Dalai Lama: Women Better Leaders Because Of Potential For Compassion; Next Dalai Lama May Be Female

The Dalai Lama weighed in on the debate around women leadership and came out firmly on the side of the female.

Talking to reporters during a visit to Australia, the Buddhist leader was asked to weigh in on gender during a race for Prime Minister that has included charges of sexism.

Speaking generally, the Dalai Lama suggested that the crisis of suffering and inequality in the world requires a compassionate approach to leadership:

"In that respect, biologically, females have more potential... Females have more sensitivity about others' wellbeing. In my own case, my father, very short temper. On a few occasions I also got some beatings. But my mother was so wonderfully compassionate."

The exiled Tibeten Buddhist leader then applied the same logic to his eventual successor; reaffirming that a female Dalai Lama is possible.

"If the circumstances are such that a female Dalai Lama is more useful, then automatically a female Dalai Lama will come."