In February, for the first time in recorded history, women surpassed men in the nation's labor market. Though the numbers have been creeping up for a while, women now comprise the majority of the nation's workforce.
But before I could even raise a glass of champagne, I was faced with the cold reality that maybe it was too soon to celebrate. A recent discussion about leadership and gender with my MBA students made me realize that we haven't thought through the consequences of this new shift in workplace gender ratio.
Last month I asked my "Leadership Out of the Box" class -- the women, the men -- how many would prefer a male manager. Ninety percent of the women raised their hands, and a few of the guys. When I flipped the switch and asked how many would prefer a female manager, a number of men raised their hands, but only one or two women. At that moment I felt like somebody had thrown that celebratory champagne right back in my face.
My students aren't alone. Some studies have also shown that when women think "manager," they're really thinking "MAN-ager." Last year in a survey of 2,000 British women in full or part-time employment, 63 percent said they'd prefer a male over a female boss. According to the research, reported in London's Daily Mail and other media outlets, most felt men were stronger decision makers and better at "steering the ship."
What else might explain why a woman wouldn't want another woman as her boss? It doesn't take Sigmund Freud to figure out that some women go into the workplace looking for a father, especially those who didn't grow up with a strong father figure or male role model. They're looking for more than a mentor at work; they want a daddy, and not a mommy.
In my book, I spell out how this daddy hunger can hamper a woman's workplace success. I've seen women grow too dependent on their male mangers or spend too much time trying to take care of them and protect them, or the male supervisor becomes the ultimate authority, causing them to squelch their own desires and lose their voices. Because women like these can't connect the dots and recognize the psychological roots of how they're relating to their male managers, they can't change the behavior.
Some women think male managers are better at developing the employees that work for them than women. As the thinking goes, women managers, faced with the glass ceiling, have to put all their energy into themselves so they don't have time to build and grow new talent. This taps into some common stereotypes about women in the workplace.
Women, especially white women, are sometimes stereotyped as super competitive, looking out only for number one. Women like these are seen as bright and ambitious but not chummy. Think Queen Bee or even Annie Oakley, a loner battling the frontier with her finger on the trigger. This stereotype is also corporate code for "not a team player," "can't be trusted," "won't watch your back, but will probably stab it."
Black women, up against the twin devils of sexism and racism, are often labeled as "angry." Those who are serious and don't smile all the time end up characterized as Angry Black Women, a stereotype Michelle Obama struggled with early during her husband's campaign. Being branded as an "ABW" is code for "doesn't work well with others," "not a team player," "not a good leader."
Asian women can get caught in the stereotype of passivity, the notion that they don't speak up. Being thoughtful and reflective can look like "low emotional intelligence," "poor communicators," "not leadership material."
One student who preferred a male manager explained that she hadn't been developed by any of the female mentors and managers she'd had over the years for a different reason: Each one had gotten pregnant and left. She said she wanted someone there with her, to develop her in the day-to-do and the long run, not a here-today gone-tomorrow manager.
Point taken. If a female manager gets pregnant, she has to go on maternity leave. She can't power through labor, delivery, recovery, breastfeeding and the start of her baby's life, and then run back to the office in a few days or even weeks -- unlike her male counterpart who can be a new dad without the physical demands of childbearing. But another thought went through my head as I looked at this student: What's going to happen when you want to get pregnant?
Another student put it more bluntly: She said women not only don't take the time to develop other women, they're also not nice. Women, she said, tend to be critical and don't have empathy or compassion. They're the mean girls from middle school all grown up.
One of my male students finally raised his hand and strongly disagreed. He told of a woman manager who took the time to get to know him, supported him and understood and honored his strengths. Several men in the class nodded. The women looked at him with disbelief.
Of course my sample of students is small and, at the end of the day, people are just people, flaws and all, regardless of gender. But this isn't just a fluke. The point remains: As the workplace becomes more feminized and more women rise up the leadership ranks, what's going to happen when the secret is out that many women don't like female bosses? Or, that we don't always play nicely in the sandbox, I mean in the workbox with each other.
How do we help women move past their own stereotypes, conflicts and assumptions about their sisters who are in management positions where they work? And how do we make sure that women aren't so run down by their "second shifts" of family responsibilities or so run over by sexism, that they don't have the time or energy to develop other women?
I doubt that the majority of women in leadership roles today are self-involved Cruella de Vils with daddy issues. Too many women managers are trying too hard to create a level playing field for all women to let the sisterhood die.
Still, as a new generation of women continues to rise in companies across the country and all over the globe we must build relationships with each other across management lines. Wouldn't it be a shame if all the myths about women in the workplace played themselves out? Instead, I hope we can all play nicely and effectively in the company sandbox.
