instances. In times of crisis, women eventually are called upon to sort out the mess, face the difficult issues and be completely focused on restoring the situation.

Christine Lagarde

issues space jobs

I learned that you can constantly improve, and that you should not be shy about your views, and about the direction that you believe is right.

Christine Lagarde

shy views believe

Women, as the minority, have to prove their worth all the time. That's the reason we tend to over-prepare, over-study, over-anticipate. I think it's the case with many women leaders. We tend to over do it.

Christine Lagarde

minorities leader thinking

Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.

Christine Lagarde

brother country fall

Social unrest and protectionism are the two major risks of the world economic crisis.

Christine Lagarde

social-unrest risk two

I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.

Christine Lagarde

teaching kids school

The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself.

Christine Lagarde

service-industry financial should

If you have an overwhelming majority of one sex over the other, and clearly in our case at the moment - and it has been like this for a long time - it is male over female, you tend to have group thinking. You tend to have common references, combined with competition, combined in this case with testosterone. I'm not suggesting it's a toxic mix, but I'm saying it needs to be tempered and altered and modified and made better by diversity.

Christine Lagarde

diversity sex thinking

We Need a RESET IN THE WAY THE ECONOMY GROWS Around the World

Christine Lagarde

way world needs

I hate to say there are female and male ways of dealing with power, because I think each of us has a male and a female part. But based on my own experience, women will tend to be inclusive, to reach out more, to care a little more.

Christine Lagarde

males hate thinking

I think I have a male side about me and you have a female side about you. It's a question of repressing or not.

Christine Lagarde

males female thinking

It's a question of not so much pushing the boys out of the picture, but making the whole frame bigger so that both men and women access the labor market, contribute to the economy, generate growth, have jobs, and so on.

Christine Lagarde

jobs men boys

It's become my brand in a way you know, speaking the truth even though it was not politically correct.

Christine Lagarde

politically-correct speak-the-truth way

I look under the skin of countries' economies, and I help them make better decisions and be stronger, to prosper and create employment.

Christine Lagarde

skins decision country