Otherwise I have had a much better experience with male bosses. The ones I've had have had the ability to communicate more cleanly - express clearly and then let it go; they don't take things personally and they don't hold grudges.
In my last corporate position I watched the men in the office (a manager and his subordinate) get into these intense confrontations, thrash is out, be done with it and then go to lunch together. I have never seen women able to do that.
* Women managers are usually a nightmare to their employees. Who on God's earth would want a female manager ?
1. Women are drama. Emotion influences their decision making. This issue alone has overwhelmingly negative impacts on business and people.
2. Women personalilze everything. It's just business and in alot of cases its not your money its someone elses but they act like its theirs. To spend as they please.
3. Women are petty.
4. Women love to micro-manage.
5. Women subject co-workers and subordinates to their personal emotional distress. If Suzy manager doesnt get laid or her husband doesnt make her happy she stomps into the office and emotionally brutalizes anyone in her path and uses her position as manager to justify it.
6. Women dont think two seconds about firing people or the impact on their families. Men know the value of work and often give the employee a second chance.
I could go on and on but I wont.
For men its just about business. Baseball is personal. Being asked to dinner is personal. Promotions, opportunities etc.. is just business.
My worst experiences have all been with female managers. With one exception. My newest Mgr is female and she's prob the best manager I've ever had.
Women on the other hand are highly charged electrons who think they have more power than the nucleus. Like over zealous hall monitors. It's as if nobody listens to them at home so they take out their inefficiencies on their subordinates.
The only thing worse than a female manager is her demotion or transition to a subordinate role. She still thinks she should be the VP and acts as though she is. Its like watching Sunset Strip every single day. Norma Desmond..........we're ready for your close up now.
The females boss was a nightmare. She was wealthy and brilliant but controlling. She dumped every problem she had personally and business wise at my feet to take care of. I did amazing things for her and for her family as well. I even flew to another city to watch her grandchild for her daughter once for a week and she never paid me for the 24/7 hours. When I left, she wouldn't write a recommendation letter that I requested because she said she, "would rather perspective employers call her" but she got alzheimer's and had no memory of who I was.
I lost all of those years being a valuable and instrumental person in her life. She was controlling to the end and since it was my most recent job, I have nothing to show for it now.
Good research on this article although I must comment on the male that stated his female manager was patience with him, she was might we say a bit sweet possibly on the lad. The fact that women are really focus on their careers and this is true. The real blame or concern for a better choice of words would be when the earlier entrepreneurs decided to leave the office, hit the golf course making a decision who would fit better running, controling his busines with the less possibility of threat and a take over of his empire, result the women who when paid enough will accept the challenge , staying more committed and dedicated. Whereby the man with big egos will intentionally employ himself inside another man's administration to gain perpective knowledge of certain elements within a structure only to attempt branching off toward his own ideas.
Don't get me wrong when I say all men are good managers or directors, they are not......but I
found that women with authority and power seemed to abuse it and be a hard-@ss as if
someone was going to take it away.
I had a woman director who did not have any kids, no husband and clearly her job was her life. She
had no idea how it was for a working woman to arrange babysitting, take time off for sick kids, have
a home and family to care for.........she clearly was only there to further her business career.......she didn't have a clue how to run a PC and absolutely no technical skill, but seemed to have gotten her job through the quota system of putting women in a high position......sad life and I couldn't wait to get out of her office..........with time maybe women will get it........thankfully I'm out of the work force and I don't
have to deal with it..........
I work as an executive assistant, so I have a direct relationship with these managers/directors, so I know and see how they treat their subordinates - not pretty.
A big problem I see from both sides of the fence, as manager and as being managed, as a sweeping generalized statement, it seems to me that women tend to personalize everything too strongly which tends to make them seem emotional and unable to be strong and decisive.
With men you can have a knock down drag out argument over business and then after the meeting you can go to lunch or out for a drink together and there are no hard feelings on either side.
Women on the other hand seem to tend to view any disagreement as a direct attack on their personal character. And they will carry a grudge to the grave but will never really let you know what it is that you've done that they see as a great personal injustice.
In defense of women on the other hand, some or maybe even most successful women have HAD to be competitive and to look out for number one to get even a small measure of recognition for their achievements or the opportunities that are routinely offered to less qualified men.
You know the old adage, Men are assertive, women are bitches.
I think things are changing for the better but you can't expect to overcome most of history in just a few short years of our lifetime.
Here's to our granddaughter's futures!
Some of the best supervisors I had in the 30+ years of work were women who understood the situation and used their communication skills to improve the whole area. The worst were male or female egocentric sociopaths who saw employees as people they could run over on their way to the top of money mountain.